JS Tip 627: The Rabbit Effect

From the Leadership Workshops: The Rabbit Effect 

This is real. This is fascinating. Look it up. 

The Rabbit Effect. 

Forty-three years ago, in 1978, Dr. Robert Nerem and a team of researchers studied heart health and cholesterol. 

They used rabbits as subjects. The rabbits were fed a high-fat diet, and at the end of the study, all the rabbits had cholesterol levels off the charts. 

Okay. No surprise there.  

But as the team looked at the rabbits’ heart health, one group of rabbits was far, far, far healthier than the others. Better circulation. Better hearts. Better heartbeats. 

The findings dumbfounded the research team. 

Wait a minute. 

This was a controlled study. The rabbits ate the same food. They kept the same schedule. They lived in the same hutches. 

There’s gotta be an answer in there somewhere. 

The team looked further. They found that the healthy rabbits shared a common factor: the researcher who cared for them. She handled the rabbits differently. She talked to them. She cuddled them. She petted them. 

A second study confirmed the results of the first: that kindness improved the rabbit’s health. 

So what do we learn about leadership from the study? That consideration works better than intimidation? That caring is more productive than bullying? 

Yes. That. Exactly that. 

And you can always cite “The Rabbit Effect” as proof (Robert M. Nerem, Murina J. Levesque, and J. Frederick Cornhill, “Social Environment as a Factor in Diet-Induced Atherosclerosis,” Science, vol. 208, no. 4451 (June 27, 1980), 1475–76). That’s impressive.   

Oh, wow. We love this stuff.