Patterns & Metaphors
Rule-governed behaviour
Other Names:
Patterned behaviour
Template:
Behaviour that can be consistently recognized, predicted, anticipated, and missed by "intuition" can be described as following or corresponding to norms or rules that are accepted by the system in which the behaviour occurs. This does not imply that the behaviour is determined or fixed by these rules but that it "makes sense" only when it corresponds to the rules.
[Advantages] It has survival value because it forms a basis for interaction between actors within the system. The most obvious example of rule governed behaviour is the use of language. Native speakers of a language can immediately detect ill-formed sentences, inconsistent structure, and illogical semantic relations, even without being aware of the rules that govern well formedness, consistent structure and semantic logic.
[Disadvantages] Certain models of the rule system are impoverished representations of the system they represent leading to a reduced structure of choice.
