Why people are reluctant to tempt fate.
Abstract
The present research explored the belief that it is bad luck to "tempt fate." Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that people do indeed have the intuition that actions that tempt fate increase the likelihood of negative outcomes. Studies 3-6 examined our claim that the intuition is due, in large part, to the combination of the automatic tendencies to attend to negative prospects and to use accessibility as a cue when judging likelihood. Study 3 demonstrated that negative outcomes are more accessible following actions that tempt fate than following actions that do not tempt fate. Studies 4 and 5 demonstrated that the heightened accessibility of negative outcomes mediates the elevated perceptions of likelihood. Finally, Study 6 examined the automatic nature of the underlying processes. The types of actions that are thought to tempt fate as well as the role of society and culture in shaping this magical belief are discussed.
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For the Risen and Gilovich (2008) study, the GPT sample found likelihood estimations were lower when fate was tempted, and did not replicate either the original or Many Labs 2 result.
“Likelihood estimations were lower when fate was tempted”
From Diminished diversity-of-thought in a standard large language model (2024) · cites this paper as Risen & Gilovich, 2008
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- Authors
- Risen, J. L., & Gilovich, T.
- Affiliations
- University of Chicago (US)
- Cornell University (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Published
- 2008-08
- Volume
- 95
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 293-307
- ISSN
- 0022-3514 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1315
- OpenAlex
- W2158547509
- Cited by
- 138
- References
- 61
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 3.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (SES0542486; SES0241638)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
- Keywords
- magical beliefs, intuition, adverse outcomes, probability judgment, automatic cognition, belief in luck
- MeSH terms
- Culture, Female, Humans, Judgment, Male, Motivation, Negativism, Probability, Social Environment, Intuition
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
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