Murphy s Theorem Why do the things that you fear happen the more you are afraid of happening?

Mondo Psychological Updated on 2024-01-31

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Murphy's theorem is a psychological effect, also known as Murphy's Law or Murphy's Law, which is an empirical way of observation and expression that was proposed by the American engineer Edward Arnold Murphy in 1949. The basic implication of this theory is that if something is likely to go wrong, it can eventually happen, no matter how unlikely it is. In layman's terms, it is a manifestation of "what you are afraid of", or "backfire".

Murphy's Law is not only a question of error probability in engineering design and experimental operation, but also more commonly applied to human life and work, and has become a psychological effect that warns people of potential risks. It reminds us to consider all possible scenarios as fully as possible when making decisions and actions, and to take precautions to reduce the chance of accidents.

Although Murphy's Law is often viewed as a pessimistic statement, its practical effect is more positive, i.e., by highlighting the possibility of potential problems, prompting people to be more vigilant and avoid overly optimistic estimates and ignore potential crises.

1.Technical equipment failure: You are preparing for an important ** meeting or presentation, and the equipment has been working well before. But just a few minutes before the meeting started, the network suddenly disconnected, the computer crashed, or the microphone failed.

2.Travel delays: When you're in a hurry to get to the airport for a flight and have a short gap in time, you'll often run into traffic jams, long security queues, or flight delays, resulting in missed scheduled flights.

3.Kitchen accidents: The more you worry about the oil spilling and burning yourself when you are carefully cooking, the more you will inadvertently touch the hot pan and cause the oil stars to splash out.

4.Back up your data: If you regularly back up important files on your computer, you may not experience hard drive corruption for a long timeAnd once you are lazy and do not back up in time, it is likely that you will suffer a hard drive failure and lose important data.

5.Exam review: On the eve of the exam, you reviewed a lot of content, but there was always a corner in your heart that you felt that a certain knowledge point would not be tested, and you encountered this knowledge point in the exam.

These situations all embody the core idea of Murphy's Law – that an adverse event that seems to be extremely unlikely is always possible under certain conditions. Therefore, when we carry out various activities, we need to make adequate plans and risk prevention.

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