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Familiarity increases subjective positive affect even in non-affective and non-evaluative contexts

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Abstract

Previous research shows that the experience of familiarity involves the experience of positive affect. In two experiments we clarify and extend this research by showing that the experience of familiarity involves the experience of positive affect even when the nature of the experimental task is non-affective and non-evaluative and even when participants are actively performing other cognitive operations—that the association of familiarity and positive affect is not disrupted by (non-affective and non-evaluative) judgments regardless of whether familiarity does or does not play a role in those judgments. Experiment 1 used a non-affective but evaluative task and Experiment 2 a completely non-evaluative task. Both studies manipulated familiarity through re-exposure and showed that processing familiar stimuli induced a pleasurable subjective experience.

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Acknowledgments

Preparation of this manuscript was supported by a Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Grant PTDC/PSI-PCO/121916/2010 to Teresa Garcia-Marques.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. William James Centre for Research, ISPA-Instituto Universitário, Rua Jardim do Tabaco, 34, 1149-041, Lisbon, Portugal

    Teresa Garcia-Marques

  2. Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), CIS-IUL, Lisbon, Portugal

    Marília Prada

  3. University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Diane M. Mackie

Authors
  1. Teresa Garcia-Marques
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  2. Marília Prada
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  3. Diane M. Mackie
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Correspondence to Teresa Garcia-Marques.

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Garcia-Marques, T., Prada, M. & Mackie, D.M. Familiarity increases subjective positive affect even in non-affective and non-evaluative contexts. Motiv Emot 40, 638–645 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-016-9555-9

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