Are you superstitious? Most of us are! Professional sportsmen and women are a good example. Nearly half of them do something superstitious as part of their preparation. Wearing a piece of lucky clothing maybe, carrying a mascot, or going through a special routine. Around the world there are lots of high-rise buildings that don’t seem to have a thirteenth floor. They do of course – but it’s not labelled thirteen. Table thirteen’s rare in restaurants for the same reason. Because so many people think that thirteen’s an unlucky number. I’ll bet you can remember doing something superstitious too. Like carrying a lucky charm, shaking dice a certain way or changing your plans because of something you read in your horoscope. There are lots of superstitions about cats. Like it’s unlucky to see them at night, or while crossing a road, or as you start a journey. There are people who wear something inside-out to guard against bad luck. Or throw burning sticks at hooting owls to ward off a death in the family. Almost everyone has done something superstitious at some time or other – though many of us won’t admit it.
Superstitions are interesting because most of us have these really strong feelings that they do make things happen. But actually they don’t. We feel like that because our brains are designed to work out what causes things to happen in our lives. Like figuring out that certain foods upset your stomach, so you can avoid them in the future. But our brains are sometimes fooled. Like when a horoscope or a charm seems to work once or twice – especially over something that’s important to us. Our subconscious logs them down as causing whatever it is we wanted to happen. But in fact they don’t. The relationship’s just a coincidence.
Superstitious behaviour looks like something that can only affect humans. After all, how can animals have beliefs such as luck? But one of the most famous psychologists ever – Professor B F Skinner – decided to check this out. He believed that animal and human behaviour is fundamentally very similar. It’s just that human behaviour is more complex and difficult to explain. So he argued that in order to understand human behaviour, you should first study the simpler behaviour of animals. And just to prove his point, he offered to make pigeons superstitious!
His pigeons were being fed just a little less than they wanted. So that they were hungry and always looking for food. Every day he placed each pigeon in turn into a special cage for a few minutes, and left them on their own to do whatever pigeons do in cages. And once every fifteen seconds a mechanism dropped a food pellet into a feeding tray. Exactly every fifteen seconds. Regardless of anything else that was happening in the cage.
No matter what the pigeons did, they got the same amount of food, and at exactly the same intervals. But that’s not how it appeared to the pigeons! After a few days, they had developed a whole range of strange behaviours. Different for each pigeon. And in every case something they’d never done before the experiment. One pigeon turned anti-clockwise several times between each pellet drop. Another would thrust it’s head into one of the upper corners of the cage. Others developed curious rocking movements or made brushing gestures with their beaks.
The birds had become superstitious! They were acting as if it was their movements that were producing the food – when in fact there was no connection at all. It would have appeared anyway. Just by accident, each pigeons had happened to make one of these movements just before a pellet was released. And in the pigeon’s mind that was the reason why it had been fed. So they started repeating them. And so there would be more coincidences. Which made them even more convinced they were right.
I’ll bet you’re thinking this could never happen to us? But I’m also sure you’ve seen people doing similar things! Like a bowler who continues to behave as if he’s controlling the ball after he’s let it go? Maybe turning his body or twisting his hands. Or shouting to encourage the ball. Rationally you know he can’t affect it at all – but we often do such things. A few times the ball will happen to move in the direction he wants – and that’s enough to reinforce his behaviour. But it’s always pure chance. In fact, these accidental coincidences can be few and far between – and yet his brain will continue to be convinced that he can affect the ball. Maybe for the rest of his life.
Psychologists have created superstitious behaviour in humans too, just to prove the point. In one experiment, psychology students were sat in front of of four buttons, and told that if they figured out the right ones to press a bell would sound. And they would receive a small payment. In fact, the only thing that worked was pressing button number three. But only after a delay of ten seconds. And that’s what caused the superstitious behaviour. During those ten seconds, the students would be trying other buttons in all sorts of combinations. The bell would always sound exactly ten seconds after number three had been pressed – but the students all believed that the other buttons they’d pressed were necessary as well.
Every student developed a pattern of pressing buttons (like 1,4,2,3,1,4,2,3,1,4,2,3…) that they repeated over and over again between the times the bell sounded. They really only needed to press button number three and wait – but they all came to believe that the other buttons had to be pressed in some sequence or other to ‘set things up’. Not one of them realised what was really going on – or that their behaviour was superstitious!
And in fact we see behaviour just like this in real life. Superstitious behaviour sounds irrational – but it really is just a result of the way our brains try to figure out what’s going on around us. And it may even be helpful. By making us feel less anxious and more confident. People who are employed in dangerous occupations tend to be far more superstitious that everyone else. And maybe that’s because their superstitions make them feel more in control of a difficult situation.
So the next time you find yourself doing something superstitious, try to figure out how you might have come to believe that it works. But don’t feel you have to stop! You might smile a little at what you’re doing in future – but it’s still a good idea if it helps you feel better.
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