“The Orville Experiment”
The Orville Redenbacher Company is trying to test and see if by eating Orville’s popcorn, people would enjoy the movie being played even more. The experiment is conducted at a movie theatre where half of the theatre is watching a film while eating Orville popcorn and the rest are eating nothing.
As it is shown in the video, during the start of the film the red curtain is pulled up and those who have nothing are able to watch the others eat. They are then asked to rate the film by using a remote. Of course the results show that those who are eating the popcorn enjoy the film more.
I am sure a lot of you have seen this commercial on TV and since most of us have some understanding in experiments, it is obvious that something is wrong with this test. I think it is evident; the problem is the fact that it is hard to focus on the movie when the other half of the theater is eating free popcorn. Meaning the test lacks reliability.
Not everyone is experiencing the same feeling, as it is shown in the video those who are not eating are upset. Maybe they should have given the other half some other snack or not pull up curtain. The fact that they see other people eating, makes them question why they don’t have anything to eat and therefore are focused less on the movie. This then results to a lack of validity, because it relates to the examinees characteristics and those who are eating the popcorn have different feelings and thoughts than those who are not.
I am pretty sure that if the other half were given another snack than the Orville popcorn they would still rate the movie high, because they are munching on something similar to the others. Of course this is just a commercial to advertise the selling product, but they could have still done the experiment a little bit different in order to make it more accurate. They call it a “highly scientific experiment” yet there is nothing scientific being displayed, since there is a problem in the production of the experiment.
What do you guys think?
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