National Geographic looks at where the superstition comes from and what the research says, checked claim by claim.
46
claims in 34 statements
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Claim 1 of 46Confirmed
Factual claim · Statement 1 of 34 · Strong evidence
Several independent sources confirm that 2026 has three Friday the 13ths, in February, March, and November. The Providence Journal says it “will occur three times in 2026 – in February, March, and November”; Florida Today, Bakersfield News, EarthSky, Statesman, and the New York Times say the same.
Factual claim · Statement 2 of 34 · Strong evidence
Multiple independent pages, including the University of Chicago Booth School of Business listing her chair and a 2018 Journal of the Association for Consumer Research author note, identify Jane Risen as a professor of behavioral science at Chicago Booth. A Nautilus piece describes her in exactly the claim's wording, as does a ScienceDaily report.
Factual claim · Strong evidence
Jane Risen is a behavioral scientist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
The Indian Express reports that Jane Risen told National Geographic the existence of such a day can influence even nonbelievers. Vox and Skeptical Inquirer similarly describe Risen's work showing that people cave in to superstitions even when they know they are illogical, and that she explained why people act on superstitions they do not believe in.
Factual claim · Statement 3 of 34
The available sources were not specific enough for a confident result.
No source links were saved with this assessment. Treat this answer as limited until it is checked again.
No source links were published for this claim.
Quote · Statement 4 of 34 · Strong evidence
The Springer conceptual analysis states that the availability heuristic is the tendency to use the ease of generating examples as a cue to category size or likelihood. The All.Net Psychology of Intelligence Analysis likewise says people use the ease of imagining relevant instances as a probability cue, and a separate Springer article says people sometimes use the ease of imagining a scenario as a gauge to its likelihood.
Factual claim · Statement 5 of 34
The sources repeatedly link Friday the 13th to magical thinking and describe the Friday the 13th superstition as widespread. But none states that this kind of thinking is more widespread on Friday the 13th than on other days, so the comparative claim is not settled.
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Quote
This kind of thinking may be more widespread on Friday the 13th.
Jane Risen is directly quoted as saying that even without active belief, the fact that Friday the 13th exists as a known cultural element means she entertains it as a possibility. The same quotation is repeated in another source, and a related passage summarizes her research on how cultural superstition can influence skeptics.
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Factual claim · Statement 6 of 34 · Strong evidence
The evidence supports the claim: National Geographic states that people 'tend to notice it more if bad things happen on that day', and an independent University of Toronto page explains that people notice and remember bad events on Friday the 13th while ignoring them on other days. A Cornell psychologist similarly describes the mind as associative, linking bad events to Friday the 13th.
Quote · Statement 7 of 34
The exact statement appears in S2, though that Facebook page is not independent. Independent sources describe the same psychological pattern: superstitious intuitions are maintained even when they are not true, System 2 can recognize the error but still acquiesce to the intuition, and people often stick with an intuition even after acknowledging its absurdity.
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Factual claim · Statement 8 of 34 · Strong evidence
Chicago Booth Review reports that Jane Risen and colleagues tested whether avoidant gestures such as knocking on wood or throwing salt make people feel protected from a jinx, and found this across five experiments. Business Insider likewise describes Risen-linked research finding such avoidant actions effective for helping people feel protected from negative outcomes, while NPR says superstitious gestures like knocking wood and throwing salt might actually help people avoid what they dread. Risen herself is quoted saying avoidant actions are especially effective at reducing anticipated negative consequences after a jinx.
Factual claim · Statement 9 of 34
The general picture is supported: Risen's work notes that adults who do not believe in luck still take part in lucky rituals anyway, and other research indicates rituals can help even people who don't believe in them. But the specific framing is off — the finding about nonbelievers engaging in rituals is credited to Risen (2016), not a 2014 study, and 'both types of people reported benefits' comes from separate ritual studies rather than being established in one 2014 paper.
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Quote · Statement 10 of 34
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Reported claim · Statement 11 of 34
National Geographic's article directly quotes Rebecca Borah of the University of Cincinnati saying Friday the 13th's mental benefits can include a sense of order that modern life can lack, and the piece frames the holiday as offering structure amid 'random and uncontrollable worries'; a second National Geographic piece repeats the same attribution. The quoted framing around superstitions as attempts to understand and control fate in an uncertain world matches the way the claim summarizes her point.
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Factual claim
According to Rebecca Borah, simply being aware of superstitions may help to instill a sense of order in a world of random and uncontrollable worries.
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No source links were published for this claim.
Quote · Statement 12 of 34
National Geographic’s 2014 article “Why Does Friday the 13th Scare Us So Much?” identifies Rebecca Borah and quotes her verbatim saying the line. Another page also states that she told National Geographic in 2014, and National Geographic repeated the same quotation in a later article.
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Reported claim · Statement 13 of 34
The available sources were not specific enough for a confident result.
These links belong to the claim, but no exact sentence was found on their pages. Review the sources before relying on this result.
