The Simple Truth About Why You Believe in Superstitions

in a British study students were asked whether they would allow a self-professed witch to cast an evil hex on them about half of them said yes four there should be no concern if witchcraft is actually nonsense yet the other half of the participants said no few of the people who said no actually believed in witchcraft but nonetheless their perceived superstition their doubts that perhaps the hex could be real made them too dubious to go ahead with it anyway so then how about you would you allow a haggard woman to cast a spell on you and I'm not talking about marriage vows some people are more superstitious than office a person's proclivity to believe in astrology highlights a degree of their superstitious nature the idea that the precise moment a person was born and the precise alignment of the stars in the sky at that time will determine that person's personality on their future I'm about to read five personality traits that I believe will describe you perfectly keep account of how many of them you believe do in fact reflect you as a person you have a tendency to be critical of yourself you have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage at time do you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing you prefer a certain amount of change on variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations at times you are extroverted affable sociable whilst other times you are introverted wary reserved to start sound a lot like you yes well it also sounded a lot like the 39 psychology students of Bertram Forer when he gave them all a private piece of paper that had the exact same descriptions written on them he told them he had personalized these descriptions based on the unique personality traits of every single one of them he then asked the students to each ray it's their own description based on how uniquely it describes their personality from zero to five for accuracy five being the most accurate the average rating of all the students was four point three of course fora had lied he hadn't personalized each student's description uniquely he hunt even considered their personality for a second he stole the descriptions from the astrology section of a magazine he had picked up from the newsstand a week earlier and every student's description was exactly the same down to the letter for have Illustrated how everyone has a natural proclivity an innate need to believe very broad statements that could apply to just about everybody on the planet especially when those statements are complimentary or positive you are tremendously attractive by the way other research has shown that people who are born in moms that typically have positive astrological descriptions associated with them are far more likely to believe in astrology than those who are born in negatively associated mumps we all crave positivity in our lives even at the expense of gullibility in 1956 American psychologist Paul Mele named this effect the Barnum effect after American showman PT Barnum if you're sat there thinking isn't this also how cold reading works then yes you would be absolutely correct give yourself a cookie the same kind of general yet seemingly personal Barnum statements are used profusely by so-called psychic mediums psychologist dr. Susan Blackmore surveyed more than 6,000 people and found that people responded agreeably with a great number of seemingly specific statements one quarter of them said they had someone named Jack in the family and more than one-third of them said yes I do when told you have a scar on your left knee because the truth is a good chunk of the population has a scar on their left knee even if they have to search for it with a microscope and even someone who doesn't have any scar would still answer yes when told this pseudo fact by a medium because people have an innate desire to fit in we want to fit in especially amongst large groups of people it's nice to fit it that's why you tell people at parties at your freelance writer in sort of tragically unemployed and if you believe that the medium is right about your non-existent scar then you will also believe him when he says that you're dead Aunt Mabel has had a lot of time to think about is being dead and all and she has concluded that you are most definitely her favorite grandchild there are some incredibly stupid superstitions around the world in Colombia it is thought that if you sit on a chair that is still warm from a previous occupant you'll get a boil on your ass in Vermont Windows is sometimes built as a 45-degree angle into the sides of houses because it's believed that witches are unable to fly through tilted windows but my favorite has to be this there is an old sailor superstition that having a woman on board a ship it's bad luck however if she is naked then she has the opposite effect and calms the Seas look we don't want you to be naked either but we don't want to jeopardize the voyage now do we when surveyed 13% of people said that they would not like to stay on the 13th floor of a hotel a nine percent said they would definitely ask for a new room on another level 14 percent of people won't buy a house that is number 13 whether it's knocking on wood black cats or broken mirrors we have all indulged in a little casual superstition from time to time but it turns out that the reason that we do this is because some of these common superstitions have a basis in fact or at least we think they do triskaidekaphobia those who have a fear of the number 13 have good cause to be concerned the origins of the infamy surrounding a number 13 come from religious mythology in Norse mythology the mischievous and malevolent Loki was the 13th got to sit down at a dinner party of 12 over gods in