Analogical Thinking

The Power of Analogy

By Ted Pin ⋅ October 20, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Sometimes, people tell us they worry about how useful Intermz can be when analogical learning is such a difficult and rare thing to do.

But we think that couldn’t further from the truth.

We all know Ford’s Mustang sports car. (In fact, I bet a few of you own one.) When Ford decided to name its new sports car back in 1964, do you think they picked “Mustang” on a whim?

Not a chance.

A mustang is North America’s wild horse, which the US Congress calls “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West.” Horses are associated with free spiritedness, power and grace–which happen to be desirable qualities of a car.

This association is analogical; a car is not a wild horse, but it has the desirable characteristics of one.

When a toddler won’t eat her food, how do you get her to open wide? You tell her the spoon is an airplane, her mouth a hanger, and make funny noises to get her to pop the hatch. 

This association is analogical; a spoon is not an airplane, but the airplane game makes eating more fun.

And when I needed to teach a young martial artist how to improve his kicking precision, I told him his knee was the cross-hair in his video game; where he pointed his knee was where his foot would go. From then on, he never forgot how to aim. No other explanation necessary.

So what’s my point?

We use analogy for learning and thinking every day, all the time—starting at the youngest age.

And why is it so powerful?

Because when you need to learn something, whether it’s how great a car is, how fun eating Gerber is, or how to aim your kick, you don’t actually have to learn much new stuff. You already know most of what you need to already. You just need a few connections.

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