Why Does Friday the 13th Scare Us? this is History of a Phobia

1st Review :( Why Does Friday the 13th Scare Us? ) 

This year's only Friday the 13th is upon us, and it's paired with a full moon to boot. The occasional calendar quirk has revived old fears of bad luck and calamities ranging from auto accidents to stock market crashes.

Experts say such fears are long ingrained in Western culture, and they've been amply reinforced by the slasher-flick franchise featuring everyone's favorite hockey-masked murderer Jason Voorhees.

But take heart. Some research suggests you may actually be a bit safer on this ill-omened day. And superstitions, when not taken to extremes, can even give some believers a psychological boost.

Friday the 13th's mental benefits can include a sense of order, something that can be lacking in modern lives, said Rebecca Borah, a professor of English at the University of Cincinnati. Superstitions are attempts to understand and even control fate in an uncertain world. "When you have rules and you know how to play by them, it always seems a lot easier," she said. "If you have Dracula, you can pretty much figure out how to avoid him, or go out and get the garlic and be able to ward off evil. That's pretty comforting."

Friday the 13th can offer structure in a world where random and uncontrollable worries range from school shootings to extreme weather. "It's comforting in that we can sort of handle Friday the 13th," Borah added. "We don't do anything too scary today, or double check that there's enough gas in the car or whatever it might be. Some people may even stay at home—although statistically most accidents happen in the home, so that may not be the best strategy."

Fear Begets Fear

However, Stuart Vyse, a professor of psychology at Connecticut College in New London, pointed out that Friday the 13th certainly does have its dark side—even if we create it within our own minds.

"If nobody bothered to teach us about these negative taboo superstitions like Friday the 13th, we might in fact all be better off," he said in 2013.

People who harbor a Friday the 13th superstition might have triskaidekaphobia, or fear of the number 13, and often pass on their belief to their children, he noted. Popular culture's obsession with fear—think of those Friday the 13th horror films and even this story—helps keep it alive, added Vyse, the author of Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition.

Although superstitions can be arbitrary—a fear of ladders or black cats, for example—"once they are in the culture, we tend to honor them," said Thomas Gilovich, a professor of psychology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

"You feel like if you are going to ignore it, you are tempting fate," he explained in 2013.

Origins Rooted in Religion

The trepidation surrounding Friday the 13th is rooted in religious beliefs surrounding the 13th guest at the Last Supper—Judas, the apostle said to have betrayed Jesus—and the crucifixion of Jesus on a Friday, which was known as hangman's day and was already a source of anxiety, Vyse said.

The two fears merged, resulting "in this sort of double whammy of 13 falling on an already nervous day," he said.

The taboo against the number 13 spread with Christianity and into non-Christian areas, noted Phillips Stevens, Jr., an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Buffalo in New York. "It became extremely widespread through the Euro-American world, embedded in culture, [and] extremely persistent," he said in 2013.

More interesting, he noted, is why people associate any Friday the 13th with bad luck. The answer, he said, has to do with what he calls principles of "magical thinking" found in cultures around the world.

One of these principles involves things or actions: If they "resemble other things in any way of resemblance—shape or sound or odor or color—people tend to think those things are related and in a causal way," he explained.

In this framework, there were 13 people present at the Last Supper, so anything connected to the number 13 is bad luck.

Numerology

Thomas Fernsler, an associate policy scientist in the Mathematics and Science Education Resource Center at the University of Delaware in Newark, said the number 13 suffers because of its position after 12.

According to Fernsler, numerologists consider 12 a "complete" number. There are 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles of Jesus.

Fernsler said 13's association with bad luck "has to do with just being a little beyond completeness. The number becomes restless or squirmy," he said in 2013.

Then there's Friday. Not only was Christ crucified on that day, but some biblical scholars believe Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit on a Friday. Perhaps most significant is a belief that Abel was slain by his brother Cain on Friday the 13th.

Negative Effects

On Friday the 13th, some people are so crippled by fear that they lock themselves inside; others have no choice but to grit their teeth and nervously get through the day.

