Thats how lots of Americans confess would bother them to remain on one specific flooring in high-rise hotels: the 13th.
According to the Otis Elevator Co., for each building with a flooring numbered “13,” 6 other buildings pretend to not have one, avoiding right to 14.
Lots of Westerners alter their habits on Friday the 13th. Naturally, bad things do often take place on that date, however theres no proof they do so disproportionately.
As a sociologist concentrating on social psychology and group processes, Im not so thinking about individual worries and fascinations. What fascinates me is when millions of people share the same misconception to the extent that it impacts habits on a broad scale. Such is the power of 13.
Many elevators do not have a floor numbered 13 due to the fact that of common superstitious notions about the number.
Origins of the superstition
The source of 13s bad track record– “triskaidekaphobia”– is dirty and speculative. The historic description might be as easy as its opportunity juxtaposition with lucky 12. Joe Nickell examines paranormal claims for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, a nonprofit that scientifically examines amazing and controversial claims. He points out that 12 often represents “completeness”: the variety of months in the year, gods on Olympus, signs of the zodiac and apostles of Jesus. Thirteen contrasts with this sense of goodness and perfection.
The number 13 might be associated with some popular but unwanted dinner guests. In Norse folklore, the god Loki was 13th to get to a feast in Valhalla, where he fooled another participant into eliminating the god Baldur. In Christianity, Judas– the apostle who betrayed Jesus– was the 13th visitor at the Last Supper.
Leonardo Da Vinci, The Last Supper, Restored.
The truth is, sociocultural procedures can associate bad luck with any number. When the conditions agree with, a report or superstition generates its own social reality, snowballing like an urban myth as it rolls down the hill of time.
In China, 4 sounds like “death” and is more actively avoided in everyday life than 13 is in Western culture– including a desire to pay higher fees to avoid it in cellular phone numbers. And though 666 is considered fortunate in China, lots of Christians around the world associate it with a wicked beast explained in the biblical Book of Revelation.
Social and psychological explanations
There are numerous sort of specific fears, and individuals hold them for a variety of mental reasons. They can arise from direct negative experiences– fearing bees after being stung by one. Other threat aspects for establishing a phobia include being extremely young, having relatives with fears, having a more sensitive personality and being exposed to others with fears.
Part of 13s credibility may be connected to a feeling of unfamiliarity, or “felt sense of abnormality,” as it is called in the psychological literature. Theres no 13th month, 13-inch ruler, or 13 oclock.
Superstitions, once ingrained, are notoriously hard to eliminate.
People likewise might designate dark credit to 13 for the exact same reason that lots of think in “complete moon effects.” Beliefs that the full moon influences mental health, criminal activity rates, accidents, and other human disasters have been completely unmasked. Still, when individuals are wanting to verify their beliefs, they are prone to infer connections in between unrelated aspects. For instance, having a vehicle accident during a complete moon, or on a Friday the 13th, makes the event appear all the more considerable and remarkable. As soon as locked in, such beliefs are very hard to shake.
There are the powerful impacts of social influences. It takes a town– or Twitter– to make fears coalesce around a specific harmless number. The emergence of any superstition in a social group– worry of 13, walking under ladders, not stepping on a crack, knocking on wood, and so on– is not unlike the increase of a “meme.” Although now the term most frequently refers to widely shared online images, it was initially introduced by biologist Richard Dawkins to help explain how a concept, innovation, style or other little information can diffuse through a population. A meme, in his meaning, resembles a piece of hereditary code: It recreates itself as it is interacted among people, with the prospective to mutate into alternative versions of itself.
The 13 meme is an easy little details connected with bad luck. It resonates with people for reasons offered above, and after that spreads out throughout the culture. As soon as gotten, this piece of pseudo-knowledge offers followers a sense of control over the evils associated with it.
False beliefs, real repercussions
Maybe owing to the near-tragic Apollo 13 mission, NASA stopped sequentially numbering area shuttle objectives, calling the 13th shuttle bus flight STS-41-G. It had been a “b”-like image made of 13 dots. Like numerous other airlines, its planes row numbering skips 13.
Because superstitious beliefs are naturally false, they are as most likely to do harm as good– think about health scams, for example. I d like to believe prominent companies– maybe even elevator companies– would do better to warn the public about the threats of holding on to false beliefs than to continue legitimizing them.
Composed by Barry Markovsky, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of South Carolina.
This short article was very first released in The Conversation.
The number 13 might be associated with some unwanted however well-known dinner visitors. In China, 4 sounds like “death” and is more actively prevented in daily life than 13 is in Western culture– including a willingness to pay higher fees to prevent it in cellphone numbers. Theres no 13th month, 13-inch ruler, or 13 oclock. Maybe owing to the near-tragic Apollo 13 mission, NASA stopped sequentially numbering space shuttle objectives, dubbing the 13th shuttle bus flight STS-41-G. Like lots of other airline companies, its aircrafts row numbering skips 13.
Friday the 13th holds a reputation for bad luck, there is no clinical proof to recommend that negative events occur at a higher rate on this day. Many Westerners still tend to alter their habits on Friday the 13th.
Would you think it odd if I declined to take a trip on Sundays that fall on the 22nd day of the month?
How about if I lobbied the property owner association in my high-rise apartment to avoid the 22nd flooring, jumping from the 21st to 23rd?
Its extremely uncommon to fear 22– so, yes, it would be suitable to see me as a bit odd. But what if, in simply my nation alone, more than 40 million people shared the exact same unwarranted aversion?