Why Humans Keep Believing in Luck and Curses

Have you ever knocked on wood after saying something tempting fate? Maybe you’ve avoided walking under a ladder or felt a genuine chill when a black cat crossed your path. Most of us have. And here’s the weird part: even people who call themselves skeptics still do it. So, what’s really going on inside our heads?

We’re Wired to See Patterns That Aren’t There

The human brain is a pattern-recognition machine. It’s constantly scanning the environment, looking for connections, trying to predict what happens next. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman described two modes of thinking. One is fast, automatic, and intuitive. The other is slow, deliberate, and rational. When it comes to luck and curses, that fast-thinking system takes the wheel almost every time.

Researchers call this tendency “apophenia”, the habit of finding meaningful patterns in random noise. Think about it. You wear a certain shirt to a job interview, you get the offer, and suddenly that shirt becomes your lucky charm. Your brain made a connection between two unrelated events because it felt right. The shirt had nothing to do with your qualifications, but try telling your gut that.

This is also why curses feel so convincing. When a string of bad things happens, your brain scrambles to find a cause. A hex, a jinx, someone’s evil eye. It’s strangely comforting to blame misfortune on something specific rather than accept that randomness just doesn’t care about you.

The Comfort of Feeling in Control

Here’s the thing most people don’t realize. Believing in luck isn’t really about luck at all. It’s about control.

Psychologist Susan Albers from the Cleveland Clinic puts it plainly: superstitions were created to help our brains feel more in control. Even when we know they aren’t real, we still act as if they are. That’s a powerful statement. It means rational knowledge and emotional behavior can exist in completely separate lanes.

And honestly, that tracks. When life feels chaotic, we reach for rituals. Athletes have pregame routines. Students carry lucky pens into exams. Horror fans might tell you that certain films carry real curses, and they’re only half joking. The “Poltergeist” curse, the strange tragedies surrounding “The Omen”, the on-set disasters during “The Exorcist”. These stories persist because they scratch an itch we all share: the need to believe that cause and effect apply even when they clearly don’t.

Confirmation Bias: The Curse That Actually Works

Once you believe in a curse or a lucky streak, your brain starts working overtime to prove you right. This is confirmation bias, and it’s relentless.

Say you think breaking a mirror brings seven years of bad luck. Every minor misfortune after that becomes evidence. You stub your toe. Your car won’t start. You get a parking ticket. See? The mirror. Meanwhile, all the perfectly fine days get filed away and forgotten. Your brain keeps the scorecard tilted.

The curse of Tutankhamun is a classic example. When archaeologists opened the pharaoh’s tomb, the press ran wild with stories about a deadly curse. Every subsequent death or misfortune connected to the expedition got linked to it. The fact that most team members lived perfectly normal lives? That didn’t make headlines.

It works the same way with casual superstitions. People playing games on interactive platforms like Big Pirate Social Casino might develop little rituals around spins or bets, convinced that a certain timing or pattern influences outcomes. It’s not logical, but it’s deeply human.

Horror Figured This Out Long Before Psychology Did

The horror genre has always understood our relationship with superstition better than any research paper could. Friday the 13th built an entire franchise on date-based dread. “Ringu” weaponized a videotape with a seven-day death sentence. “Candyman” turned the Bloody Mary mirror game into a nightmare. These films don’t just use superstitions as plot devices. They tap into something primal.

What makes cursed-film lore so sticky is that reality seems to back it up. During the filming of “The Serpent and the Rainbow“, director Wes Craven claimed a screenwriter genuinely lost his grip on reality after being “indoctrinated” into voodoo practices during research. Whether the story is embellished or not, it resonates because we want it to be true. A world where curses are real is terrifying, sure. But it’s also a world where things make sense.

So Why Can’t We Stop?

Because believing in luck and curses serves a real psychological function. It reduces anxiety. It gives us a sense of agency over chaos. Research from 2025 shows that people who perceive themselves as lucky tend to be more optimistic, more confident, and more willing to take risks. In other words, believing you’re lucky might actually make you luckier, not through magic.

We’ll probably never stop believing in luck. It’s too baked into how our brains work, too woven into every culture on the planet. And maybe that’s okay. A lucky charm in your pocket won’t change the odds, but it might change how you feel about facing them. Just maybe don’t break any mirrors before your next horror movie marathon.