Factual claim · Statement 14 of 34 · Strong evidence
Multiple sources, including National Geographic's own articles and independent outlets, state that some people stay home on Friday the 13th. Ryanair's superstition guide says people 'will even stay home from work', Audacy notes 'many stay home', the North Shore Journal lists 'even stay home' among behaviors, and Cleveland Clinic's psychologist says studies show people 'stay at home' on that date.
Factual claim · Strong evidence
Some people may even stay at home on Friday the 13th.
Multiple independent sources state the claim directly: sofatutor says most accidents happen at home, NWAS asks 'Did you know that most accidents happen at home?', and the HSC Public Health Agency says more accidents happen in the home than anywhere else. Safe at Last also reports that 53.6% of accidents happen in the household.
Factual claim · Statement 15 of 34 · Strong evidence
Multiple independent sources describe tracing superstition origins as difficult: BPS says finding where customs, traditions and superstitions stem from is surprisingly difficult and that superstitions are tricky to trace, while Gizmodo says finding their real basis is incredibly difficult and their original meaning is debated. The Farmers’ Almanac notes historians have not established one definite origin, and an APA interview says the origin is very old and not exactly known.
Factual claim · Statement 16 of 34 · Strong evidence
The BPS page identifies Stuart Vyse as a former professor of psychology at Connecticut College and an author of Believing in Magic. Other sources confirm his long teaching career at Connecticut College and his authorship.
Quote
Stuart Vyse is an author and former professor of psychology at Connecticut College in New London.
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Quote · Strong evidence
Stuart Vyse is an author and former professor of psychology at Connecticut College in New London.
The National Geographic account states directly that Judas, the apostle said to have betrayed Jesus, was the 13th guest at the Last Supper, and independent outlets repeat the same traditional account. The sources present this as the traditional biblical story, which is the claim's plain content.
Factual claim · Strong evidence
Stuart Vyse is an author and former professor of psychology at Connecticut College in New London.
Multiple sources across decades describe Friday as having been known as Hangman's Day. Says it became known as "Hangman's Day" because criminals were executed on Fridays; says Friday was also known as Hangman's Day in Britain and Ancient Rome; says people were commonly hung on Friday, which became known as hangman's day;,, and likewise describe Friday as historically called Hangman's Day in Britain or as the day for capital punishment.
Quote · Statement 17 of 34
Multiple pages quote psychologist Stuart Vyse describing the merging of the two fears as a "sort of double whammy of 13 falling on an already nervous day". The National Geographic pages are the checked text's own publisher and only show the words were published, but independent pages (dogonews.com and thelist.com) carry the same quotation.
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Reported claim · Statement 18 of 34
Multiple outlets state exactly the claim: National Geographic's Friday-the-13th article says "some biblical scholars believe Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit on Friday", and DOGOnews, Creditplus and brucegerencser.net repeat the same attribution. The claim is about a belief held by some scholars, and the sources consistently report that belief.
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Reported claim · Strong evidence
Some biblical scholars believe Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit on a Friday.
EBSCO's Friday the 13th entry states that some biblical scholars believe Cain killed Abel on Friday the 13th, and another source repeats the same attribution. A separate page quotes a writer making the same claim about some biblical scholars, while other pages give a related version that says only 'Friday'. The source article itself also states this belief, but it is the checked text's own publisher.
Factual claim · Statement 19 of 34 · Good evidence
The Spanish sources identify Spain’s unlucky date as Tuesday the 13th, not Friday the 13th. That supports the claim that Spain avoided the specific Friday/13 pairing, even though it has its own Tuesday/13 superstition.
Factual claim · Statement 20 of 34 · Strong evidence
The Local’s article on Spanish superstitions states that it is Tuesday 13th, not Friday 13th, that is considered unlucky in Spain. TopUniversities and BBC agree, and Euroweekly explicitly says Friday 13th is not feared in Spain and that people can marry on that day without a care.
Factual claim
Friday the 13th is no cause for alarm in Spain.
The evidence says Tuesday the 13th is culturally considered unlucky or feared in Spain, but sources also state there is no scientific evidence it is more dangerous than any other day and statistical studies show no unusual concentration of accidents or negative events on those days. That contradicts the claim that it is the year's most dangerous date.
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Reported claim · Statement 21 of 34
Worldwidewords reports that some writers put the idea much further back, into Hindu mythology, and IndiaTimes notes that some sources place the origins even earlier in the Code of Hammurabi. Wikipedia adds that several authors claim the belief is older, while also noting that no evidence for that has been documented so far, which qualifies the strength of the suspicion but does not contradict that such suspicions exist.
These links belong to the claim, but no exact sentence was found on their pages. Review the sources before relying on this result.
Factual claim
Other experts suspect even older roots for triskaidekaphobia.
Multiple sources state triskaidekaphobia is the fear of the number 13, not of Friday the 13th: Smithsonian defines it as fear of the number 13, HistoryExtra calls it 'the fear of the number 13', and Armenpress says the fear of 13 has been given that name. The fear of Friday the 13th has its own name, paraskevidekatriaphobia (sometimes friggatriskaidekaphobia), per CityNews, Britannica and Verywell Mind.
