![]() | Friday the 13th: Unlucky Only for Women? |
![]() Updated: October 23, 2006
Are these acts really signs of BAD LUCK or just superstitions? Is Friday the 13th really an unlucky day? Dr. Simo Nayha at the University of Oulu (Finland) wanted to find answers to these questions. When variables such as the weather conditions and age of the victims were controlled, Dr. Nayha found that men were NOT more likely to die in traffic accidents on Friday the 13th than on other Fridays. However, for women, the risk of getting killed in a traffic accident was 63% HIGHER on Friday the 13th compared with other Fridays!
Friday the 13th should be equally "unlucky" for men and women. Why are
women, but not men, more likely to be killed on Friday the 13th than on
other Fridays? Perhaps it is not a matter of luck at all! Perhaps the
belief in a superstition affects behavior. It would be interesting to compare these statistics with those in countries where Friday the 13th is not considered unlucky. The occurrence of other events such as emergency room visits or criminal activity on Friday the 13th would also be fascinating to study. Further research may show how superstitions cause anxiety and how this anxious behavior affects concentration and driving skill. The consequences of "lucky" events, such as finding a four-leaf clover, also remain unstudied. |
Reference and further information:
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UPDATE (October 23, 2006): A more recent paper (Radun, I. and Summala,
H., Females do not have more injury road accidents on Friday the 13th,
BMC Public Health, November 16, 2004) suggests that women are NOT
more likely to have traffic accidents on Friday the 13th. These
researchers compared the frequency of car accidents (not deaths) in
Finland from 1989 to 2002. They found NO difference in the frequency of
road injury accidents (for either men or women) on Friday the 13th
compared to the number of accidents on Fridays that occurred on the 6th or
20th of the month. Radun and Summala suggest that several flaws in the earlier study (e.g., small sample size, poor control for weather conditions) resulted in the significant findings by Dr. Nayha. |
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