We’re all acquainted with the concept of superstitions. But how reliable are they, and where do they come from? Generally speaking, superstitions are just a way of associating one thing with another, often without any rational connection. A widespread superstition says it’s bad luck if one’s path is crossed by a black cat. This likely originated from the association people used to make between black cats and witches. Not surprisingly, there have been no correlations found to-date between luck and cats of any colour.
Sometimes, however, superstitions are backed by truth. A good example of this is the well-known adage, “red sky in the morning, sailors take warning; red sky at night, sailor’s delight.” This was a phenomenon noticed in ancient times, not by sailors but by shepherds. It is more than just a belief, however, since the saying actually holds true more often than not, though only north of the tropics, where the prevailing winds are generally westerly. As sunlight enters our atmosphere, the shorter wavelengths of the visible spectrum are scattered more than the longer, redder wavelengths. So when the sun is low in the sky, only the red light makes it through much of the atmosphere. If there are clouds in the morning, when the sun is in the east, they will reflect this red light. It is these clouds that are expected to pass overhead later in the day. In the evening, it is the opposite: if the red light is reflected back by clouds, it is off of clouds which have already passed by.
You may think making these connections – whether they are meaningful or not – is unique to human behaviour. This is however, not the case. B.F. Skinner did an experiment where he tested pigeons for similar behaviour and found that they did indeed have superstitions of their own. The pigeons were placed in an enclosure that contained a food tube. They would go about their daily business, and at random intervals the tube would produce a reward. Whatever the pigeon had been doing at the time the food was dropped, it would do some more of. If it had been hopping at the time, it would start to hop around like mad in hopes that this would coax some more food out of the tube. Each time the food came out of the tube, it was more likely to be doing that same action, further reinforcing the superstition. Soon enough, Skinner had several head-bobbing, ground-pecking, dancing, and – most importantly – superstitious pigeons.
This experiment has been used to explain superstition in humans, as there are several parallels. By our nature, we as humans are very good at detecting patterns and relationships, but sometimes we take it too far. Remember when you were in elementary school, playing Pokémon on your gameboy, and you threw out a Pokéball? Everyone who did that would start smashing the A button, because it was supposed to make it more likely for the Pokémon to be caught. There was in fact no relationship between the button A and whether or not you could add the creature to your party. But this didn’t stop A buttons from around the world from getting worn out before all the others. In fact, it has been shown that when such a superstition is acted upon and the desired result is not achieved, a person will only become more determined to succeed. In other words, the superstition is reinforced regardless of the outcome.
Most people have such irrational beliefs; it’s just our brain doing what it does best: looking for underlying connections, looking deeper into reality, and maybe making some up as it goes along. As for those who deny having any superstitions, I’m sure it’s just because they are embarrassed to admit that, like Calvin, they too have a pair of lucky rocketship underpants.
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