The Keats heuristic: Rhyme as reason in aphorism interpretation

Do people distinguish between the form and propositional content of a statement when evaluating its truthfulness? We asked people to judge the comprehensibility and ostensible accuracy of unfamiliar aphorisms presented in their original rhyming form (e.g., Woes unite foes) or a semantically equivalent non-rhyming form (Woes unite enemies). Although the different versions were perceived as equally comprehensible, the rhyming versions were perceived as more accurate. This 'rhyme as reason' effect suggests that in certain circumstances, people may base their judgments of a statement's truth value in part on its aesthetic qualities. Our results are consistent with models of persuasion which assume that people rely on heuristic cues to evaluate messages when they lack the evidence and/or motivation to scrutinize message content (e.g., Eagly and Chaiken, 1993). © 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.