Superstition

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For other senses, see Superstition (disambiguation).

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A superstition is an irrational belief about the relation between certain actions—often behaviors—and later occurrences, such as the belief that the number 13 causes misfortune or bad luck. Whether a belief is superstitious is not defined by the "truth" of the result, however, but by the methods through which truth is sought. Superstitions are often based on invalid reasoning resulting from misunderstandings of causality or statistics, while others spring from unenlightened fears, religious beliefs, traditions, and a general belief in the supernatural.

The superstitious individual erroneously believes that the future, or the outcome of certain events, can be influenced by certain specified behaviors, despite the lack of a causal relationship in reality. Many superstitions are based on the notion of luck. Some popular superstitions are a result of misinterpreting correlations as causes, although many others are simply urban legends that have no rational justification whatsoever. Many disciplines that were once considered scientific are now considered superstitious pseudoscience, such as alchemy and astrology. Superstitions may also be expressed in religious beliefs or practice, belief in extraordinary events, supernatural interventions, apparitions or the efficacy of charms, incantations, the meaningfulness of omens and prognostications. Any of the above can lead to unfounded fears, or excessive scrupulosity in outward observances.

Fanaticism, some argue (citation needed), arises from this same displaced religious feeling, in a state of high-wrought and self-confident excitement. Such unquestioning loyalty can apply to politics and ideologies as well as religion; indeed, it can even be focused on sports teams and celebrities. See Baseball superstition for a series of such examples.

Examples of superstitions include things like a gambler crediting a winning streak in poker to a "lucky rabbit's foot" or to sitting in a certain chair, rather than to skill or to the law of averages. An airline passenger might believe that it is a medal of St Christopher (traditional patron saint of travellers) that keeps him safe in the air, rather than the fact that airplanes statistically crash very rarely. Brides on their wedding day do not usually see their groom until the ceremony believing that to do so causes bad luck.

Superstition is also used to refer to folkloric belief systems, usually as juxtaposed to another religion's idea of the spiritual world, or as juxtaposed to science. In the academic discipline of folkloristics the term "superstition" is used to denote any folk belief expressed in if/then (with an optional "unless" clause) format. IF you break a mirror, THEN you will have seven years of bad luck UNLESS you throw all of the pieces into a body of running water. In this usage, the term is not pejorative.

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Behavioral psychology

The behaviorist psychologist B.F. Skinner placed a series of hungry pigeons in a cage attached to an automatic mechanism that delivered food to the pigeon "at regular intervals with no reference whatsoever to the bird's behavior". He discovered that the pigeons associated the delivery of the food with whatever chance actions they had been performing as it was delivered, and that they continued to perform the same actions:

One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a 'tossing' response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return. ("'Superstition' in the Pigeon", B.F. Skinner, Journal of Experimental Psychology #38, 1947 [1])

Skinner suggested that the pigeons believed that they were influencing the automatic mechanism with their "rituals" and that the experiment also shed light on human behavior:

The experiment might be said to demonstrate a sort of superstition. The bird behaves as if there were a causal relation between its behavior and the presentation of food, although such a relation is lacking. There are many analogies in human behavior. Rituals for changing one's luck at cards are good examples. A few accidental connections between a ritual and favorable consequences suffice to set up and maintain the behavior in spite of many unreinforced instances. The bowler who has released a ball down the alley but continues to behave as if she were controlling it by twisting and turning her arm and shoulder is another case in point. These behaviors have, of course, no real effect upon one's luck or upon a ball half way down an alley, just as in the present case the food would appear as often if the pigeon did nothing -- or, more strictly speaking, did something else. (Ibid.)

This repeating of a non-causal action in order to obtain a reward has been called superstitious reinforcement.

Like the pigeons, many people associate behavior (head-turning or worship of God(s) ) with an external phenomenon (delivery of food or conquest by a foreign power) that was not necessarily connected in any way with personal behavior. Any misfortune could thus be interpreted as a sign of divine disfavor, whether or not the individuals who suffered bore direct responsibility.

Modern behavioral psychologists dispute Skinner's "superstition" explanation for the behaviors he recorded. Subsequent research (for instance Staddon and Simmelhag in 1971) has failed to replicate his results Template:Citation needed.

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Religious views

Superstition may be expressed in the terminology of religion, giving rise to skeptical thinkers' opinion that all religion is superstition. Greek and Roman pagans, who modeled their relations with the gods on political and social terms scorned the man who constantly trembled with fear at the thought of the gods, as a slave feared a cruel and capricious master. "Such fear of the gods (deisidaimonia) was what the Romans meant by 'superstition' (Veyne 1987, p 211). For Christians just such fears might be worn proudly as a name: Desdemona.

The Roman Catholic Church considers superstition to be sinful in the sense that it denotes a lack of trust in the divine providence of God and, as such, is a violation of the first of the Ten Commandments. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states superstition "in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion" (para. #2110).

The Catechism clearly dispels commonly held preconceptions or misunderstandings about Catholic doctrine relating to superstitious practices:

Superstition is a deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand is to fall into superstition. Cf. Matthew 23:16-22 (para. #2111)

Atheists and agnostics often see all religious belief as a form of superstition, and religious believers have seen other religions as superstition. Edmund Burke, the great Irish orator, once said, "Superstition is the religion of weak minds".

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Etymology

Superstition, as we understand it today, is thought to derive from the both meanings of Latin 'superstes' composed on super (over, beyond), -sto (to stand):

  • one who attends, can witness
  • one who survives

The 'superstitio' was the gift of narrating events as if one had attended and survived them. This capability of the 'superstitiosus' was associated with divination, which when not performed by a regular augur, was held in contempt as charlatanism. As a result, the superstitio became synonymous with "despisable religious beliefs", as antithetic with 'religio', the accepted official or traditional religion.

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Further explanation

The reason for common superstition in asian countries. It is believed, people adhere a few superstition rules, and in the follow up of it, they also take back from other (undesireable) action. Tetraphobia is even common nowadays in Japan. It is expected as a matter of etiquette, rather than for scientific need. Asian philosophy looks non-rational if taken literally, but alters reality by taking elements away, leaving out a thing. Hence, for asian people superstition makes sense in different ways, but not only for the direct belief something unlucky might happen, if the rules are violated.

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See also

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Books

  • Iona Opie & Moira Tatem - A Dictionary of Superstitions
  • Sagan, Carl, 1995. The Demon-Haunted World : Science As a Candle in the Dark New York: Random House
  • Felix E. Planer, Superstition, 1988, New York: Prometheus Books

Some of this text was formerly from Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

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External links

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Source

  • Veyne, Paul. 1987 A History of Private Life: 1. From Pagan Rome to Byzantium.da:Overtro

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