“If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.”

Ronald Coase, Professor in Economics at Chicago Business School

The power of your brain never ceases to amaze me.

You make snap decisions on very little real content and instead respond disproportionally to authoritativeness and approachability. You jump to superficial and quite stable conclusions such as when you have started to favor one prime minister candidate over another, no amount of evidence will change your opinion. This is the reason that televised political debates are pretty much a waste of time.

But how far can you actually take it? That was the question that spawned this hilarious video – watch it to the end for the big surprise:

Normally, you would hear something like: “dont try this at home – we are trained professionals”. Well firstly I guess this is why behavioural economics is the funniest profession and these vidoes are the upside of irrationality – and secondly why not give it a try at home? Let me know how it works out!

Next up is Overconfidence bias, where I have yet to find a great video, so feel free to hit me with ideas at brian@behaviouralstrategygroup.com – stay tuned!