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Factual claim · Statement 22 of 34 · Strong evidence
Newsweek and The Week identify Thomas Fernsler as an associate policy scientist in the Mathematics and Science Education Resource Center at the University of Delaware, with The Week giving the Newark location. A University of Delaware Messenger article also names him the associate policy scientist in the University’s Mathematics & Science Education Resource Center, and other UD and news pages repeat the same role and center.
Quote · Strong evidence
Thomas Fernsler is an associate policy scientist in the Mathematics and Science Education Resource Center at the University of Delaware in Newark.
The University of Delaware Messenger page states that Fernsler says the number suffers from its position after 12, which numerologists consider complete. Other pages also attribute the same explanation to Fernsler, and one quotes the wording directly.
Factual claim · Statement 23 of 34
Britannica and CBC confirm the 12 months, zodiac signs, Olympian gods, tribes of Israel, and apostles. The only sentence mentioning Hercules' 12 labors is from a Reddit page marked NOT INDEPENDENT, so that element is not reliably established. A reliable source for the 12 labors of Hercules is missing.
These links belong to the claim, but no exact sentence was found on their pages. Review the sources before relying on this result.
Quote · Statement 24 of 34
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No source links were published for this claim.
Factual claim · Statement 25 of 34 · Strong evidence
Multiple culture and travel sources state that Italians do not fear Friday the 13th and instead treat Friday the 17th as the unlucky date: La Revista Binacional describes it as not fearing Friday 13th but Friday 17th, TopUniversities reports the same via an Italian physicist, The Local says Friday 13th is not a bad omen while Friday 17th is the date to be wary of, and another The Local article says the number 17 is viewed with suspicion and Friday the 17th is the unlucky date.
Factual claim · Statement 26 of 34 · Strong evidence
Multiple independent pages, including Euronews, thegotoguy.co.za and Wikipedia's Friday the 17th article, state that the Roman numeral for 17, XVII, can be rearranged to spell "VIXI." The letters X, V, I, I are the same set as V, I, X, I, so the anagram holds.
Factual claim · Statement 27 of 34
The Calendar-UK page repeats the exact phrase that VIXI is “translated from Latin to mean ‘my life is over’”, but its surrounding sentences clarify that the Latin word literally means “I have lived,” with “my life is over” or “I’m dead” being the implication. Other sources agree that “my life is over” is an implication rather than the direct literal translation.
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Quote · Statement 28 of 34 · Strong evidence
Multiple independent pages confirm Thomas Gilovich is a professor of psychology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences listing, the AEA article, the Center for Inquiry profile, and Cornell's own psychology department page and news article. The title is given more precisely as the Irene Blecker Rosenfeld Professor of Psychology, which is consistent with the claim.
Quote
Thomas Gilovich is a professor of psychology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
The PBS page quotes Thomas Gilovich saying, “Once [superstitions] are in the culture, we tend to honor them,” in a 2013 piece. A Cornell page likewise attributes the same statement to Gilovich and dates his explanation to 2013.
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Reported claim · Statement 29 of 34
The available sources were not specific enough for a confident result.
These links belong to the claim, but no exact sentence was found on their pages. Review the sources before relying on this result.
Quote · Statement 30 of 34
Pikaan is not showing a result or sources for this claim until its wording is fixed.
No source links were published for this claim.
Reported claim · Statement 31 of 34 · Strong evidence
The evidence identifies a 2011 German study, published in the World Journal of Surgery, that examined Friday the 13th and found no increase in emergency-room visits or surgical blood loss. USPS and a reference table likewise summarize the 2011 German finding as no correlation with increased accidents and no impact on intra-operative blood loss or emergency frequency. That supports the claim's core that the study found no reason to treat Friday-the-13th surgery as riskier.
Factual claim · Statement 32 of 34
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Quote · Statement 33 of 34
STAT News reports that a 2012 study of six hospitals found no increased risk of emergency room visits on Friday the 13th. Technology Networks identifies that study as Lo et al. And says emergency department visits were not increased, and a later article describes the same Lo et al. 2012 study of six U.S. Hospitals as finding no increase in emergency hospital visits. One sentence notes a single exception among specific conditions studied, but the central finding of no overall ER uptick is well supported.
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Factual claim · Statement 34 of 34
This is a generalization about a difference with no stated date, period, or comparison baseline, so the evidence cannot resolve it as a single fact. The sources point in different directions: one analysis says S&P 500 returns and annualized gains are lower on Friday the 13th than on other Fridays, while other analyses say stocks trade much like any other day or even rise more often, and a 2019 paper found lower returns. The result depends on the market index, measure, and period studied, so the claim is not fully supported as stated.
Pikaan found this exact sentence on the publisher’s page. Finding it does not show whether it supports or contradicts the claim.
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Claim 1 of 46
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