This reeks of confirmation bias. The guy started with a stereotypical belief that rich people are really impressed by expensive watches, and by considering the

This reeks of confirmation bias. The guy started with a stereotypical belief that rich people are really impressed by expensive watches, and by considering the times that he _just felt sure_ he was impressing people with his expensive watch, he felt able to conclude that his belief was correct. On top of which, he kind of had to come to the conclusion that the watch makes a difference, in order to have an article to write. If he reported a negative result, he wouldn't get a lot of clicks for that.