Psychologist reveals the luck factor

Professor Richard Wiseman brings a touch of humour to the science of luck. Picture / Brian Fischbacher

Ironically enough, Professor Richard Wiseman, one of Britain's pre-eminent psychologists, has become something of a global good luck charm.

Not in a superstitious sense: rabbits' feet, broken mirrors and black cats mean nothing to this self-confessed sceptic. But in a scientific sense: his pioneering research into luck proved that it isn't just the Fates controlling good or bad fortune. Thoughts and behaviour play a far more pivotal role.

Before starting his research, Professor Wiseman thought the number of people who described themselves as either lucky or unlucky was too large to be a random phenomenon, so he attempted to "set the record straight" and placed advertisements in newspapers around Britain seeking consistently lucky and unlucky participants to join in his experiments and be interviewed about key moments in their lives.

"For the most part, these people were making their own luck by the way they were behaving," he says. "There was a very good reason why some people got all the lucky breaks."

Obviously, not everything in life can be controlled (he steers clear of gambling, simply because chance affects all equally), but Professor Wiseman says, more often than not, luck - either good or bad - is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

He identified four simple principles that those leading charmed lives exhibited more regularly - usually without realising it - than their unfortunate associates: they increased their chance encounters by having networks of friends; they went with their initial instincts; they expected to be lucky; and they could see positives coming from negatives.

As the introduction to Professor Wiseman's best-selling book The Luck Factor says: "In short, this book presents that most elusive of holy grails - a scientifically proven way to understand, control, and increase your luck."

Look in the spiritual health section of your local bookstore, however, and you'll likely see hundreds of books claiming to change your life in four easy steps. On first inspection, Professor Wiseman's book appears to be one of them.

But, unlike much of the information being peddled by self-help charlatans, the major difference is that his branch of "positive psychology" can be backed up with scientific proof.

"I'm trying to get science into these areas," he says. "The authors say their advice works, but we don't know if any of it works. For all we know they could be selling snake oil. But psychologists don't tend to research the kinds of things people are actually interested in, and I think The Luck Factor bridged that gap between popular psychology and psychology."

It also connected him with the public by "getting into people's lives". He says this personal contact (he still gets plenty of thank-you emails) is a rare, but rewarding, phenomenon for scientists because, aside from a few notable exceptions, he admits they are often a relatively faceless bunch.