luck (Page 3)

Researcher Richard Wiseman studies how to be lucky. He says lucky charms do work, but only because people believe in them. Some people believe in them so much, they use voo doo to try to influence the outcomes of trials.

Rachel Williams writes in the Pennsylvania News that Wiseman found that carrying a luck charm had no effect on whether or not people chose winning lottery numbers, despite the fact that 30% of the people he tested thought their luck had improved. At the end of the study, 70% said they’d continue to carry the lucky charm with them.
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Psychologist Richard Wiseman says, “Ten years ago, I set out to examine luck. I wanted to know why some people are always in the right place at the right time, while others consistently experience ill fortune.” He says he’s found the answer.
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Byron Spice writes in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about U.K. researcher Richard Wiseman, who’s spent 10 years studying lucky and unlucky people. His conclusion: people can learn how to become luckier.

Wiseman says, “People would tell me, ‘I’m not psychic, I’m just lucky,” so he began advertising in newspapers and magazines for people who considered themselves to be either lucky or unlucky.

He discovered that about 12% of us considered ourselves lucky, 9% unlucky, and the rest of us don’t think we’re either one. Lucky and unlucky people see the world in different ways. A lucky person would be delighted to escape an automobile accident without serious injury, while an unlucky person would say it was bad luck to have had an accident in the first place.
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