Bird of a Feather Flock Conjointly(?)

1. Bird of a Feather Flock Conjointly(?) Rhyme as Reason in Aphorisms Matthew S. McGlone & Jessica Tofighbakhsh

2. What Are Aphorisms? • Concise statements that offer observations and advice about universal human concerns such as happiness, health, and friendship. • A tersely phrased statement of a truth or opinion; a saying. • Characterized by psychologists as doubtful generalizations to be compared and contrasted with more precise scientific descriptions of human behavior. • A set of statements about behavior can be considered scientifically “accurate” only if each statements truth conditions can be operationalized and the statements do not contradict each other.

3. Aphorism’s and Truth • The vagueness of aphorisms makes specification of their truth conditions difficult. • “Haste makes waste” vs. “He who hesitates is lost” • If the force of an aphorism depended on the clarity of these truth conditions, then why do people bother believing such statements

4. Why Are Aphorisms Believed? • It’s Familiarity • E.g: “Opposite’s Attract” • McGlone & Necker, 1998 • Repetition causes a shift in truth value • Hasher et. Al, 1977 • Begg et al. 1992 • Illusory Truth effect

5. More on Aphorisms • Content and Form • “Variety prevents Satiety” vs. “Variation prevents Satiety” • Do not differ in propositional content • First has an aesthetic element • Rhyme • Meyer et al. (1975)

6. The Present Study • Focuses on the role that the pure or beautiful properties of an aphorism can play in people’s perceptions of its truthfulness. • An experiment exploring the influence of poetic form on people’s perceptions of aphorism’s accuracy as descriptions of human behavior is reported.

7. Hypothesis • 1. People would misattribute the processing fluency produced by an aphorism’s rhyming form heightened conviction about the statement’s accuracy. • 2. This misattribution would be attenuated when people were prompted to attribute processing fluency to its actual source.

8. Thank-You A bend in the road is not the end of the road -- unless you fail to make the turn 

9. Birds of a feather flock conjointly (?) Rhyme as reason in aphorisms Method

10. Participants 120 Lafayette undergraduate students that were native English speakers were involved. • 20 participated in the materials check • 100 participated in the main experiment These participants received extra credit for a course they were taking.

11. Materials • The authors selected 50 rhyming and 50 non rhyming aphorisms that all met 3 specific criteria. • 1) The aphorism was an advisory or a descriptive statement about human behavior (as opposed to a value judgment or opinion, which people might be hesitant to judge as accurate or inaccurate). • 2) It was not similar in meaning to another selected aphorism. • 3) It was unfamiliar to the authors.

12. Materials • -For each extant rhyming aphorism, a modified version was created by replacing a rhyming word with a non rhyming close synonym. • Ex. “What sobriety conceals, alcohol reveals.” • “What sobriety conceals, alcohol unmasks.” • -For each extant non rhyming aphorism, a modified version was created by replacing a content word with a close synonym that does not rhyme with any of the other words in the statement. • Ex. “Benefaction is the most difficult weapon to conquer.” • “Benefaction is the most difficult weapon to overcome.”

13. Materials -The extant non rhyming aphorisms and their modified counterparts were included to control for the possibility that a perceived truth advantage for an extant rhyming aphorism over a non rhyming version might be attributed not to rhyme, but rather to modification of the statement’s textually surviving form. If this were the case, it would be expected that there would be a truth advantage for the extant non rhyming aphorisms over their modified counterparts as well.

14. Materials • A pilot study was conducted, as a materials check, to establish which of the extant rhyming and non rhyming aphorisms would be used in the study. • 20 participants were asked to judge each aphorism pair, and 30 pairs were chosen from each of the rhyming and non rhyming aphorism lists based on 2 criteria. • They could not recall having read or heard the original aphorism in the past. • They did not perceive a difference in meaning between the original and modified versions.

15. Materials • Two lists were then created from these materials. • Each list contained 60 aphorisms. • 15 extant rhyming aphorisms • 15 modified • 15 extant non rhyming aphorisms • 15 modified -Only one version of each extant aphorism appeared in each list. -Although the order in which the aphorisms appeared was randomized, a given aphorism and its modified form were in the same position in their respective lists.

