10-30-2000

Superstitions are the result of a mind unable to understand the workings of a situation. As demonstrated in Believing in Magic, this is achieved in different ways. One would be like the one of the primitive fishermen: uncontrollable danger with too many variables to account for. Another situation would be a completely random one. The problem with this is that there is no totally random situation. Every effect has a cause.

This is the problem with experiments such as Ono’s. Ono made a concerted effort, to fool his participants into believing that there was a connection between the levers and their goal, earning points. This may not have been expressed started, but, especially in the context of a psychological experiment, it is implied when the point counter and the levers are virtually all that is in the room The people who displayed more interesting behaviors, like the lady who stood on the table and jumped around the room, probably felt that they were being watched and awarded points for their actions. In either case, they believed that their actions created a reaction. There is no reason to believe that they thought it was through some sort of magical power of the action. Superstitions, such as Wade Boggs’ pregame ordeal, are not confused as magic by anyone. Even Boggs’ himself said they were to prevent "surprises". He never said they were magic. They just get him into a confident mindset. The combination of actions he probably feels prepare him exactly as he should be, physically, mentally and otherwise. Some other types of superstitions are impossible to study in a scientific setting, because their intended effect is usually intangible like good luck. Luck can, in some senses, be quantified, but it can have so many different meanings and contexts that, like horoscopes or palm readings, they can be fulfilled by any event you can connect to it.

Luck is a state of mind. If you feel "lucky", it is likely you will be lucky, not in every way, as Uri Geller would have had us believe. It is generally accepted that the mind cannot have an effect such as telekinesis on another object purely by will, but it can affect interpretation and decision-making. When the mind "feels" good, comfortable, or lucky, according to Damasio’s hypothesis, it is more likely to make good decisions. The air of confidence created can help in social situations, or, in a place where luck would be pretty helpful, a job interview. So maybe superstitions just help to put us in the right frame of mind to perform a given task. A situation connected to an action would create a "dispositional representation", as Damasio would put it, which would enforce the action. The action need not be related to the reaction anywhere but in the head of the person concerned.

So, what is the difference between superstition and a conditioned response? One answer could be that conditioned responses are merely responses to stimuli, no matter how divergent the two may be, and that superstitions are proactively seeking something in return. Damasio’s somatic-marker theory could be used to dispute that, as could some of the principles of conditioning, in that superstitions can be reactionary and responses can be due to something like a somatic marker.

The way I see it, everyone knows that superstitions are just done for the sake of the action itself. The feel of a lucky pen or sweater, the simple pleasure of finding a penny, even the comfort provided to some by smoking. The effects are all internal and are nothing greater than the faith placed in the validity of superstition. Everything else is either habit or conditioned response. I once met a kid whose grandfather bought his wart from him for a nickel and, sure enough, soon after the wart was gone. The power of suggestion is very strong indeed. One reason that has gone unmentioned in plain confusion. An excellent example of behaviors caused by confusion or misinterpretation of signals is in relationships between men and women. In my experience random acts or behaviors that result in some form love connection are very often repeated. If early in one’s experience of relationships, a particular method of wooing is effective, that method becomes habitual. These can range from the relatively mundane such as "just being nice" even to things that are ultimately detrimental like lying or even being rude or mean. Just like those rules, superstitions cannot be applied to all different love interests. Each situation, if it is to be confronted and handled in a way that relies on reality that suits the individual aspects, not with a broad hope such as luck. Such an attitude is self defeating, leading to not a lack of care, but a feeling that one is not in control of one’s own life. We may not be in charge of every thing that happens to us, but actively giving up that control to anything less than a god figure can lead to a directionless haphazard reliance on omens and cheesy sayings.