Not everyone believes in luck but many are superstitious enough to fear the good old ‘jinx’. Nobody wants to ‘jinx’ something do they? But what is it about our imaginary gremlin the jinx? According to the article “Magical thinking drives insurance sales” a number of people only buy travel insurance for the reason that if they don’t they will ‘jinx’ their holiday. Or to continue along this thread, something is bound to go wrong if we pre-empt a smooth incident free holiday.
In her article, Misty Harris addresses the academic study that has revealed Canadians purchase insurance for protection against something from going wrong in the same way that people carry a rabbit’s foot for luck. If insurance is not taken, Canadians are likely to feel like they tempted fate and that they brought it on themselves if something goes wrong.
Rutgers University in New Jersey carried out the survey of 243 people, discovering superstitious people generally believed a valuable glass bowl was more likely to break in the post because they were tempting fate and not purchasing appropriate insurance. Along with Murphy’s Law, these people also believed the bowl would be safe as houses in the event that insurance was purchased for its postage.
A traveller fro Toronto, 24 year old Rebecca Fishman took out some travel and medical insurance when she set off for South America and put down the fact that she didn’t fall ill or that nothing awful happened to her because she avoided the jinx. She believes that if she hadn’t purchased suitable insurance that she would have probably tempted fate and ended up in hospital somewhere out the back of beyond.
In the article, Misty Harris concluded that even people who do not necessarily believe in luck are prone to avoid pushing it.