《文化对比阅读》(上) Unit 8--Special Numbers 1. Why Do We Believe in Luck.docVIP

Why do we believe in luck? Megan Lane Is there such a thing as a lucky person or a lucky streak? And does belief in good and bad luck play a part in whether we are prepared to take chances, asks Megan Lane. I won a pair of cinema tickets recently. Then a free haircut. While sceptical about luck, I couldn’t help but wonder if it might run in threes. The next day, I had a third stroke of luck. A mugging. Was it bad luck that I had my bag snatched? Or good luck that I was unhurt? Neither. It was a chance event. When weighing the risks of walking down an unfamiliar street, feeling lucky didn’t come into it (much). Subconsciously, I balanced the time of day — early evening — and the presence of street lighting against the area being unexpectedly isolated. “Luck is a really interesting aspect of risk and chance,〞 says Cambridge University psychologist Dr. Mike Aitken, co-creator of BBC Lab UK’s new Big Risk Test, which explores the type of person likely to be a risk-taker or risk-averse. “We can all remember days when good things happened to us, and days when less-good things happened, and we attribute the difference to a lucky day and an unlucky day. You could argue that luck exists in that sense.〞 But some people believe luck influences external events — that if they buy a lottery ticket on their lucky day, they’ll be more likely to win. “That’s a much harder belief to justify, because there’s no way the day you buy your lottery ticket can influence the likelihood that you’re going to win,〞 says Aitken. “Research has suggested that people who think of themselves as lucky actually are lucky, because they are more willing to take advantage of opportunities.〞 We’ve all come across humans acting irrationally. But could there be a rational reason for doing so? The scientist in me would delight in this being rigorously tested. Ideally, we’d investigate an irrational behaviour that varies between people, but can be manipulated experimentally. What better than the belie