Quirkology by Richard Wiseman Read Free Book Online Page B

factors influence physical well-being is supported by work showing a relationship between people’s optimism and their health. For instance, in 1996, a team of researchers investigated the link between healthy thinking and longevity among 2,000 Finnish men. The team classified participants into three groups: a “pessimistic” group, whose members expected the future to be bleak; an “optimistic” group, whose members had much higher expectations about the future; and a “neutral” group, whose members held expectations that were neither especially positive nor especially negative. They then monitored the groups over six years and found that the men in the “pessimistic” group were far more likely to die from cancer, cardiovascular disease, and accidents than those in the “neutral” group. In contrast, those in the “optimistic” group exhibited a far lower mortality rate than those in the other two groups. 38
     
    Phillips is not the only researcher to investigate the strange factors that may influence the precise moment people meet the grim reaper. A paper published in the Review of Economics and Statistics in 2003 explored whether tax liability influenced a person’s date of death, 39 combining Phillips’s groundbreaking approach to death with the possibility that parents might manipulate their children’s birth dates to obtain tax incentives. In this paper, Wojciech Kopczuk, from the University of British Columbia, and Joel Slemrod, from the University of Michigan, wondered whether people might die at a moment that is financially most beneficial to those left behind.
     
    To discover whether this was the case, they analyzed the pattern in reported deaths around the time of significant changes to the U.S. tax system. There had been thirteen major changes to the tax laws since the introduction of the tax system in 1916, eight of them resulting in increases in the rate of tax and five resulting in decreases. The changes came into effect approximately a week after they were announced in the media. Analyzing the reported number of deaths in the two weeks before and after each change, the researchers found evidence of an increase in the death rate just before a rise in the tax rate came into effect, and a decrease in the death rate just after a drop in the tax rate. This suggests, as indicated in the title of their paper, that some people may indeed be “Dying to Save Taxes.”
     
    This is not, however, the only interpretation of their data. Deaths are often reported by relatives who are likely to inherit the deceased’s estate, and thus have a vested interest in reducing their tax liability. Consequently, the effect may be evidence that people have misreported the day their wealthy loved one actually died or, in the worst-case scenario, was murdered.
     

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    TRUST EVERYONE, BUT ALWAYS CUT THE CARDS
     
    The Psychology of Lying and Deception
     
    W hen I was eight years old, I saw something that changed my life.
     
    My grandfather handed me a marker pen and asked me to write my initials on a coin. He carefully placed the coin on his palm and closed his hand. After gently blowing on his fingers, he opened his hand. The coin had mysteriously vanished. Next, he reached into his pocket and took out a small tin box that was sealed with several rubber bands. My grandfather handed me this strange-looking package and asked me to remove the bands and open the box. The box contained a small red-velvet bag. I carefully removed it, peeked inside, and couldn’t believe my eyes. The bag contained the initialled coin.
     
    My grandfather’s magic trick spawned a fascination with conjuring that has lasted all my life. In my teens, I became one of the youngest members of a world-famous magic club, The Magic Circle. In my twenties, I worked as a professional magician, performing card tricks at some of London’s most fashionable West End restaurants. Once in a while, I even made an initialled coin disappear and reappear