Photos Showing Unlucky People Having A Really Bad Day

But that subjective aspect of bad luck also makes it possible for people to rid themselves of the perception that they suffer from it. Zwick and colleagues, in an experiment detailed in a 2012 article in Journal of Experimental Psychology, found that subjects who experienced misfortune were more willing to take risks again, if they had washed their hands -- a traditional superstitious ritual that supposedly cleanses a person of bad luck.