And The Survey Says...

Day 2 of the Thinkkit daily writing challenge. Today's prompt, "Take a Poll".

For the sake of variety, I decided to poll a very small amount of people (children, actually-well, grandchildren, actually) to see if I could get manipulate the answers by the way I asked the questions.

To Grandson

1. What is your allowance per week?
1. $5.00
2. What chores do you do for that allowance?
1. Take out the trash, clean my room, folding clothes
3. Do you feel like your allowance is fair?
1. Yes
4. What additional chores would you be willing to do to increase your allowance?
1. Do all the laundry and dishes

To Granddaughter

1. What is your allowance per week?
1. $5.00
2. What chores do you do for that allowance?
1. Fold clothes, clean my room, clear the table
3. Do you feel like your allowance is unfair?
1. Yes
4. How much do you think your allowance should be?
1. $15.00
5. What additional chores would you be willing to do to increase your allowance to $15.00?
1. Nothing. It should already be $15.00.

This was a very simplistic and unscientific poll, but I feel like it illustrates a point that needs to be made about national polls. The poll results can be manipulated by the way the questions are phrased.

I think back on the days when I was a busy, working, mom raising two kids. I realized that the outcome of our conversations depended largely on my communication skills. For instance, if I picked the kids up from day care and asked "What do you want for supper tonight? Yummy hamburgers or fish sticks?" The chances were automatically weighted in favor of the hamburgers even though both of my kids liked fish sticks also. Put the "Yummy" in front of any of the foods they liked and that would influence them to make that choice.

Of course, they were small children, but the same psychology works on adults too. Here are some examples:

• Most people will pick up an item that is marked $5.98 as opposed to a similar item marked $6.00, even if the $6.00 item is better. 
• People will attend sales advertising "Prices Slashed" and make purchases without ever realizing that the prices are actually higher than the competitor's price.
• Buyers in the grocery store will purchase 2 items that are marked 2/$1.00 even though 1 only costs 50 cents and 1 is all they need.

Words are powerful tools that can be used to manipulate the results of a poll and the opinions of the public. If I were asked if I thought it was acceptable to imprison all children with ADHD, I would say "Definitely Not!" But if I were asked if I felt that children with ADHD should be given the benefit of isolation in a secure location as a way to minimize distractions, I might not think that was such a bad idea.