Loch Ness · VERIFIED OR VIBES? · Lucky charms
By Camille G., founder of Loch Ness · Published September 27, 2026 · Last updated September 27, 2026
Short answer: probably not the way you’d hope. Anyone selling lucky charm jewelry would love to tell you otherwise, and many do, based on one famous 2010 study. What they rarely mention is what happened when other scientists tried to repeat it.
Curious about the symbols themselves? The evil eye was never meant to bring luck, four-leaf clovers are twice as common as everyone says, and nobody agrees which way a horseshoe should hang. We checked all four classics in lucky charm meanings.
The claim: “Science shows lucky charms improve performance”
In 2010, psychologist Lysann Damisch and colleagues at the University of Cologne published four experiments in Psychological Science. People told they were using a “lucky” golf ball putted better; people allowed to keep their own lucky charm did better on memory and anagram tasks (HealthDay; Medical Xpress). The proposed explanation: the charm boosts confidence, which makes people set higher goals and persist longer (Association for Psychological Science).
The study is still widely quoted — including by shops, sometimes as the only evidence (example).
Then someone tried again
In 2014, Robert Calin-Jageman and Tracy Caldwell ran two large, precise replications of the golf experiment. Participants told they had a lucky ball performed almost exactly like everyone else. The authors checked that the failure wasn’t due to small samples, task difficulty or participants’ belief in luck (Social Psychology, 2014).
The details, and what a failed replication means: the lucky golf ball study, replicated.
Verdict: 🟡 Partial — a confidence effect was reported once and failed to replicate; it is not established. And no study shows a charm changing events outside your control.
So why wear one?
Because you like the symbol, because it reminds you of someone, because a small ritual feels good. Those are real reasons. “It will make you luckier” isn’t one we can honestly give you.
Sources
- HealthDay — Good luck charms might just work (2010)
- Medical Xpress — Superstition and performance (2010)
- Association for Psychological Science — How lucky charms really work
- Calin-Jageman & Caldwell — Replication of the superstition and performance study (2014)
- The Lucky Button — example of a shop citing the 2010 study
Update log
September 27, 2026 — First publication.