16. Instruction conditions • 2 instruction conditions were possible for each participant. • Control-instructions condition • Instructions in this condition did not include any mention of the distinction between aphorisms’ poetic qualities and their ostensible accuracy. • Warning condition • Instruction in this condition cautioned participants to base their accuracy judgments “only on the claim that the statement makes about behavior, not the poetic quality of the statement’s wording.” • This was emphasized in the instructions, and bolded.

17. Design and Procedure • Upon arriving in the laboratory, participants were randomly assigned to one of the aphorism lists, and an instruction condition. • Participants were lead to believe that the experiment was part of a larger study exploring the psychological theories implied by English aphorisms. • They were then instructed to read each aphorism carefully and then to rate the degree to which they perceived the aphorism as “an accurate description of human behavior,” on a scale from 1 (not at all accurate) to 9 (very accurate).

18. Design and Procedure • 2 x 2 x 2 design • Within-subjects factors • Aphorism type (extant rhyming or non rhyming) • Version (original or modified) • Between-subjects factors • Instruction condition (control or warning)

19. Final question • After all of the participants completed the accuracy ratings, they were asked a final yes/no question. • “In your opinion, do aphorisms that rhyme describe human behavior more accurately than those that do not rhyme?” • After completing the experiment, participants were debriefed regarding the true purpose of the study. Questions?

20. Results: Mean Truthfulness Ratings

21. Results: Control Group • Original rhyming aphorisms more believed than modified versions of same (1 sig. > 3). • No difference in believability of original or modified non-rhyming aphorisms (2 = 4).

22. Results: Warning Group • Original rhyming aphorisms NO more believed than modified versions of same ( 5 = 7) • No difference in believability of original or modified non-rhyming aphorisms (6 = 8).

23. Results: Control vs. Warning Group • Original rhyming aphorisms more believed in control group than in warning group ( 1 > 5) • Apparently, warning can reduce the believability of rhyming aphorisms.

24. Results (cont’d) • Non-warning (control) group • assigned higher accuracy ratings to the original rhyming aphorisms than their modified versions. • But, they did assign comparable ratings to the original and modified non-rhyming aphorisms. • Suggest that results are attributed specifically to manipulation of rhyme and not simply to the modification of their textually surviving form.

25. Result Wrap Up • Non-warning group – seen the rhyming aphorisms as being more accurate. • Warning group – made no relationship between accuracy and rhyming aphorism.

26. Discussion • Results offer support for Nietzsche’s (the gay science)claim • He observed that even the wisest among us are still occasionally fooled by rhythm – “we sometimes consider an idea truer because it has metrical form and presents itself with a divine spark and jump” • Results showed that participants joined the rhyme and perceived accuracy of aphorisms unless they were told to distinguish semantic content from poetic qualities

27. Rhyme is something that children can learn to appreciate and something that adults can routinely notice even during silent reading. • It was not surprising that participants discriminated between rhyming and non-rhyming aphorisms. • However it was surprising that they did discriminate in terms of accuracy between the rhyming and non-rhyming versions when none of them reporting rhyme offering a advantage

28. Why rhyming aphorisms offer a truth advantage Authors attribute the reason to enhanced processing fluency Usually enhanced processing fluency is the consequence of repeated exposure to a stimuli but they say that it can also be produced by factors in the present stimulus environment For ex manipulating fluency such as adjusting the figure ground or presentation duration of a stimulus can produce the same misattributions as those presented by repetition manipulations

29. To reduce the tendency to put greater belief in rhyming aphorisms authors asked participants to distinguish a aphorisms poetic form from its semantic content which significantly reduced the advantage that rhyming aphorisms had.

30. “If the gloves don’t fit you must acquit” • These were the words Johnnie Cochran used to persuade the jury in O.J’s Simpsons trial • Rhyme increased the likelihood that jurors would rehearse, remember and then apply Johnnie’s statement. • How persuasive would the statement have been if altered ? “If the gloves don’t fit, you must not find him guilty”

31. Criticisms • Explanation of results • Authors offer an alternate definition for enhanced processing fluency and put all results on this one factor.