Choose Your Percentages Wisely

In this great post by Roger Dooley at Futurelab, he explores the psychological reception by people of two identical percentage values:

“Which is scarier - undergoing a potentially fatal surgical procedure that has a 95% survival rate, or one that causes death in 1 out of 20 patients? If you are like most people, you would find the latter statistic far more worrisome, even though mathematically the two statements are the same. A variety of research shows that marketers should choose carefully when throwing numbers at their customers.”

This is something researchers should not only pay attention to in marketing communication, but also in how they present data internally. Is it better to say 90% of new products are considered failures by year two, or is it better to say only 1 in 10 are successes? Of course, in that particular example, I’m not sure it really matters.