Interestingly, they may actually encounter a slightly less dangerous world. A 2008 study by the Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics revealed that fewer traffic accidents occur on a Friday the 13th than on other Fridays. Reports of fire and theft also dropped, the study found.

Nevertheless, many people will refuse to fly, buy a house, or act on a hot stock tip, inactions that noticeably slow economic activity, according to Donald Dossey, a folklore historian and founder of the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina.

"It's been estimated that $800 or $900 million [U.S.] is lost in business on this day because people will not fly or do business they normally would do," he said in 2013.

To overcome the fear, Vyse said, people should take small steps outside their comfort zone. Those who are afraid to leave the house could consider meeting a close friend at a cozy cafe, for example.

"Try some small thing that they would be reluctant to do under normal circumstances and gradually experience, hopefully, no horrible thing happen when they push through and carry on," he said.

2nd review :( Friday the 13th , History of a Phobia )

To understand Friday the 13th’s fall from grace, scholars have first tried to determine what about the number 13 rubs so many people across so many cultures the wrong way. Some have suggested that its nasty reputation dates back to at least 1780 B.C., when the ancient Babylonian legal document known as the Code of Hammurabi was enacted without a 13th law; this hypothesis has been questioned, however, since the original text did not include numeration. Others have pointed out that 13’s younger sibling, the number 12, traditionally signifies completeness: There are 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 months of the year, 12 hours on the clock and 12 tribes of Israel, among other famous dozens. Anywhere outside a bakery, then, 13 is considered a transgression of this rule.

But why are Fridays that fall on a month’s 13th day so vilified? According to biblical sources, Friday was the day on which Eve offered Adam the forbidden fruit and Jesus was crucified. Another popular theory links the superstition to the demise of the Knights Templar, a monastic military order whose members were arrested en masse by France’s King Philip IV on Friday, October 13, 1307.

Popular culture further denigrated Friday the 13th as early as 1907, when Thomas Lawson wrote a book about a broker who tries to bring down Wall Street on that day. Then, the American cultural touchstone that is the “Friday the 13th” horror film franchise debuted in 1980, forever associating the day with a machete-wielding psychopath in a hockey mask. The most recent installment premiered in 2009.

Over the years, attempts have been made to debunk the notion that 13 is an unlucky number and prove that Friday the 13th is a day like any other. In the 1880s a group of influential New Yorkers formed a club for that express purpose, taking particular offense at the unwritten rule against seating 13 people at a table. (Legend had it that one of the 13 would die within a year, a belief that may have roots in the story of Jesus’ last supper, and that one guest would become seriously ill if the meal took place on Friday the 13th.) The group’s leader was William Fowler, a Civil War veteran with a defiant fondness for the dreaded figure: He had served with distinction in 13 major battles, retired from the army on August 13, 1863, and leased the club’s future headquarters, a Manhattan tavern called the Knickerbocker Cottage, on the 13th day of the following month.

Fowler officially founded the Thirteen Club in 1880 and invited his acquaintances to dine together in groups of 13 on the 13th day of each month. It would take a year for the decorated captain to draft 13 men plucky enough to attempt the feat. Finally, the inaugural dinner took place on Friday, January 13, 1881, in room 13 of the Knickerbocker. Since Fowler and his like-minded recruits hoped to flout as many old wives’ tales as possible, they entered by walking under a ladder and sat down to a table covered in spilled salt. Fowler’s brainchild became one of New York’s most distinguished and popular clubs, attracting nearly 500 members by 1887. Other branches cropped up in other cities, some of which were open to women at a time when men dominated the country’s social clubs. By the time the last of the Thirteen Clubs closed in the 1940s, five presidents had been granted honorary membership.

So how unlucky is Friday the 13th, really? Experts say accurate data is impossible to collect since many people around the world avoid certain activities, including travel and surgery, on that day. A 2008 Dutch study concluded that fewer automobile accidents, fires and crimes occur on Friday the 13th, adding the caveat that superstitious would-be victims may simply have stayed out of harm’s way. Past Black Fridays notwithstanding, Friday the 13th may actually be a boon for finance: According to CNBC, the market has been up 80 times out of the past 140 Friday the 13ths.