Anybody who takes public survey results seriously deserves to be slapped upside the head, but even a skeptic like me has to be startled by this research from the University of Michigan: If the questioner sneezes before handing over a survey form, it greatly increases the respondents’ support for changing the current health-care system, to the point that they’ll even reduce their support for funding for green jobs because they want the money to go to vaccine development.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, considering the now semi-famous study that found when people held a warm drink for even a second or two, they were more inclined to judge a stranger as being nice, compared to after they held a cold drink. (Story here.)

Anybody who says “the public supports so-and-so” based on surveying can safely be ignored.

(Spotted via the Freakonomics blog.)