Why we latch on to superstitious behaviors, and how to give them up.
Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science newsLast March, it snowed. And snowed and snowed. It was so heavy that roofs around my town were caving in, trapping pets and trucks and leaving people homeless. My own roof had several feet piled on. One night, flakes perpetually pelting down, I couldn’t sleep. I listened for the creaks of soon-to-collapse timbers. I imagined the porch overhang ripping away from the kitchen. I stared into the dark.
This wasn’t a one-time, snowstorm-of-the-century deal. No matter the season or situation, knocking on wood is how I ward off the dangers in life.I’m not alone. “Superstitions and magical thinking aren’t really special,” says Jane Risen, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago. “They’re just part of the way we think about things.”
. When told an improbable story — for example, one in which a severely injured dog heals without medical care — most children tried to find a natural explanation. But 5- and 6-year-olds also often credited miracles or luck. These supernatural explanations started to drop with 7- and 8-year-olds. And 9-year-olds were much more likely to say that events were caused by skill or effort, not luck.
Then we have a slower, more deliberate way of thinking. It may jump in to point out my faulty reasoning and recognize that my knocking has nothing to do with whether or not the roof caves in. But, Risen says, “detecting an error in your intuitive belief doesn’t necessarily lead you to correcting it. It seems that some intuitions are just very difficult to shake.”
Woolley explains that, once a superstition is established, we do a cost-benefit analysis that can make it seem like not performing the ritual poses a risk. Skipping it can even give some people anxiety. So if no one is around to think the superstitious ritual is crazy — and add a cost to performing it — we are more likely to complete it out of a “better safe than sorry” mindset, indicating we must believe in it at least a little bit.
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