“Lucky” Me!

A classic psychology study on “luck,” and why it opened up a whole new set of ideas for ASPIRE Research.

Lucky me. Today, I stumbled on a story published just three weeks ago (link below, along with source citation). Oddly, it’s a study from over 20 years ago (I have no idea why it gained interest again), and it has my mind whirring in a million directions.

The Study in a Nutshell

Psychologist Richard Wiseman conducted a decade-long study comparing people who consistently describe themselves as “lucky” with those who see themselves as “unlucky.” The results suggest that luck is mostly based on mindset and everyday behavior rather than pure chance. This highlights how self-identified lucky individuals tend to be more relaxed and open, allowing them to notice opportunities that others overlook.

One experiment in particular highlights this mindset approach. The newspaper photograph experiment is a task Wiseman used by giving participants a newspaper and asking them to count how many photographs it contained. Early in the paper was a half-page advertisement with two-inch text saying “Stop counting – There are 43 photographs in this newspaper,” and later another message offering a $250 cash reward for stopping and reporting that they had seen it.

Most of the “unlucky” participants were focused on counting and missed both messages, while many “lucky” participants noticed the signs, saved time, and sometimes claimed the reward—showing how a more relaxed, open attentional style makes people more likely to spot opportunities in everyday situations. Ultimately, the experiment shows that unlucky people often become narrowly fixated on a single goal and therefore miss chance opportunities that are hiding in plain sight.

Four Habits of “Lucky” People

• They create and notice chance opportunities through broader social networks and openness to new experiences.
• They trust their intuition and intentionally clear their minds before important decisions.
• They expect positive outcomes, which keeps them persistent after setbacks.
• They reinterpret bad events by imagining how things could have been worse, which helps them recover and move on more quickly.

While we can’t control all life events, building curiosity, openness, intuitive judgment, optimism, and a reflective approach toward adversity can make people feel, and arguably become, luckier over time. And that’s the great part of all this – we can, in fact, change the way we think about problems and tasks to take in more ideas.

Such a great study that I was “lucky” enough to stumble across, but it does provide a lot of ideas to explore across a few areas of interest. I’ll be rebooting ASPIRE Research in the next couple of months, and here are some ideas I’ve come up with for potential exploration:

ASPIRE-Themed Research Questions

Attitudes

How do people’s general attitudes toward uncertainty and everyday chance (e.g., seeing surprises as threats vs. opportunities) predict their likelihood of noticing “shortcut” information in tasks modeled on Wiseman’s newspaper experiment, and do these attitudes mediate the relationship between self‑reported luck and actual opportunity detection?

Spirituality

In what ways do individuals’ spiritual beliefs (e.g., sensing guidance, meaning, or synchronicity in daily events) shape their interpretations of “lucky” occurrences, and does a stronger sense of spiritual connectedness relate to greater openness to unexpected supports, social encounters, or alternative solution paths?

Positivity

Does trait positivity, such as optimism, hope, or positive affect, predict both faster recovery from setbacks and a greater tendency to reframe near‑misses as “good luck in disguise,” consistent with Wiseman’s finding that “lucky” people imagine how things could have been worse?

Identity

How does adopting a “lucky” vs. “unlucky” self‑identity influence risk‑taking, social networking, and exploration behaviors in everyday life, and to what extent does this identity stabilize or shift over time in response to structured experiences of noticing and using chance opportunities?

Religion

How do specific religious frameworks (e.g., beliefs about providence, karma, or divine will) interact with people’s sense of personal agency in creating luck, and are certain religious interpretations associated with more proactive behaviors, such as seeking new connections or trying unplanned opportunities, that resemble Wiseman’s profile of “lucky” individuals?

Education

To what extent does institutional culture (e.g., emphasis on rigid procedures vs. openness to experimentation) influence whether members of an educational community perceive and act on serendipitous opportunities, such as informal mentoring, flexible policies, or emergent projects, in ways that align with “lucky” vs. “unlucky” behavioral patterns?

Lots to think on here, and some ideas for term papers or class projects present themselves.

Reference and Link

Wiseman, R. (2003). The Luck Factor. Skeptical Inquirer, 27(3).

Article discussing the study: Lucky vs unlucky people: Psychologists after a 10-year study find what lucky people do differently