The Rhyme-as-Reason Effect

Aphorisms are pithy, memorable sayings or observations that we generally accept as truthful or wise. Examples: "An apple a day keeps the doctor away;" "Pride goeth before a fall;" "If you want a thing done well, do it yourself." Although we generally accept aphorisms as universally true, few of them are. For instance, there's no evidence that daily apple consumption ensures perfect health; indeed, there's abundant evidence to the contrary. Why then do we place so much faith in these pithy sayings?

An investigation of the matter was reported in 2000 by Matthew S. McGlone and Jessica Tofighbakhsh [McGlone 2000], who found that aphorisms that rhyme were judged to be more accurate than their modified, nonrhyming versions. As McGlone and Tofighbakhsh put it, "the traditional analytic distinction between a statement's 'rhyme and reason' (i.e., form and content) is not always appreciated by readers; in some circumstances, rhyme may be treated as reason." They called the phenomenon the "'rhyme as reason' effect. It has since been widely referred to as the rhyme-as-reason effect. McGlone and Tofighbakhsh attribute this effect to what they call the Keats Heuristic [McGlone 1999], by which we humans conflate the validity of a phrase or statement with its aesthetic qualities. Since rhyme is an aesthetic quality, it endows a rhyming phrase with greater perceived validity. Not all aphorisms are rhymes, but the evidence suggests that a cognitive bias — the rhyme-as-reason effect — causes those aphorisms that do rhyme to gain perceived validity from the rhyme.

With this The rhyme-as-reason effect causes
us to confuse the validity of
a phrase with its aestheticspreface in mind, one might reasonably ask whether the rhyme-as-reason effect plays any role in how people regard various business-related concepts. Consider three examples: lean-and-mean, lift and shift, and slice and dice.

Lean-and-mean

To describe an organization as lean-and-mean is to imply that it's efficient, that it consumes the minimum level of resources consistent with accomplishing its objectives, and that it is singularly focused on reaching those objectives.

The term rose dramatically in popularity starting in the 1980s. Even today its use connotes well-run operations, especially at the higher reaches of the org chart. This, despite ample evidence that financial performance isn't correlated with small leadership teams. [Goold 2005] Given the questions about the effectiveness of downsizing (especially downsizing of leadership teams), one wonders whether the lean-and-mean strategy would be as popular if it were called, say, efficient-and-focused.

Lift and shift

When migrating data processing and storage operations from a local on-premises infrastructure to a cloud-based architecture, people speak of "lift and shift" — lifting workload from local facilities and shifting them to the cloud.

The term can make the cloud migration effort seem simpler than it actually is. Applications that have been "lifted and shifted" continue to operate as if they were on-premises. They don't take advantage of the new (cloud-based) environment because they were designed for the on-premises environment. To gain access to the full advantages of the cloud, the applications must be modified, sometimes extensively. In this way the rhyme of lift and shift connotes a crispness and completeness of the operation that might not actually pertain to the situation. A more accurate but less appealing term might be "the first step of migrating an application to the cloud."

Slice and dice

Said of the data in a database (or a collection of databases), to slice and dice is to perform a sequence of operations on subsets of the data that reveal useful information, usually in the form of connections and correlations that are not obvious initially. For example, examining usage data for several products together can reveal how customers are using two older products to avoid buying a third newer one.

The term slice and dice is a rhyme, and it's cute, which accounts for some of its popularity. It evokes processes that are familiar from the home kitchen. Slicing and dicing at a professional level of skill requires weeks of practice. But at the nonprofessional level, the level with which most of us are familiar, the processes are rather menial.

To regard analyzing the data in a set of databases as mere menial "slicing and dicing" is to risk regarding that analyzing activity as menial, which it most certainly is not. This error of thought can cause organizations to undervalue data analysis, and to undervalue the people who perform that function. But the term slice and dice is more appealing than the much more accurate — and much less loaded — data analysis.

The rhyme-as-reason effect is but one example of the results of our using the Keats Heuristic. Other devices that make phrases aesthetically appealing include alliteration, anaphora, epistrophe, and chiasmus. We'll examine them next time.   Next issue in this series   Top    Next Issue

Is every other day a tense, anxious, angry misery as you watch people around you, who couldn't even think their way through a game of Jacks, win at workplace politics and steal the credit and glory for just about everyone's best work including yours? Read 303 Secrets of Workplace Politics, filled with tips and techniques for succeeding in workplace politics. More info

Footnotes

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Cognitive Biases at Work:

The Planning Fallacy and Self-Interest

A well-known cognitive bias, the planning fallacy, accounts for many unrealistic estimates of project cost and schedule. Overruns are common. But another cognitive bias, and organizational politics, combine with the planning fallacy to make a bad situation even worse.

Risk Acceptance: Naïve Realism

When we suddenly notice a "project-killer" risk that hasn't yet materialized, we sometimes accept the risk even though we know how seriously it threatens the effort. A psychological phenomenon known as naïve realism plays a role in this behavior.

Be Choosier About Job Offers: I

A serious error some job seekers make is accepting an offer that isn't actually a good fit. We make this mistake for a variety of reasons, including hating the job-search process, desperation, and wishful thinking. How can we avoid the error?

Illusory Management: I

Many believe that managers control organizational performance, but a puzzle emerges when we consider the phenomena managers clearly cannot control. Why do we believe in Management control when the phenomena Management cannot control are so many and powerful?

Managing Dunning-Kruger Risk

A cognitive bias called the Dunning-Kruger Effect can create risk for organizational missions that require expertise beyond the range of knowledge and experience of decision-makers. They might misjudge the organization's capacity to execute the mission successfully. They might even be unaware of the risk of so misjudging.

See also Cognitive Biases at Work and Cognitive Biases at Work for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming January 22: Storming: Obstacle or Pathway?

The Storming stage of Tuckman's model of small group development is widely misunderstood. Fighting the storms, denying they exist, or bypassing them doesn't work. Letting them blow themselves out in a somewhat-controlled manner is the path to Norming and Performing. Available here and by RSS on January 22.

And on January 29: A Framework for Safe Storming

The Storming stage of Tuckman's development sequence for small groups is when the group explores its frustrations and degrees of disagreement about both structure and task. Only by understanding these misalignments is reaching alignment possible. Here is a framework for this exploration. Available here and by RSS on January 29.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenjTnUayrCbSnnEcYfner@ChacdcYpBKAaMJgMalFXoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info