Tuesday, December 13, 2011

The Luck Factor

In this article the author speaks upon lucky and unlucky people. Richard Wiseman, a well known psychologist surveyed a bunch of people to find out who considered themselves lucky or unlucky, he utilized a variety of simplistic tests. What stood out the most to me was the newspaper test. This was a test in which he gave both the lucky and the unlucky people a newspaper and asked them to look through it and tell him how many photographs were inside. The results revealed on average, the unlucky people took two minutes to count all the photographs, whereas the lucky ones determined the number in a few seconds. According to Wiseman, the reason why the lucky people took just seconds was because they read the second page which stated “stop counting, there are forty-three photographs in this newspaper.”

What amazed me the most was in the second part of this newspaper test the unlucky people missed another chance and this time it dealt with money. They missed opportunity to win two hundred fifty dollars because they were still in tuned with finding the photos. This article gave many examples of lucky and unlucky people to say the least. Patricia’s bad luck experiences reminded me much of myself. It was interesting to see someone having similar experiences which made this article very captivating.

The author went on to speak upon the power of superstition. In remembering about the power of superstition years ago it was said that if you carried around a rabbit’s foot it would bring good luck. As far as I can remember back then, there were actual moments in my life in which this was true. Its funny because till this very day I still believe in walking under a ladder brought forth bad luck as well as smashing of a mirror. There was another superstitious thing and that was if the palm of your hand itched it meant that you were coming into some money soon.


In wanting to know why and how bad luck could follow me everywhere, it was interesting to read about positive skepticism in which the author mentions the reason as our thoughts and behaviors are responsible for much of our fortune and it represents the potential for change. This article shed some light on how lucky and unlucky people exist in our society today. Wiseman also mentions the utilization of science and skepticism to increase the level of luck, happiness, and success in people’s lives. In this video were some lucky and unlucky events which took place. I thought the video was astounding to say the least. It allows anyone to see just how lucky or unlucky someone can be. Enjoy.

1 comment:

  1. I LOVED the video you chose. It was really cool to see the "luck" of some people and thankfully because many of those situations could have been life or death. The funniest though, was hands down the bank robbers!

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