"Butterflies and moths are a subspecies of flying fish, because they all have scales that come off if you rub hard enough."

I got bored and decided to conduct several experiments at once:

Experiment #1: Testing the suggestibility of my 7-year-old brother.

Experiment #2: How easily malleable are other people’s minds?

Experiment #3: How quickly can I make my little brother believe that I (a suburban Texas teenager) am raising alligators inside my closet?

~Note that all of these experiments were thought up and began testing within 5 seconds of having the thought, so results may not be conclusive~

[DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT AN ACTUAL SCIENCE EXPERIMENT. THIS IS JUST AN INTJ BEING BORED AN HAVING SOME FUN WITH A YOUNGER SIBLING]

Experiment #1

Hypothesis: My little brother is extremely suggestible. 

Conclusion: My little brother is indeed extremely suggestible  because he is little and his mind is more accepting that there are things he does not know. He also has a greater tendency towards acceptance of new ideas (no matter how bizarre) and a lesser tendency towards argumentative behavior and skepticism.  

Experiment #2

Hypothesis: The malleability of the human mind decreases with age and differs between personality types.

Conclusion: While data is currently incomplete (as I need to meet up with my INTP friend to attempt this experiment again before moving on to an adult), from my case subject, I have found my hypothesis to hold true at least for the young mind (I will test this data again at a later date). The subject’s mind was easily misled by my easy explanations for any doubts as to my point, and led to the expected outcome within the span of 5 minutes. 

Experiment #3

Hypothesis: My little brother will believe that I keep alligators in my room within 3 minutes of my first sentence relating to the subject.

Conclusion: My little brother appeared to perform less adequately than I had expected, as it only took about 2 minutes for him to transition from doubt into questioning the logistics of alligator keeping. And it was hilarious. He was convinced that I had alligators, and was concerned that I or someone else had or would get bitten. He also told me that he had hidden in my closet for hide-and-seek and had not seen alligators. I told him that I owned a Portable Swamp (Harry Potter reference, anyone?), and that I kept the alligators in there, where they would be comfortable. He told me it was creepy to have a swamp in one’s closet (to which I responded by giving him a better alternative to describe his emotions, which was ‘worrying’). He asked why he hadn’t seen a swamp or alligators in my closet, and I asked him if luggage could escape from a suitcase (as a metaphor for the alligators staying within the confines of the hidden portable swamp when it is not active). He misinterpreted, as I had expected, and I explained that the suitcase was the swamp and the luggage was the alligators. He seemed to understand, and genuinely looked terrified by the thought of my housing alligators inside the home. He told me that he didn’t believe that I raised alligators, but immediately retracted any scientific value of his statement by telling me that he would tell our parents. After I explained that they already knew and that they were keeping it a secret from him as to keep him from freaking out, he asked me for reassurance that I there were, in fact, no alligators in the closet. I told him he could look for himself, and I think his continued threats to tell our parents, his apprehensive looks toward the closet door, and the fact that he didn’t attempt to go near the door as he left, and even told me to let the alligators starve when I told him he needed to go to bed before I fed them count as evidence that he believed me more than he didn’t. 

Prior to this experiment, I also realized that my brother is likely an ESTP, based on his worldly outlook and decision-making skills (and, genetically, if personality type is partially linked to parentage, our dad is an ESTP, so)  

Me: Just let me get this stroller around this big bump.

Preschooler: Do you know how bumps get in the sidewalk?

Me: Maybe. How do you think they get there?

Preschooler: Well, bumps in the sidewalk are because rocks come loose from outer space ans slowly come down here. Because it is not fast in outer space like a bike because it is floaty up there. Annnd gravity pulls the rocks down. Then they get loose and they fall where there is no cement. Then a cement truck comes and buries them and that's what makes bumps!

Me: Oh wow. I didn't know that.

Preschooler: And do you know what those tiny rocks in the cement are?!

Me: No, what are they?