Old Wives' Tale: Why jinxes appear to work

In folklore, a jinx is someone commenting on good luck and, in doing so, attracts bad luck.

You go the cloudy outside expecting rain yet it’s sunny. You comment on your good luck and say, “I can’t believe it’s sunny.” Your companion replies, “Don’t jinx it.” And what happens next? It rains.

There’s a good explanation as to why a jinx ‘works’. Drift away from the folklore explanation and instead view it as a matter of probability.

Again with the sun/rain example, the jinxed sentence is an expression of surprise that the unlikely outcome (i.e. the sunshine) has happened. Following this, the most likely outcome (i.e. rain) happens. The jinx doesn’t ‘work’ as a causal relationship (as one would expect when reading ‘jinxes are real’) but instead is simply recognition of probability.

Even with a basic understanding of probability, the fact that the most likely outcome ends up happening is hardly surprising. The more likely the outcome is, the more often it happens.

A jinx, then, is just like incorrectly calling an election before the results are finalised: there’s still plenty of time for things to change. The more opportunity for change, the more divergence there will be between the most likely and least likely outcomes happening.

The jinx itself doesn’t influence outcomes but it does influence the way humans perceive the world. Perception influences the views and opinions of a person and, as such, a jinx can very much be real.



Old Wives’ Tales: Salt makes water boil faster

https://frostgriffin.blogspot.com/2018/08/old-wives-tale-salt-makes-water-boil.html