It's hard to know where to begin. Many of the conclusions drawn in this documentary are insufficiently well thought out. Further, some of the experiments lack rigour ... for no good reason.
Let's address concern #1. Seeing pictures of puppies makes people click bubble-wrap because they have alternative thoughts. What happens if you give people those blowable windmills or sand-timers? The conclusion from everyone I spoke to was that these people wanted to pat the puppy and the stimulation from their fingers was directed toward the bubble wrap (as one volunteer said herself). So, why focus the conclusion elsewhere?
Then the science. 30% more bubbles were popped when people saw puppies. Was that on average? What were the actual figures?
Or the people who were given choice of tea and had to decode words. Was this linked to their spelling ability? How big was the group size?
The problem is that it's hard to tell (these and quite a few other cases) if it's like the Stanford Prison Experiment (aiming for a conclusion), poor communication or ignorance. It's really hard to tell.
I've studied behavioural psychology a lot over the years. I knew many of these topics already. This is not the starting point you want to start with. The science is sufficiently sketchy that it's hard to pick what's credible and what's not. I'd give the hit rate about 6/10 ... so that's what I'm scoring this series.
