By Aaron Griffin

I wanted to test one of Richard Wiseman’s four principles to see if lucky people really do pay attention differently than unlucky people.I conducted a study using employees of Jet’s Pizza to see if there was a correlation between a positive attitude towards life and lucky occurrencesHypothesis not supported. I believe this to be due mostly to flaws in the study.

What makes lucky people lucky?As discussed in Richard Wiseman’s book The Luck Factor there are 4 basic principles that lucky people tend to follow to make positive outcomes occur seemingly by chance. One of these principles is to pay attention to opportunities that may provide positive chance outcomes. This is the principle I was most interested in studying because if adjusting where attention is placed has a significant effect on outcomes for the lucky, then essentially anyone can be lucky by reorganizing their attention.

Wiseman conducted a study in which he gave people that considered themselves lucky or unlucky newspapers and told them to count the photographs in the newspaper. Lucky people finished exceptionally quicker than the unlucky people because there was an ad on the 2nd page telling them “Stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper”.About halfway through the newspaper was yet another ad telling the participants to stop counting and to collect a $250 prize.

The unlucky people missed both ads because they focused on counting pictures. So it was concluded that the lucky people were more attentive to the ads because they were looking for chance opportunities. (Wiseman, 2003.)

I hypothesize that participants in a study that rate themselves on a questionnaire to have positive attitudes towards life will find slightly hidden signs that offer a reward if sign is found because their attention is organized in such a way that allows them to notice opportunities for positive events to occur.

Participants –All Jet’s Pizza employees of the Fenton location besides myself totaling 26 participants.19 Male, 7 FemaleAges ranging from 16 to 27 years oldI used Jet’s employees because they were there for a reason, to work. This means that their attention is already directed.

Procedure – Step 1Participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire.The questionnaire assessed the participants positivity towards life by giving positive statements such as “I always expect the best outcomes for events that occur in my life” and asking them to rate the statement based on how much they agreed with it (Likert-type scale). Ratings were from 1 to 5 where 1= strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=uncertain, 4=agree, and 5=strongly agree. (Knapp, 2009)I wrote the participants’ names on their questionnaires after they were completed.These surveys were collected over a one week period.

Procedure – Step 2Signs were posted in 8 different locations of Jet’s Pizza in areas where employees worked. I made sure that this was done on a weekend because weekends are busy. Typically all employees will have worked over the course of the weekend.The signs were kept slightly out of eye shot so that someone with a careful eye might find them but not so hidden that they would never be foundIf found, participants were to see a manager (myself or Cera) to collect a reward which was a high fiveWhen a participant found a sign, I recorded the number of the location that it was found on their questionnaireSigns said “If found, please see Cera or Aaron for reward”

To measure amount of positivity or negativity of participants, I counted ratings of 1 or 2 on the scale as a -1 because this would show negativityA rating of 3 stood for “uncertain” so I counted it as 0 as it would be neutralRatings of 4 or 5 counted as +1 since they showed agreement with the statements

The scores on all the questionnaires using the scoring method discussed ranged from -6 to +10

The mean for all questionnaires was +4.89

Participants that found signs –Scores ranged from -6 to +9The mean score was +4.73

Participants that did not find signs –Scores ranged from -4 to +10The mean score was +5.07

11 participants found signs, 15 did not

My hypothesis was not supported by the results of my study. In order for my hypothesis to have been supported, the mean scores should have been higher for participants that found the signs. The opposite was true. Scores were higher for those that didn’t find signs.

One problem that occurred during the study was that once a person found a sign, they found all of them. And they also told people about them which might have contaminated results. Citing these issues and some others had during the study, the following alterations should be made if the study is to be repeated

Don’t make all the signs the same – Once a person found one, they knew what they were looking forChange the signs to say “If you find this, please bring it to a manager”. This way the participant could be rewarded and could be told to keep quiet and not spoil it.

Knapp, G. (2009). “How to be Lucky”.Lecture given at a community college. All questions on questionnaire taken

from this lecture.

Wiseman, R. (2003). The Luck Factor (pp 2-3). Skeptical Inquirer. Retrieved April 2, 2009http://www.richardwiseman.com/resources/The_Luck_Factor.pdfNot actually taken from book but from an article written by Wiseman for the Skeptical Inquirer which summarized the book and his findings