Here's why Friday the 13th scares us

The creepiest day on the calendar has returned: Friday the 13th.

In 2022, there was just one ill-fated Friday—May 13. But this year the inauspicious day occurs twice: January 13 and October 13, 2023. It seems that no matter how many of these frightening Fridays we survive unharmed, the dreaded day continues to inspire unease and fears of misfortune.

There's no logical reason to fear the occasional coincidence of any day and date governed by the 400-year cycle of the Gregorian calendar. But Friday the 13th can still have noticeable impacts. Sometimes we create them in our own minds—for good and ill.

Why even skeptics can be superstitious

Jane Risen, a behavioral scientist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, has found that superstitions can influence even nonbelievers. In one 2016 study, Risen found that people who identify as superstitious and non-superstitious both believe a bad outcome is more likely when they've been jinxed. For example, they worry that stating they definitely won't get into a car accident will make it more likely to happen.

(Learn about Friday the 13th with your kids.)

“Generally speaking, I find that this occurs because the bad outcome springs to mind and is imagined more clearly following the jinx,” she explains. “People use the ease of imagining something as a cue to its likelihood.”

This kind of thinking may be more widespread on Friday the 13th: “Even if I don't actively believe, just that fact that Friday the 13th exists as a known cultural element means that I entertain it as a possibility,” she says. When otherwise unremarkable events occur on that date, we tend to notice.

“That adds a bit more fuel to this intuition, makes it feel a bit more true, even when you recognize that it's not true.”

Fortunately, Risen's research also suggests that performing rituals that ward off bad luck—like knocking on wood or throwing salt—can have surprising results. In a 2014 study, she found that some people use them even when they don't actively believe, and when tested, both types of people reported benefits from such acts.

(How horror movies can help people overcome real-world trauma.)

“We find that people who jinx themselves don’t think the bad outcome is especially likely if they knock down on wood,” Risen says. “So, the ritual does seem to help manage their concern.”

In that way, simply being aware of superstitions may help to instill a sense of order in a world of random and uncontrollable worries, according to Rebecca Borah, a professor of English at the University of Cincinnati.

"When you have rules and you know how to play by them, it always seems a lot easier," she told National Geographic in 2014. On Friday the 13th, "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."

The origins of our Friday the 13th fears

It's difficult to pin down the origins and evolution of a superstition. But Stuart Vyse, an author and former professor of psychology at Connecticut College in New London, told National Geographic in 2014 that our fear of Friday the 13th may be 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.

(How did Jesus' final days unfold? Scholars are still debating.)

You May Also Like

SCIENCE

Women are being diagnosed with ADHD at unprecedented rates. Here’s why.

HISTORY MAGAZINE

Poisoned, shot, or drowned? Here’s how Rasputin really died.

SCIENCE

Do you have an inner monologue? Here’s what it reveals about you.

The combination of those factors produced a "sort of double whammy of 13 falling on an already nervous day," Vyse explained. Some biblical scholars also believe Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit on a Friday, and that Abel was slain by his brother Cain on Friday the 13th.

Curiously, Spain appears to have escaped this malevolent marriage of number and day. Friday the 13th is no cause for alarm there, and instead Tuesday the 13th is the year's most dangerous date.

Other experts suspect even older roots for this form of triskaidekaphobia, the scientific name for the fear of Friday the 13th. 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.

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.

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

Numerology may also explain why Italians have no qualms about Friday the 13th but fear the 17th instead. The Roman numeral XVII can be rearranged to spell “VIXI,” which translated from Latin means “my life is over.”

So is Friday the 13th really unlucky?

Arbitrary though they may be, superstitions like fears of ladders, black cats, or “unlucky” numbers are incredibly persistent.

"Once they are in the culture, we tend to honor them," Thomas Gilovich, a professor of psychology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, explained in 2013. "You feel like if you are going to ignore it, you are tempting fate.”

(6 surprisingly lucky animals around the world.)

Some people, whether by determination or necessity, grit their teeth and nervously get through the day. Others really do act differently on Friday the 13th.

They may refuse to travel, buy a house, or act on a hot stock tip, and these inactions can noticeably slow economic activity, according to the late Donald Dossey, a folklore historian and founder of the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute who spoke with National Geographic in 2013.

But while some people do act differently on this day, plenty of research suggests that none of us really find trouble more frequently. In 2011, a German study found that there’s no reason to fear surgery on Friday the 13th; the frequency and likely outcomes of procedures are no different than on any other day. Meanwhile, U.S. emergency rooms see no uptick in patients, other researchers learned in 2012. Even the stock market, in which irrational fears can drive real world behavior, fares no worse on Friday the 13th.

Fortunately, Friday the 13th doesn’t occur all that often. Most years, like 2023, have two Friday the 13ths but some have only one. Particularly unlucky years, such as 2026, feature three of the ill-fated days.

Soon enough, this latest Friday the 13th will end, and even the most superstitious among us can rest easy—at least until the next one.