Proust Was Right

Comfort food, meet comfort memories.

Harvard researchers have found that when people have childhood memories top-of-mind, they are likely to be more helpful, be more judgemental of unethical behaviour, and are more inclined to donate to charity.

In other words, childhood memories also evoke a more childlike moral perception, as reported in the Sept. 2012 issue of Scientific American Mind.

If it’s appropriate for your audience and your message, considering constructing a metaphor that evokes a child’s sense of right and wrong, or a child’s point of view. For example, someone advocating for consumer protection laws might say, “These are the same lessons we learned on the playground. If you catch someone else’s ball, throw it back.”