Another interesting outcome from this experience was that people were curious to discover what the popular opinions were. Immediately after completing the survey, several participants were curious and asked about other peoples' responses. I suspect this is because people need a sense of belonging to a group and like their beliefs to be in line with popular opinion. I believe the results of this survey to be accurate as the survey was conducted in a fair and professional manner. However, I also discovered how easy it can be to manipulate the data and the opinions of participants to favor a single viewpoint.
Surveys are an important method of gathering, summarizing and presenting large amounts of data.
However, when relying on polls to form opinions or make decisions, people should consider the source, look for any conflicts of interest, contemplate other avenues of information and draw their own conclusions.