Why Friday the 13th still spooks us
Psychology Professor Jonathan Fugelsang explains how our brains seek patterns, meaning and a sense of control, even when connections may not exist
For many people, Friday the 13th is just another day on the calendar. For others, it prompts extra caution, lucky rituals or a quick second thought before making an important decision. According to Dr. Jonathan Fugelsang, a University of Waterloo psychology professor whose research explores belief, reasoning and how people make sense of information, the enduring power of superstitions says less about bad luck and more about human psychology.
“People are naturally motivated to make sense of their environments,” Fugelsang says. “We have a hard time dealing with random events. People don’t feel comfortable with randomness, and so we often try to find some sort of pattern in events to make sense of things.”
That tendency may help explain why Friday the 13th continues to capture the public imagination despite a lack of evidence that the date is any more dangerous or unlucky than any other.
While historians debate the superstition's exact origins of Friday the 13th is often linked to two longstanding Western beliefs: that Friday is an unlucky day and that the number 13 brings bad fortune. Some accounts suggest it originates from the 1907 novel by Thomas William Lawson, “Friday, the Thirteenth,” or from Jesus and his twelve apostles at the Last Supper.
For Jonathan Fugelsang, the enduring appeal of Friday the 13th has less to do with history and more to do with the way the human mind works. “We are predisposed to find meaning,” Fugelsang says. “Finding meaning and patterns in the world is a very adaptive thing. It’s something we do very well, but it can also go awry. It can be overactive. You could find illusory patterns where no patterns exist.”
Superstitions often emerge from that overactive pattern-seeking process. A person may associate a particular event, object or behaviour with success or failure, even when the connection is purely coincidental. Sports fans and athletes, for example, frequently describe lucky jerseys or routines that they believe influence the outcome of a game.
“Who wants to live a life where you think everything’s random?” he says. “There is something very satisfying and very anxiety-reducing in feeling like you have control over your life and your environment.”
Research suggests that people who rely more heavily on intuition may be more susceptible to superstitious thinking than those who engage in slower, more analytical reasoning. But Fugelsang is careful to note that believing in superstitions is not a sign of lower intelligence.
“Extremely smart people believe in conspiracy theories. Extremely smart people have superstitions,” he says. “It’s a powerful and natural human drive to make sense of our environment.” Those same psychological mechanisms also connect superstitions to broader questions about misinformation, conspiracy theories and belief formation. Much of Fugelsang’s research examines how people can find meaning in vague, randomly generated or unsupported claims.
The common thread, he says, is a desire to understand the world and connect the dots. “There’s a lot of common variance here,” he says. “People believe in conspiracy theories, people have superstitions, people find meaning in randomly generated meaningless statements. We have a general drive to find patterns and meaning in the world.”
Conspiracy theories can be particularly persuasive because they offer complete and satisfying explanations, even when the evidence does not support them. Real-world events are often messy and filled with uncertainty, while conspiracy narratives provide neat connections and apparent answers.
“Reality is messy, and often leaves gaps in the information available,” Fugelsang says. “A conspiracy theory or superstition can provide that glue to fill in those gaps.”
Whether it is a fear of Friday the 13th, a lucky charm tucked into a pocket or a story that seems to explain a confusing event, the underlying impulse remains the same. Humans are meaning-making creatures trying to navigate uncertainty.
“We’re pattern-seeking and meaning-seeking devices,” Fugelsang says. The challenge is recognizing when those patterns reveal something real and when they are simply a product of the stories our brains are eager to understand or tell.
