Jul 20 2009
Feeling lucky?
By Jacqui Hayes
Jacqui Hayes is assistant editor of Cosmos Magazine. Every year, when National Science Week rolls around, she gets along to see one or a few of the National Tour Guests. Here’s why …
Imagine you are standing in line at the bank. Suddenly, an armed robber storms in. He fires a shot and hits you in the arm. In this scenario, are you lucky or unlucky?
This scenario and question was posed to an audience at National Science Week in 2007 by ‘visiting expert’ Richard Wiseman during a talk called The Luck Factor. I was one of those in the audience.Based in Britain, Richard Wiseman is an author and professor for the public understanding of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. He’s most famous for his en masse psychology experiments – he puts ads in newspapers such as Britain’s The Daily Telegraph and gets tens of thousands of people filling out his online surveys, often with unexpected and hilarious results.
Richard Wiseman. Image: http://www.richardwiseman.com/
Facts and anecdotes from this talk have stuck in my mind for two years, including this little gem: about 12% of the population consider themselves extremely lucky, about 7% of the population consider themselves extremely unlucky, and the rest fall somewhere in between.
For some reason I find it really comforting that humans are more inclined to say they are very lucky. But you may be asking yourself, ‘are these people actually luckier or do they just think themselves luckier?’
Wiseman conducted a huge experiment to answer this question, and he thought it might have something to do with a person’s ability to notice opportunities. He got people who either considered themselves extremely lucky or extremely unlucky. Everyone was asked to count the number of photographs in a particular newspaper. But on the second page of the newspaper there was a message, in large print, saying: “Stop counting. There are 52 photographs in here.”
Lucky people were much more likely to notice the message, while unlucky people were much more lucky spent the next two minutes counting. So, he concluded, ‘luck’ doesn’t only have to do with how you perceive your situation: it seems that lucky people see what is there, rather than what they are looking for.
You can easily image situations where this is true: if there is $10 lying on the ground, you can only be lucky if you notice it.
As someone easily distracted by random events or opportunities (such as writing this blog for 10 days of science!), I found this fascinating. I had often considered my predisposition to be easily distracted as a weakness, to the point that I even thought I might suffer from undiagnosed ADD. So, of course, I was very glad to find out that it may actually be of great use to me.
After 10 years of this kind of research, Wiseman has now deducted the four basic principles of luck, which he spoke of in Australia two years ago: notice chance opportunities; follow lucky hunches; expect good fortune; and create a positive attitude towards chance events.
So, in the scenario, when you were shot in the arm, were you lucky or unlucky?
According to Wiseman, unlucky people tend to think the answer is obvious since they were the only person shot. Others think they were very lucky because the bullet missed their heart and their head.
One particular test subject considered himself lucky because the media would almost certainly get involved, and he would make a fortune selling the story.
There are some exciting experts like Richard Wiseman giving talks and debates around the country in August 2009. You can find out more about the National Tour Guests here. I know from past years, these talks have really stuck with me. So you’ll know where you can find me during August!
