Law of Attraction: Myth or Reality? An Honest Look at the Evidence

The law of attraction says like attracts like: positive thoughts bring positive events. As a law of nature it has no support. As a set of habits, parts of it are genuinely useful. Here is how to tell the two apart.

Key Takeaways

There is no scientific evidence for a force that matches events to your thoughts
Expectations do matter, because they change effort and persistence
Pure positive fantasy tends to reduce effort; adding obstacles and plans increases it
Believing that thoughts cause outcomes has a cost: self-blame, overconfidence and risky decisions

An earlier version of this article presented statistics and studies as proof of the law of attraction. Several could not be traced to real research. We have rewritten it.

The claim

The law of attraction holds that thoughts have an energy that draws matching events towards you: think abundance and abundance arrives, dwell on lack and you get more lack. The idea goes back to the New Thought movement of the nineteenth century and was popularised again by the book and film The Secret.

Is it a law?

No. A law of nature makes predictions that can be tested and that hold whoever runs the test. There is no measured "frequency" of a thought, no mechanism by which it could reach events outside your head, and no body of studies showing that it does. Explanations that lean on quantum physics misuse the physics (see our explainer).

Then why does it seem to work?

Several ordinary things can make it feel true.

Selective attention. Once you care about something, you notice it more. The opportunities were often already there.
Expectation changes effort. People who expect to succeed tend to try harder and for longer. In studies of jobs, exams, romance and recovery, positive expectations predicted better results (Oettingen & Mayer, 2002).
Memory keeps the hits. We remember the wish that came true and forget the ones that did not.
Action hides in the story. Most "I manifested it" accounts include a lot of doing: applications, conversations, practice.

The part that backfires

The same research separates expectation from fantasy. Believing you can succeed helped. Spending time in vivid, effortless daydreams of success went with less effort and worse outcomes (Oettingen & Mayer, 2002), and experiments found such fantasies lower the energy people bring to the task (Kappes & Oettingen, 2011).

So the instruction "just feel as if you already have it" is the weakest part of the method.

The costs of taking it literally

Blame. If thoughts cause outcomes, then illness, poverty and loss become the sufferer's fault. They are not. A review of the cancer literature found no good support for the idea that attitude determines survival (Coyne & Tennen, 2010).
Risk. In survey research, strong believers in manifestation were more confident about getting rich and more likely to report risky financial decisions (British Psychological Society summary).
Avoidance. Treating worry as dangerous makes it harder to look at a problem and deal with it.

What is worth keeping

Decide what you want and write it down.
Rehearse the doing. Mental practice has a real, moderate effect on performance (Driskell, Copper & Moran, 1994).
Plan for the obstacle with an if-then plan (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).
Notice what is good. Gratitude journaling has modest, documented benefits for mood (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).
Act, then review.

Verdict

As physics: a myth. As a nudge to get clear, expect that effort can pay off and keep going: useful, provided you add the plan and the action that the slogan leaves out.

For the longer version, read the science behind manifestation.

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