Thursday, February 26, 2015

Priming, Anyone?

So there's this meaningless story on a TV station site, which is really a story about how an expert says you shouldn't pay your brat for chores.  And then they ask people, so do you do thing we just said sucks?

Are you surprised, then, that 71.43 percent said "no" and only 28.57 percent said "yes"?

And what the hell is up with statistics to the hundredth to the right of a decimal point? Talk about false precision given this is one of those BS, non-scientific polls that are really more about audience engagement than measuring opinion.  My rant here is really about priming. You have a "financial expert" saying it's a bad thing, then you ask whether people are doing that bad thing. Duh. Of course more are gonna say "no" than "yes." You've primed them to do so. Cooked the data. Skewed the results.

Finally -- and this is the best part -- that 71.43 percent? Based on five of seven respondents. Lemme say that again ... based on seven total respondents. 

Okay, now eight total respondents. I voted twice. Vote early and often, they say, usually in Chicago, or on "news" sites.





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