World News | Why is 13 considered unlucky?Explain the power of its bad reputation

COLOMBIA, October 23 (conversation) Would you be surprised if I refused to travel on Sunday the 22nd of every month?

What if I lobbied the homeowners association of high-rise condos to skip the 22nd floor, from the 21st floor to the 23rd floor?

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It’s pretty unusual to be afraid of 22 — so yes, it’s appropriate to think I’m a little weird. But what if more than 40 million people in our country alone shared the same unfounded disgust?

That’s how many Americans admit to being bothered if they stayed on one particular floor of a high-rise hotel: the 13th floor.

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According to Otis Elevator, for each building with floor number “13,” the other six buildings pretended not to be, skipping straight to 14.

Many Westerners changed their behavior on Friday the 13th. Of course bad things did sometimes happen on that date, but there is no evidence that they did so disproportionately.

As a sociologist specializing in social psychology and group processes, I am not interested in personal fears and obsessions.

What fascinates me is when millions of people share the same misconception that it affects a wide range of behaviors. That’s the power of 13.

Origin of superstition

13’s bad reputation – “triskaidekaphobia” – has vague and speculative roots. The historical explanation may be as simple as its juxtaposition with the chance of lucky 12.

Joe Nickell investigates claims of paranormal phenomena for the Doubtful Commission of Inquiry, a nonprofit that conducts scientific examinations of controversial and extraordinary claims.

He points out that 12 usually stands for “completeness”: the number of months of the year, the gods on Mount Olympus, the zodiac signs and the apostles of Jesus. Thirteen contrasts sharply with this feeling of kindness and perfection.

The number 13 may be associated with some famous but unpopular dinner party guests. In Norse mythology, the god Loki is a feast that arrives in Valhalla on the 13th day, where he tricks another participant into killing the god Balder.

In Christianity, the apostle Judas who betrayed Jesus was the 13th guest at the Last Supper.

But the truth is that sociocultural processes can link doom to any number.

When conditions are favorable, rumors or superstitions create their own social reality, snowballing down the hills of time like urban legends.

In Japan, 9 is unlucky, probably because it sounds similar to “pain” in Japanese. In Italy, it is 17 years old.

In China, 4 sounds like “death” and is more actively avoided in everyday life than 13 in Western culture – including being willing to pay a higher fee to avoid death in a cell phone number.

Although 666 is considered lucky in China, many Christians around the world associate it with the evil beast described in the biblical book of Revelation.

There is even a word for a strong fear of 666: hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia.

social and psychological explanation

There are many specific phobias, and people hold them for various psychological reasons. They may stem from direct negative experiences—for example, being afraid of bees after being stung by them.

Other risk factors for developing phobias include being very young, having relatives with phobias, being more sensitive, and being exposed to other people with phobias.

Part of 13’s reputation may be related to an unfamiliar sensation or what the psychological literature calls “paresthesia.”

In everyday life, 13 is not as common as 12. No 13th month, 13 inch ruler, or 13 o’clock.

Strangeness itself does not cause phobias, but psychological research shows that we like the familiar and dislike the unfamiliar. This makes it easier to associate 13 with negative attributes.

One might also assign the dark attribute to 13 for the same reasons many believe in the “full moon effect”. The belief that the full moon affects mental health, crime rates, accidents and other human disasters has been thoroughly debunked.

Still, when people want to confirm their beliefs, they can easily infer connections between unrelated factors.

For example, a car accident on a full moon or Friday the 13th can make the event seem more memorable and important. Once locked in, that belief is hard to shake.

Then there is the powerful influence of social influence. It takes a village — or Twitter — to focus fear on a specific harmless number.

Any superstition that pops up in social groups—fear of being 13, walking under ladders, not stepping on cracks, knocking on wood, etc.—is no different from the rise of “memes.”

While the term most often now refers to widely shared online images, it was first introduced by biologist Richard Dawkins to help describe how an idea, innovation, fad or other information spreads through a population.

In his definition, a meme is similar to a piece of genetic code: it replicates itself as it communicates between people, potentially mutating into an alternate version of itself.

13 meme is a simple message associated with bad luck. For the reasons above, it resonated with people and then spread throughout the culture.

Once obtained, this pseudo-knowledge gives believers a sense of control over the evil associated with it.

false beliefs, real consequences

Groups concerned with public relations seem to feel compelled to kowtow to popular superstitions. Perhaps because of the near-tragic Apollo 13 mission, NASA discontinued the sequentially numbered space shuttle mission, naming it the 13th space shuttle flight STS-41-G.

In Belgium, Brussels Airlines revised its logo in 2006 following complaints from superstitious passengers. It is a “b”-like image consisting of 13 dots.

The airline added 14th. Like many other airlines, the row numbers of its planes skipped 13.

Because superstitious beliefs are inherently false, they can cause harm as well as good — consider health fraud, for example.

I’d like to believe that influential organizations — maybe even elevator companies — would do a better job of warning the public about the dangers of holding on to false beliefs than continuing to legitimize them. (conversation)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)