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rhyme as reason
Your brain prefers information that sounds like music.
Statements that rhyme are judged as more accurate than the same statements written without rhymes.
In a 2000 study, participants consistently rated aphorisms like 'woes unite foes' as more truthful than 'woes unite enemies.' The brain processes rhymes with higher fluency, and people mistakenly attribute this ease of processing to the statement’s factual correctness.
Your mind uses ease of thought as a proxy for truth.
Where this comes from
- Study
- McGlone and Tofighbakhsh, 2000, Psychological Science
- What the check found
- The rhyme-as-reason effect is a well-replicated finding in cognitive psychology, and the cited 2000 study by McGlone and Tofighbakhsh is the foundational work establishing this phenomenon.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.