The effect of nine

"People are looking for sense when they are preparing to exchange the next ten years." Such a phrase, in theory, should pronounce a hoarse sunbathing voice at the beginning of the next film of the Cohen brothers: in the frame an empty highway through the prairie, on the screen the first credits. But in fact, this is the headline of the Academic Article in ProChedings of the National Academy of Sciences , one of the main natural science magazines in the world. An article about a strange statistical pattern that two psychologists have noticed when working with data. Adam Alter from New York University and Hal Hershfield from the University of California at Los Angeles claim that if you are 29, 39 or 49, you are more likely to take a certain class of classes-this is, in particular, a run to the marathon distance, marital treason and suicide.

Here it would be possible to suspect some frightening biological mechanism in a slow-action mines mode that is sleeping for a while, and then without warning is launched-like a breakdown of a voice of 13-14 or an increase in wisdom teeth closer to 30. Something like a “Ikarian gland”, an old-assembly writer . But when we are talking about a specific age of 29, 39 or 49 years, it seems, first of all in our interpretation of numbers.

If you are 29, 39 or 49, you are more hunting for a certain class of classes - this, in particular, is a run to the marathon distance, marital treason and suicide.

The brain pays numbers to the numbers disproportionately, and the scale of the numerology, which it is busy without the knowledge of consciousness, we seem to underestimate. For example, we believe that superstition of an arithmetic sense is not about us, rational econs .

For fear of the number 13, the beautiful term “triskidecaphobia” was invented-and even entered in 1994 in DSM-IV , the main American reference book. Well, introduced and introduced, but how common is this phobia? We want to believe that rare freaks, subject to her actually, are kept in a psychiatric hospital. Or, perhaps, these are sane, but suffering from quietly, in which the number 13 is tightly pro-assigned-at the level of innate neural ties-with a screaming pink or with the smell of a rotten radish.

The question in the forehead, asked by sociologists, will clarify little - in the twenty -first century it is a shameful (we do not take the calculations). But indicators are the most unexpected. In 2002, the top manager of OTIS , which produces and sets elevators, confessed in an interview to a little-known real estate portal: in 85 cases out of 100, the customer asks to miss a button for the 13th floor . In the overwhelming majority of US skyscrapers, the 14th is immediately at the 12th. Or, in extreme cases, 12a.

In 2007, the clients forced the Brussels Airlines airline forced to redo the logo: 13 red dots were counted in the stylized letter - and since then there are 14 . In Ireland, special codes were introduced for autonomers issued in 2013 - 131 in the first half of the year and 132 in the second: car dealers were afraid that cars with unhappy numbers would be worse for sale, and the authorities went to meet them.

The top manager of the company, which produces and sets elevators, confessed in the interview in between: in 85 cases out of 100, the customer asks to miss the button for the 13th floor.

From the above, it still does not directly follow that at least a tenth of others is afraid of thirteen. However, their fear is loud enough to change the habitat of everyone else.

The number 13 is the obvious hero of the drama. Phobia, panic, floors and parking lots that should be avoided - this is all negative motivation. Round numbers seem to be associated with something positive, but in close consideration it turns out that here is the main thing-fear.

In 2010, Devin PRUP from the University of Chicago and Uri Simonson from the University of Pennsylvania gathered a separate statistics regarding the magic of numbers with zeros at the end . Graduates noticeably more often retake SAT , an American analogue of the exam, if they lack one score to a round size - although a threshold score for a college is rarely round: in each case, it is calculated according to a formula that can give out any numbers. Baseball players are desperately fighting to finish the season with the record “. 300” in the final tables - such a result (no matter what it means) comes across almost three times more often than “. 299”. Of course, the authors of the study certify, in baseball, this difference guarantees no more changes in status than the difference between “. 301” and “. 302”.

Finally, already in the laboratory, fictional situations were offered in the laboratory: here you are running around the stadium, behind 18/19/20/28/30 circles, and you are exhausted; Run another or go home? Or this: you found a part-time job, you need to stupidly drive data into the exel table; See and understand that today 84 dollars have already earned 16 cents; Will you continue? And if 98 dollars are 16 cents? Each time it turned out that for most surveyed in the situation “without five minutes round” it is inconceivable to take and quit everything as it is.

In a word, not so much round numbers bring satisfaction as “almost round” forced to mobilize, strain with the last forces, make a jerk, etc.

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What does this mean in the case of "almost round age"? 30 years, 40 or 50 are important transshipment points where the culture calls to ask yourself what you have achieved. And the day before - at 29, 39 and 49 - a person is driven by the fear of coming to the mark with empty hands, alter and Hershfield reasoned. This means that it is worth waiting for him to “attempts to set new life goals that increase the feeling of effectiveness, their own significance and meaningfulness.”

City marathons (like Boston or Sydney) themselves beg in materials for analysis. Tens of thousands of people who do not fight for the medal are running, but they want to see the result of work on themselves in numbers - minutes, hours and seconds.

On the eve of the round date - at 29, 39 and 49 - a person is driven by the fear of coming to her empty -handed.

Public statistics can be found, for example, on the site athlinks.com . Alter and Hershfield immediately rejected those who overcame their 42 kilometers faster than three hours (these are athletes, they have their own motives), and formed a sample of 500 participants. The questionnaire indicates at what age a person ran his first marathon. It turned out that in 29 this happens twice as often than in 30 or 28. If you build a diagram, the columns above numbers 49 and 59 are also sharply distinguished against the background of neighbors.

Many repeat the race several times; They were especially interested in researchers. The authors of the article at random chose the results of one hundred 29-year-olds and 39-year-old runners, who also participated in the marathon, being a year older or a year younger. It turned out: when age ends for nine, a person runs out on average by 2.3 percent faster - and this is a serious difference, if you recall that you need to run as whole 42 kilometers. This means that in the year before the anniversary to the marathon they are preparing especially carefully and sweat on the treadmills, not sparing themselves.

The statistics of marital treason (or, if strictly, tendencies for marital treason) were collected on a special dating site "for those who already consist in a relationship." Users whose age ended in nine, here turned out to be 17.88 percent more than the demographic curve predicts.

And finally, suicide statistics have on numbers 29, 39, 49 and 59 small, but still noticeable peaks.

When age ends for nine, a person runs around the marathon distance by an average of 2.3 percent faster.

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The study of Alter and Hershfield has a curious logic: it is not immediately clear where in this task “Given” and where is the X, which they are looking for. The reasoning is: if there is the meaning of life, he must meet there and there. We went to the address and saw an anomaly; Not otherwise than him. Does it look somewhat vague? But this literally repeats the chain of calculations that allowed the astronomers in 1846 to open the Planet Neptune: at first there were mathematical equations about something that disturb the already famous orbits, then the forecast “If something is a planet, then it should be sought there”; They brought the telescope to the desired point of the sky and found.

Very recent studies on the meaning of life in specialized psychological magazines look more like spells: American Psychologist in 2014 prints the article “Life is filled with meaning” - according to the results of the survey “Is there any meaning in your life.” 95 percent confidently respond “yes”; With the question of “Is there God” could have a similar awkwardness.

The work of Alter and Hershfield says that the craving for the search for meaning is an objective force that can change our priorities and sometimes acts destructively. And this is a solid charge of dynamite into the foundation of Maslow's positivist pyramid: it turns out suddenly that “basic needs” - safety, comfort and even self -preservation - recede into the background, when the meaning begins to lack.