Seems like the explanation is rather simple: the animator (Wolfgang Reitherman) enjoyed reusing animations from old Disney movies and was known for it.
"Familiarity was a function of chart performance but likeability was not. Hence repetition increases familiarity but has little effect on likeability."
So, is it then possible that when he "copied" a classic animation and reused it in a new one that it possibly served as a function of how well the new animation performed? Remember, although in the study I found, familiarity had to do with the exact same song and performance, the copy of the animations very well are picked up subconsciously to the repeat Disney consumers and very well could have influenced its theatrical (ticket sales, home video sales) performance.
Yes, and if you read the book "DisneyWar" highlighting the Eisner era you'll learn that the Jungle Book was made during a dark period after Walt's death when the studio was at its creative Nadir. People were hardly working, they lacked direction, etc.
While this study is directly related http://pom.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/15/2/187 to what I am trying to find, it does offer enough insight to draw a new hypothesis to test.
"Familiarity was a function of chart performance but likeability was not. Hence repetition increases familiarity but has little effect on likeability."
So, is it then possible that when he "copied" a classic animation and reused it in a new one that it possibly served as a function of how well the new animation performed? Remember, although in the study I found, familiarity had to do with the exact same song and performance, the copy of the animations very well are picked up subconsciously to the repeat Disney consumers and very well could have influenced its theatrical (ticket sales, home video sales) performance.