I’m really superstitious. So much as so that I set my alarm last night for 11:10 so that I could make a wish at 11:11 on 11/11/11. Ridiculous? I know. But yesterday’s magical date only happens once in a century. Once in our lifetime. So, I had to make the wish of a lifetime, hoping that the lucky time and date would help my wish come true.
In honor of 11:11 on 11/11/11, I did a little research about luck. As it turns out, luckier people tend to approach situations with a sense of optimism that unlucky people don’t have. Optimistic people are more willing to approach situations that are of high stakes. Pessimistic people don’t because they aren’t willing to take chances. There’s even a science component to luck. One article points out that the subconscious brain recognizes opportunistic situations and tries to lead you towards them. Optimistic and luckier people tend to pay more attention to cues from the brain causing them to approach these situations.
One researcher set out to investigate the idea of lucky personalities. He set up a coffee shop with actors inside, one of whom was a multi-millionaire, and left money on the sidewalk outside. The lucky participants noticed and picked up the money. They also had a conversation with the multi-millionaire, which they later told the researchers was going to lead to business collaboration. On the other hand, the unlucky participants walked right by the money and made little effort to converse with the multi-millionaire. As the speaker in the video notes, “Lucky people pay attention to things.”
I believe in luck. Maybe that’s why I was so intent on making a wish at 11:11 on 11/11/11. The researchers from the studies above would probably point out that unlucky and less optimistic people probably would not have set their alarms like I did last night. Did you make a wish at 11:11 11/11/11? If so, I hope it comes true!
On Psychology and Neuroscience 
I love this! I’m not that superstitious but there’s something about making a wish at 11:11 that makes me always feel like I have to do it. I guess my thought is that I might as well try to make a wish ‘just in case’ it comes true. It’s such a small thing to do and what if it resulted in something really great? It makes a lot of sense to me that being lucky has to do with where lucky people focus their attention, especially when we look at it from the other perspective: depressed people usually focus their attention more on negative cues and events which, in turn, feeds their depression. So maybe we need to focus our attention more on good cues and the luck will follow!
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Has your wish come true yet, Taylor?
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I made a wish at 11:11 on 11/11/11 in the AM and PM! I don’t consider myself very superstitious, I think I just like the notion of wishing!
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I did the same thing as Lauren, and I am not at all superstitious. I like wishing (and often participate in non-special days of 11:11am and pm wishes) because it is a time to realize what you most want out of life. I never find myself wishing for a million dollars or to get an A on a test or something like that. For me, it’s sort of like a un-processed, automatic response that reflects what my real hopes and dreams are. It’s nice that doing this also helps me to recognize opportunistic situations that hopefully get me closer to those goals!
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This is really cool! It definitely goes to show that everyone’s brain is wired a little differently, since we all pay attention to different things. It would be really interesting to find if there was some kind of genetic component to having a “lucky” personality or if it something that is more learned.
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