以中国文化背景为例，人们偏好数字6或者数字8且规避数字4，前人研究己在车牌号以及结婚日期等情境中重复发现了人们的这种数字偏好行为，却尚未有研究专门去探讨这种幸运数字偏好的原因。而幸运数字偏好作为一种迷信行为，从理论上推导可能是由低控制感导致的。获得控制感是人们生活中一种普遍的行为动机，以往研究者对迷信行为的研究，探讨了心理控制源和迷信的关系，或者是操纵控制感对迷信行为的影响。故本研究将专门讨论是否心理控制源与幸运数字偏好行为相关以及是否是低控制感使得人们诉诸幸运数字偏好。
本文包含3个正式研究:研究一首先采用档案数据和问卷调查了267名被试，验证幸运数字偏好这种现象是否存在，研究二采用问卷调查198名被试，探讨了幸运数字偏好和心理控制源的关系，研究三则采用实验研究的方法，请82名被试完成回忆任务来操纵被试的控制感，观察了幸运数字偏好是否可以在实验室操纵控制感的情境中得到验证。除研究一的档案数据外，研究对象均为大学生和研究生。研究一验证了这种数字偏好现象。研究二则发现心理控制源与幸运数字偏好呈正相关，越采取外在心理控制源的被试越倾向于偏好幸运数字，研究三则发现，控制感降低的状态使得被试更易偏好幸运数字，也就是在幸运数字上出价更高。

The Chinese Culture prefers to see number 6 and number 8 as the lucky number and number 4 the bad number, which is named as the lucky number preference. As a number preference phenomenon, it was repeatedly seen in different scenarios, e.g., in selecting  the  mobile  phone number, license plate number and in selecting day of marriage registration or wedding  day. But no research has been done to specifically discuss the mechanism of this lucky number  preference behavior. Inferring from the explanation for superstitious behavior, the mechanism could be lacking sense of control. Getting sense of control, on the other hand, is the main motivation of human behavior.
Based on what have been done in the field of superstition study, both the locus of control and the compensatory control are related to superstitious behavior. This thesis will mainly focus on the causal relationship between the sense of control and the lucky number preference. The three studies are an archival data analysis and a survey about whether or not the lucky number  preference is a true phenomenon, a survey about the relationship between lucky number and locus of control, and an experiment about whether lacking control by recalling a no control situation will lead to lucky number preference or not. Both survey and experiment used college student and graduate student samples. Study 1 confirms the phenomenon of lucky number  preference and study 2 finds that the higher people score on Internal-External locus of control scale, which means a higher level of external control, the more likely people resort to lucky number. Study 3 finds that decreasing the sense of control will lead to lucky number preference as well.