AN INITIATIVE BY ANY OTHER NAME…
The importance of naming [an extract from our latest Orange Paper, Upwards, Not Northwards].
What’s in a name?:
It’s somewhat ironic that the Bard, a man whose reputation is tied so closely to words, penned the line ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. In our old pal Willy’s play Romeo and Juliet, Juliet indulges in a good old- fashioned soliloquy to convince herself that it doesn’t matter that Romeo is a ‘Montague’, even though the Montagues are her own family’s arch enemies.
We all know how things worked out for those two loved-up optimists, but the real tragedy here is that the line has been parroted for the better part of 400 years whenever anyone wants to discount the importance of a name. The ending of the play alone invalidates the argument, but recent research also proves Juliet wrong. Names do matter.
In a distinctly academic ‘screw you’ to Shakespeare, Jelena Djordjevic and pals at McGill University and the Montreal Neurological Institute conducted a study, written up in a paper called ‘A Rose by Any Other Name: Would It Smell as Sweet?’, to find out if the way a scent is labelled influences how people perceive it.
Turns out it does.
Subjects were served a buffet of 15 scents, ranging from foul to neutral to nice. Each smell was presented with names that were positive (‘carrot juice’), neutral (a two-digit number) or negative (‘mouldy vegetables’). Perversely, no matter how good or gross the smell, people rated it as more pleasant when it was presented with a positive name, and less pleasant when presented with a negative name. This wasn’t just a subjective rating either—it was physiological. When the smell had a positive name, subjects sniffed more, and their skin conductance and heart rate showed arousal.
Speaking of smelly things: children. Researchers Harari, Herbert and McDavid found that how we name our progeny may influence their academic results. The experiment provided a group of teachers with essays to grade. Nothing unusual here, except the teachers weren’t aware that the names on the essays were fake. In a very unfortunate finding for anyone saddled with an uncomely moniker, students with unpopular or unattractive names (‘Olga’ or ‘Boris’) received significantly lower grades than the kids with attractive or popular names (‘Jennifer’ or ‘David’).
Perhaps even more importantly for our offspring’s self-esteem, MIT researcher Amy Perfors found that our name can influence how attractive others find us. She posted photos of 24 of her friends at hotornot.com, a site where people are rated on their looks. She compounded this cruelty by posting each photo twice, using two different names.
Surprisingly, Perfors discovered that the photos received different ratings depending on the name used. For females, it seems we find full, round- sounding names (‘Laura’) more attractive than names with smaller, sharper vowel sounds. For males, names with vowel sounds made at the front of the mouth (‘e’ or ‘i’) make a man seem more handsome.
The obvious moral to this story is to avoid friendships with psychologists, but also to potentially save yourself countless hours on the porch with a shotgun during your child’s adolescence simply for bestowing on them a hideous name.
Consider how these findings might be applied to the way we name our people and departments.
Is a sporting team that refers to their players as ‘lads’ or ‘boys’ perpetuating laddish or boyish behaviour? Would they be better served by using ‘men’ or even a more collective ‘team’ instead? It’s no coincidence that the army uses derogatory singular terms to break down individuals before building them back up as a collective unit of soldiers.
Have terms like ‘Human Resources’ and ‘assets’ perpetuated a point of view that celebrates the pursuit of profit at the expense of people? Have these names influenced the way people are treated at work, and the way they approach their work as a result?
It sure seems likely, especially as more organisations shift from ‘Human Resources’ to ‘Employee Experience’ departments and terminology. And while a simple name change might not seem like much, it indicates a growing trend towards a more human workplace where employees and customers are equally valued.
Call someone something, not only will we see them that way, but they’ll likely begin to see themselves that way too — and act the part.
Airbnb refers to the people offering their properties for rent as ‘hosts’. There are many options they could’ve chosen, but this particular word suggests a welcoming tone. ‘Landlord’, for instance, would’ve conveyed a very different feeling.
Subway call their staff ‘artists’. Is it simply marketing for the customer’s benefit, or does it subliminally inspire a feeling of pride in Subway’s people for every well-crafted sandwich? A simple name has the potential to turn a bored teen working in fast food into a ranch sauce–toting artist attacking foot longs with all the passion of Jackson Pollack.
Remember the name
Moving on, studies have also found we’re more likely to remember something when we know its name. In an experiment veering into the paranormal, psychologist Gary Lupyan showed folk a series of images of aliens and asked them to guess whether they were friendly or hostile. After each response, they were told if they were ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, helping them learn the subtle features that indicated each alien’s intentions.
But here’s the twist: before the experiment, a quarter of the group were told that the friendly aliens were named Leebish and the hostile ones were called Grecious. Another quarter were told the opposite. And for the remaining half, the aliens remained nameless.
The results revealed that the half who were told the aliens had names learned to categorise the aliens far faster, reaching 80 per cent accuracy in less than half the time taken by the other group. By the end of the experiment, they were also able to correctly identify friendly and hostile aliens more accurately.
Our memory isn’t influenced only by knowing a name, though. How we categorise something can also affect the way in which we remember it.
In an experiment with much more mundane subject matter, a lucky bunch of participants viewed furniture taken from an IKEA catalogue. In half the questions they were asked to label the object (‘chair’, ‘bed’, ‘lamp’ etc.); the rest of the time they simply had to say whether or not they liked it.
Interestingly, in the instances when they labelled an object, people found it more difficult to remember specific details about the product later. Not surprisingly, by categorising things, our memory tends to treat them as more generic.
Word choice matters
Our exact choice of words can also influence others’ actions by evoking positive or negative emotions. This devious technique is known as loaded language (also emotive language or high-inference language).
It’s a trick abused regularly by politicians, public figures and brands to exploit our tendency to act unreflectively on our initial emotional response. This makes it a tactic best used for good, and never when fairness and impartiality are required.
Words like ‘torture’ and ‘freedom’ carry an emotional charge that resonates beyond their literal meaning. These words trigger emotions that escalate into value judgements.
Consider the difference between ‘invading Iraq’ and ‘liberating Iraq’. Are they ‘illegal aliens’ or ‘undocumented workers’? Is buying a new Jeep Wrangler a ‘cost’ or an ‘investment’ in happiness? 🤔
