Friday the 13th: why it's considered bad luck and how it came to be

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(CNN) --

At least once a year, calendar dates line up to give us Friday the 13th. Airline prices tend to drop, your superstitious boss avoids important meetings, and all day long, there's a little part of you that waits for something strange to happen.

Why are we like this?

Whether you're superstitious or not, you can't escape everything that surrounds the spookiest calendar date.

• 5 great tragedies that happened on Friday the 13th

Why 13?

The fear of 13 in dates dates back centuries and is believed by many to originate from the Code of Hammurabi which reportedly omitted a 13th law from its written legal codes.

However, in reality, this was just a mistake made by one of the translators who simply left out a line of text.

Such superstitions have persisted even among the greatest minds in history.

The great Austrian-American composer Arnold Schoenberg suffered from such a severe case of triskaidekaphobia (the fear of the number 13), that he omitted the numbering of measure 13 in some of his later works, substituting the notation "12a".

According to reports, he also deeply feared that he would die in a year or at an age that was a multiple of 13. When he turned 76, a colleague suggested that it would be an unlucky year because 7 + 6 = 13. In fact, Schoenberg passed away that year, the...wait a bit...on Friday the 13th of July 1951.

It is interesting to note the contrasting history of the number 12 with the number 13. We have 12 months per year, 12 zodiac signs, 12 hours per day, and even 12 days of Christmas, a prominence stemming from the historical influence of the New Testament of the Bible and other Judeo-Christian traditions.

Even Schoenberg, the number 13's greatest enemy, was best known for developing a 12-tone musical composition system.

Why on Friday?

The negative association of Friday specifically has a combination of religious and cultural origins.

Some Christians believe that Friday is unlucky because it was the day of the week that Jesus was crucified.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, prominent figures and writers began publicly denouncing that day with little context as to why.

George Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales" describes Friday as "a day of disgrace" and playwright Robert Greene defined the "Friday-face" as "a sad look of dismay or anguish".

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Why Friday the 13th?

Unsurprisingly, we're not exactly sure of the historical evidence that made Friday the 13th a byword for bad luck and superstition.

There are many theories going back centuries, but most of them have been completely debunked.

• 13 curiosities about Friday the 13th

The real hysteria for Friday the 13th began in the 20th century.

Many go back to Thomas Lawson's book, "Friday, the Thirteenth," which is about a stockbroker who chooses this day to deliberately crash the stock market.

A year later, in 1908, The New York Times became one of the first media outlets to acknowledge Friday the 13th superstitions. Later in the 1980s, the popularity of the "Friday the 13th" film franchise was added to the cultural phenomenon.

The science behind the superstition

One in four Americans say they are superstitious.

Although the other three out of four Americans might scoff at this, psychological science can actually back up the superstition.

Psychologists at Kansas State University say that superstitions are about trying to control your destiny.

People often use superstitions to try to achieve a desired result or to help relieve anxiety.

A perfect example of this is the performers and athletes who perform specific and sometimes extravagant rituals before a big event.

Mathematician and author Joesph Mazur explains how having superstitions can actually promote a healthy, positive mindset.

"Everyone wants luck, but since there is nothing tangible that we can call luck, we have to create that tangible thing by transferring it to an object. People cling to those objects as a sense of security."

A 2010 study by psychologist Stuart Vyse tested a group of people on various memory tasks.

The group of people who were allowed to take their charms with them performed better on memory tests than the people who had their charms taken away.

"It all has to do with that 'low cost' confidence booster," Vyse concluded.

By that logic, Friday the 13th could be both lucky and unlucky, depending on your perspective.

So instead of being afraid of this mysterious date, try incorporating some positive rituals into your life and wait and see what happens!

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