Psychological Approaches to Good Luck: The Role of Rituals in Uncertainty

Abstract

In uncertain situations, people perform physical actions through rituals to attract good fortune. Five experiments (N = 725) investigated the impacts of rituals, uncertainty, physical actions, and psychological distance on luck perception. Experiments 1A–1C examined whether performing rituals under uncertain situations influenced luck perceptions. The results showed that performing rituals increased the feeling of luck only under conditions of uncertainty, and not certainty. Experiment 2 compared the equivalent roles of different ritual movements (pulling versus pushing) and tested the mediating role of psychological distance in different rituals affecting luck perception. Experiment 3 illustrated that pulling actions increased the feeling of luck even without the ritual attribute, whereas pushing actions did not, thus explaining the mediation mechanism. Our research proposed new functions of rituals in enhancing luck perceptions and their psychological mechanisms and underscored the role of uncertain situations and actions in rituals that influence luck perceptions.