Great Apple Experiment results

Well, the Great Apple Experiment by my son's scout troop is finished.  We had all the scouts rank their own apples then rank all of the other apples on a scale from 1 (best looking) to 9 (worst looking).  Excluding the scout's ranking of their own apples, I averaged the ratings for each type of apple and got the following results:

• Love
• Mean: 4.23
• Standard Deviation: 2.43
• Mean rating of scout's own apples: 3.31
• Hate
• Mean: 4.54
• Standard Deviation: 2.34
• Mean rating of scout's own apples: 3.5
•  Neutral
• Mean: 4.82
• Standard Deviation: 2.41
• Mean rating of scout's own apples: 4.9
•  Control
• Mean: 4.18
• Standard Deviation: 2.41
• Mean rating of scout's own apples: 3.8
• Lemon
• Mean: 3.48
• Standard Deviation: 2.57
• Mean rating of scout's own apples: 3.38
• Open Air
• Mean: 7.50
• Standard Deviation: 2.11
• Mean rating of scout's own apples: 7.75

The following graph shows the number of each of the rankings from 1 to 9 for each type of apple.

The  Lemon line clearly shows a benefit with 62 apple slices being ranked as 1.  The open air apples were the worst with 109 being ranked as 9.  The remaining apples seemed to follow a very similar distribution.

The results don't demonstrate any positive effect of saying nice things to apples or any negative effect of saying bad things to apples.  We're left with the null hypothesis that saying things to apples is ineffective.

Thanks to all the scouts who participated and congratulations on earning your science badges.