Some Guys Have All The Luck

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It is the title of an old Rod Stewart song, but some people believe it to be true - thinking that some people are luckier than others. A professor from the University of Hertfordshire was even determined to get down to the scientific bottom of the phenomenon of luck. The professor placed a classified ad looking for people who felt consistently lucky or unlucky. He then carried out a simple experiment. He gave both lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell him how many photographs were inside. He had secretly placed a large message halfway through the newspaper saying: 'Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $50'. This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more than two inches high. It was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it. The researcher used these results, along with the results of surveys answered by the participants to determine that Unlucky people are generally more tense than lucky people, and this anxiety disrupts their ability to notice the unexpected. Pretty interesting huh? So, what do you think? Do some people have more luck than others? Do they make their own luck? Are you a lucky or unlucky person?