Friday the 13th: Why are we so superstitious?

Superstition brings bad luck.

Umberto Eco (1932-2016), Italian writer

I have heard that Spanish actress Elsa Pataky wore different colored socks at one of her first auditions in Hollywood. She was in a hurry and just put on the first ones she found at home. The audition went great. At the next casting, she went back to her usual habit of wearing matching socks, and the audition went terribly wrong. From that moment on, Elsa Pataky always wears different colored socks at her auditions. They bring her good luck.

I have no proof of the veracity of this anecdote, but it is an excellent model of how superstition is forged and consolidated in our minds. I trust that Elsa Pataky will not mind me using it as an example. Let’s knock on wood.

In search of the lost association

One of the main motivations of the human mind is the need to find associations between different events that will allow it to anticipate reality. Natural selection has favored the search for cause-effect relationships, to discover the rules of the world and thus promote survival and reproduction.

We are compulsive seekers of connections, archaeologists of regularity, intuitive futurologists. Our cognitive system is allergic to ambiguity and uncertainty. The association of events is the antidote to this “mental allergic reaction.”

Superstitions are the dark side of that predictive tendency that is so useful for survival: they associate events that are, in reality, not related in any way. What does sock color have to do with Elsa Pataky’s acting skills? The human tendency to predict the world comes up with these connections. After all, learning associations are the cornerstone of our acquisition of behaviors.

With superstitions, these associative mechanisms go too far.

Laboratory superstitions

The first scientific approach to superstitious behavior was made in 1948 by the psychologist B. F. Skinner through a famous study with pigeons. Skinner programmed the dispensing of food to occur automatically every fifteen seconds. No matter what they did, the pigeons would receive food at that rate.

After a while, the American scientist found that most of the birds (six out of eight, to be exact) had developed their own superstitious rituals to obtain food. One pigeon circled around, others moved their heads from side to side and another pecked the ground. This phenomenon is called “adventitious conditioning” to differentiate it from “operant conditioning” learning, when the animal learns based on the positive or negative consequences actually caused by its behavior.

Very similar results have been found in humans using tasks in which fictitious connections are established between events. In fact, there is a whole field of study in psychology dedicated to illusions of causality, which have even been linked to the proliferation of alternative pseudomedicines, such as homeopathy or reiki, or paranormal beliefs.

The prophet who is always right

Once we have created a causal connection between events, one of the mechanisms that encourages its maintenance is the so-called “confirmation bias,” which is part of our cognitive toolbox.

We tend to pay more attention to events that confirm our beliefs than to those that contradict them: “Whenever I wash my car, it rains”; “The Amazon delivery man always comes when I’m not at home”… We easily forget the many times when such predictions did not come true. And at the same time, we vividly remember the moment when these uncomfortable events occurred because of the emotional impact they generate.

Another mechanism that favors the maintenance of superstitions is based on what psychologists call a “self-fulfilling prophecy.” That is, our belief in a prediction can make it come true through our actions.

So, if we force Elsa Pataky to wear socks of the same color for her next audition, she will probably get very nervous about not having her amulet and her performance will be seriously affected. The actress will come to the conclusion that her prophecy is confirmed, even though she herself has been the one who confirmed it.

Our superstitions enslave us: if we ignore them, anxiety will make us perform worse. Just ask athletes, who are compulsive hoarders of manias, rituals and superstitions.

Superstitions at a good price

Superstitions are absurd, but generally easy to follow. They are kept alive by the “just in case” and the “what if it were true?”Knocking on wood, not walking under a ladder, not toasting with water, crossing your fingers: all of these are very easy and cheap actions to perform.

Physicist Niels Bohr (1885-1962) had a horseshoe hanging on the wall of his office. When asked how one of the most analytical minds of his time could believe in amulets, Bohr replied: “I don’t believe in them, but I have been told that they bring luck even to those who don’t believe in them.”

It's not that hard, is it? Superstitious behavior would have a harder time if we had to do a hundred push-ups to accumulate luck before an exam. We are stupid, but not stupid enough to beat laziness.

Integrated into the culture

Superstitions are often embedded in a society’s traditions and customs. They allow us to identify with the values of our culture through shared habits and rituals. It’s easy to imagine Elsa Pataky’s superstition spreading throughout the population and people wearing mismatched socks on their driving test or on Tinder dates.

Many cultural superstitions have roots that go back centuries or even thousands of years, which makes it very difficult to trace their origins. It seems that knocking on wood comes from ancient Celtic beliefs about souls that inhabited trees. Meanwhile, black cats were associated with witches during the Middle Ages, although in Scotland they are a symbol of good luck. A nice demonstration of the arbitrariness of superstitions, by the way.

The number thirteen has a very bad reputation. According to the Otis elevator company, around 85% of its elevators installed in buildings with more than twelve floors omit the button with the number thirteen. It seems that the origin is related to Judas Iscariot, the thirteenth diner at the Last Supper in Christianity. The fear of Friday the 13th combines this numerical superstition with the memory of the celebration of Good Friday, the fateful day on which Jesus Christ was crucified.

Rationality, the fair one

Our natural rationality is not logical, but bio-logical or psycho-logical. Evolution has provided us with an arsenal of cognitive shortcuts to process large amounts of information and make quick decisions (generally successful) with the partial and ambiguous data we receive from the environment. On the other hand, the exercise of logical and reasoned thought requires the tiring task of disciplining our mind to prevent the fallacies and biases of human thought.

Both systems of thought inhabit us without any apparent conflict. On the one hand, an intuitive and automatic system that is guided by rules of thumb and can lead to biases and fallacies of thought. On the other hand, an analytical and reflective system, but slower and more costly, which under the right conditions can behave rationally and logically.

That's why even the most rational and analytical minds can harbor irrational beliefs and absurd superstitions. Just ask Niels Bohr, with his lucky horseshoe. When we take off our scientist's lab coat or our judge's robe, our minds are as gullible as those of our prehistoric ancestors. We'll keep our fingers crossed that reason doesn't abandon us completely.

Pedro Raúl Montoro Martínez is a professor at the Department of Basic Psychology I, UNED, Madrid, UNED - National University of Distance Education

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition