Dossier no. 07 — The Evidence

Feeling lucky makes you luckier.

That sentence sounds like a slogan. It is also one of the more repeatedly measured findings in behavioural psychology. Nobody has ever found a force called luck — but researchers have found, again and again, that people who believe themselves fortunate behave differently, and that those behaviours produce better outcomes.

  1. 01

    A good-luck charm improves performance

    Across four experiments, participants who had a superstition activated for them — a lucky charm on the table, or the words "I press the thumbs for you" — outperformed controls at golf putting, motor dexterity, memory and anagram tasks. The mechanism was measured: the charm raised self-efficacy, which raised the goals people set and how long they persisted.

    Damisch, Stoberock & Mussweiler (2010), Psychological Science 21(7), 1014–1020 — "Keep Your Fingers Crossed! How Superstition Improves Performance".

  2. 02

    Lucky people are made, not born

    A decade-long study of over 400 self-described lucky and unlucky people found no evidence of a paranormal force — but consistent behavioural differences. Lucky people were more relaxed and open, so they spotted opportunities others missed; they trusted intuition, expected good outcomes, and reframed bad ones. In a controlled 'luck school', volunteers trained in these habits reported measurably better luck a month later.

    Wiseman (2003), The Luck Factor — summarised in The Skeptical Inquirer 27(3).

  3. 03

    Expectation narrows or widens what you see

    Wiseman's newspaper experiment: participants counted photographs in a paper while a half-page message read "Stop counting — tell the experimenter you have seen this and win £250." Self-described unlucky participants, focused and tense, mostly missed it. Anxiety demonstrably narrows the attentional field; feeling fortunate widens it.

    Wiseman (2004), The Luck Factor: The Scientific Study of the Lucky Mind.

  4. 04

    Believing the ball is lucky is enough

    Golfers told they were using a "lucky ball" sank significantly more putts than golfers given an identical ordinary ball, and perceived the hole as larger. Belief altered both performance and perception of the task itself.

    Damisch et al. (2010), Exp. 1; replicated in perception work by Lee, Linkenauger, Bakdash, Joy-Gaba & Profitt (2011), PLoS ONE 6(10).

  5. 05

    Feeling lucky makes you act

    Consumers primed to feel lucky judged themselves more likely to succeed and were more willing to commit to a decision. Perceived luck functions like a resource: people who feel they have some spend it by taking the shot.

    Jiang, Cho & Adaval (2009), Journal of Consumer Psychology 19(3), 421–434 — "The Unique Consequences of Feeling Lucky".

  6. 06

    The effect is in your hands, not the object

    Perceived control and optimistic expectancy are among the most reliably replicated performance predictors in psychology. The charm is a delivery device; the change happens in the person holding it. This is precisely what a Luckt ticket is for.

    Langer (1975), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32(2) — "The Illusion of Control"; Bandura (1997), Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control.

So what is a ticket, then?

A deliberate, numbered, single-use commitment device. You choose the day. You scratch it yourself. For twenty-four hours you are, by your own declaration, a lucky person — and the research says the lucky person asks, applies, speaks first, looks up, and stays a little longer.

We promise no outcome and pay out nothing. What we sell is the charm, and the ceremony that makes it stick.

Buy a ticket

Summaries are our own paraphrase of published, peer-reviewed work and are provided for general interest. Effect sizes vary and some findings, like all psychology results, remain debated in replication literature. Nothing here is a promise of any outcome. This page is published in English.