80% of people think this post is great
Posted
October 24, 2008 
Comments(3)
Comments(3)
Ars technica have an interesting write up on product preferences being influenced by adding statistics to advertising, even when the stats don’t mean a thing.
basically:
“A study released by the Journal of Consumer Research suggests it doesn’t really matter: everyone just wants bigger numbers. As the researchers found, it doesn’t even matter if those numbers don’t line up with personal experience, or even if they’re completely made up.”
We place a lot of blind faith in numbers; more so in percentages; and even more so in numbers that contain decimal places. So, if you had have said “80.03%” in the article title, that would have been much more credible.
And no, we often don’t bother to assess whether or not that extra precision is warranted or meaningful. Only a small portion of the population will think critically when faced with a number. Most will just believe it and move on.
Sad. But has been known to be true for at least a century.
Steve
Steve, I’m shocked it took you that long to comment :)
I’m sorry Pat. I really *am* trying to stay on top of everything you guys publish :) But in the words of Yoda “There is no try; only do.”