Valhalla Loki then kills the god of light and joy Balder by throwing a sprig of mistletoe at him now I've attended some tragically boring dinner parties but that does not sound like one of them there were also 13 present at the Last Supper and Judas was supposedly the last the thirteenth guests to sit down to eat there are also modern day myths surrounding Friday the 13th there is a widely circulated story that in the 20th century the Royal Navy attempted to dispel the long-held superstitions surrounding Fridays and the number thirteen by launching a new ship called HMS Friday it will be captained by Rebecca Black only kidding that would just be asking for a violent mutiny its maiden voyage was on Friday the 13th on the Captain James Friday but true to superstition soon after it set sail HMS Friday disappeared and was never heard from again whew the problem with this story is that it's entirely made up there never was a HMS Friday and anybody caught repeating it as fact should be hit repeatedly until they stop talking some arguably more reputable sources however reports that traffic incidents go up on Friday the 13th however some other sources have also said that traffic incidents decrease on Friday the 13th so do you take that fact with a pinch of salt and don't spill it and make sure to throw it over your left shoulder to keep the devil away it has also been reported though that household accidents on Friday the 13th shoot up especially when a gun is involved if both these examples are true however they don't actually give any reason to be superstitious and I'll tell you why psychologists have found that people who believe in unlucky superstitions such as Friday the 13th walking under a ladder or crossing a black cat are far more likely to succumb to negative effects because of these beliefs whereas all of these superstitious events have no statistically significant effect to people who are not superstitious they are therefore self-fulfilling Prophecy's if one believes they are more likely to come to harm on Friday the 13th they will become stressed not think straight and perhaps pay less attention on the roads or at home on that day resulting in an accident that they unwittingly helped induce don't believe me that people would change their daily routine so drastically due to a number on a certain day well it is estimated that every Friday the 13th 900 million dollars of business is lost in the u.s. due to people changing their entire daily routine and staying at home out of fear but the self-fulfilling prophecy phenomenon doesn't explain the fact that in the UK national lottery in which balls are supposedly drawn randomly the number 13 is the least drawn ball of all time a huge coincidence or evidence of some higher power you decide Harvard psychologist BF Skinner explained why humans are superstitious in the mid 20th century through the cunning use of pigeons he placed several pigeons in sensory deprivation boxes plain boxes where no outside stimulus could affect their behavior Skinner proceeded to drop food into the boxes at completely random intervals there was absolutely no logic to when the pigeons would receive food but curiously it didn't appear that way to the pigeons they grew superstitious and started to believe that whatever action they were doing when they first received food somehow caused them to receive food again if they repeated that passion if the pigeon happened to be flapping its wings when it received food then it would flap its wings again until it got more food over pigeons exhibited more unusual behavior some wood twister had repeatedly at awkward angles another frost its head repeatedly into the upper corner of the box another would pirouette doing spins over and over again until it received food BF Skinner had made his pigeons superstitious he concluded that there was no difference in the behavior between these pit and not of a professional footballer who thinks that wearing their lucky socks somehow helps them to score more goals Skinner have demonstrated the basic premise behind superstition patterns the pigeons were making connections finding patterns wherever they could between ostensibly trivial actions and the result of getting fed humans do this all the time when we knock on wood sometimes something good happens this strengthens the connection in our mind between knocking on wood and a positive outcome yet the other phenomenon known as confirmation bias where we only pay attention to positive outcomes makes us disregard the many times we knocked on wood and absolutely nothing good or actually something bad happened I wish I could answer the superstition question with some profound Universal statements but ultimately the answer lies in a pissing pigeon and you know what I think there's a certain beauty in that I've just launched my first book stick if I can it's a thousand years of bizarre history from Britain and beyond it's witty fun and damn interesting I'm crowdfunding it through unbound publishing it would absolutely mean the world to me if you pledged to help make this book a reality and in return you can get a signed first edition hardback copy as soon as it's printed so please head on over to unbound watch the launch video over there read the first two chapters for free and if you like it then pledge to secure your copy today the links in a description thank you so much

Channel: Thoughty2

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Keywords: superstition, psychic medium, new age, fortune teller, mediumship, friday 13th, thoughty2, thoughty 2, thoughty, thouthy 2, science, mukbang, science shows, thoughty2 renewable energy, because science, beyond science

Id: gF4X9v_1Kts

Length: 12min 47sec (767 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 10 2019