When words in a sentence start with letters in alphabetical order, we tend to believe the phrase more, a recent study uncovered. In other words, when the first letters of the words would come before each other in the alphabet, the sentence itself feels more truthful than the one where the first sound starts with a letter that comes later in the alphabet.

How the mind tricks you

The order of the alphabet is one of the most fundamental and learned by everyone at school at a young age, which is possibly the reason why it is so powerful in tricking the mind.

The brain looks for patterns and when it finds it, the idea seems more reasonable than the one that lacks such fundamental order. The fact that alphabet is a purely illogical sequence doesn’t surface during the mind evaluations, scientists point out.

In an experiment by consumer psychologists people were given commercial slogans that were built in the alphabetical order and the ones that contradicted it. The brands were imaginary.

• “Befferi eases pain” (correct alphabetical order) scored higher as truthful vs. “Vuffei eases pain” (incorrect order).
• “Aspen moisturises skin” seemed to respondents more truthful than “Vaspen moisturises skin”.

The difference in estimations of the truthfulness of the claims by study participants was uncanny. Even though the respondents couldn’t justify their views, they felt more aligned with the idea of truthfulness of sentences that adhered to the correct pattern of alphabet.

Let’s reverse it!

Then the scientists decided to check if the reverse was true. They allowed some participants to listen to an ABC song, where the alphabet was sang in reverse. After that the participants started to rate truthfulness of phrases built in a reverse way higher!

For instance, the phrase “Uccuprin strengthens heart” started to feel more truthful to such participants.

People feel more trust in phrases where first letters resemble the consequence of the alphabet.

Alphabet holds no logic

IQ tests that many of us undertook at a younger age taught us to seek patterns. The drive to look for patterns when evaluating ideas seems to be innate to humans.

However, alphabet is a totally arbitrary sequence. Still, the mind apparently gives value to such constructs that seem to adhere to a known rule. This fact has been proven by the experiment in which a reverse ABC song laid the foundation for reverse alphabetical phrases to be valued higher on the scale of truth.

Obviously, the phrase has to be short in order for such unconscious patterns to kick in. Slogans and headlines are the ones that could be utilizing such powers of consumer psychology.

Unfortunately, similar logic could be also used by creators of fake news, trying to convince us in their plausibility.

It’s wise to be aware of such tricks that our minds may play with us!

And if you need to make a short statement and wish people to believe you, build it in the alphabetical order. It will become more convincing.

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