Why do superstitions exist?

A summary of the causes that give rise to superstitious beliefs.

We all know someone who, to a greater or lesser extent, is carried away by superstitions. But what is the explanation?

We will try to analyze these mental processes in order to understand why some people act on superstitious beliefs, especially in certain situations.especially in certain situations. We will also explore the historical origin of some of the most famous superstitions.

Why superstitions exist: psychological and social causes.

In order to address the question of why superstitions exist, we first need to focus on this concept to understand well what it means and what its implications are. A superstition is an irrational belief about the explanation of a certain phenomenon.

In other words, superstition involves believing that there is a certain supernatural condition about an object or circumstance that can affect one's own destiny, either positively or negatively.. Sometimes there are small rituals to try to get rid of that bad luck that an act can imply on the life of the person, always according to these irrational beliefs.

When we try to understand why superstitions exist, we must know that this phenomenon has accompanied mankind since ancient times. In fact, for the Romans they were commonplace. The soothsayers themselves were known by the word superstitiosus.

In Rome, they used to assign a meaning to different natural elements, attributing to them the condition of presage of certain phenomena, which could be of good or bad fortune. In other words, superstitions were created, irrational beliefs, without scientific basis, to facts by themselves neutral, such as the sighting of a certain animal or an element of a certain nature..

In this sense, they believed that bees brought messages from the gods and therefore brought good luck. The eagle's flight foretold storms with lightning. They also thought that simply listening to the ringing of the bells acted as a painkiller for a woman in labor. They even thought that smelling cyclamen was useful to stop alopecia.

These examples give us some clues as to why superstitions exist, although we will address this issue in depth in the next point.

The feeling of control

The question underlying why superstitions exist is none other than what their usefulness is. And the answer, in reality, is simple: superstitions give us a sense of control over situations in which we do not really have control.. That is to say, we assume cause and effect relationships without any scientific basis, because in this way we reduce uncertainty.

The problem is obvious, and is that this reduction of uncertainty is nothing more than a chimera, because in reality superstition, as we have already seen, is a simple irrational belief. Therefore, in reality there is no cause and effect relationship, but the important thing is that by believing that it exists, and that we have control over it, we feel better.

We already realize that this is a very specific psychological phenomenon. If we think about why superstitions exist, at a psychological level, we should review the work of B.F. Skinner on operant conditioning. For this author, superstitions are originated by this mechanism, through a casual process.

Skinner, through his experiments with pigeons, discovered that these animals performed random behaviors, and when these were presented just before receiving food, they established this connection and repeated it in the future, because they "thought" that it was this behavior that had caused the food to appear. in the future, because they "thought" that it was that behavior that had caused the food to appear.

These behaviors ranged from walking in certain areas to ducking their heads or turning in circles.

Another way of looking at why superstitions exist from a psychological perspective, but with a more modern view of the matter, is through the concept of cognitive distortion. In this sense, superstitious people would be using prejudices to face a certain situation.

Nor should we forget the relationship between superstition and religion. Many definitions separate both concepts, since they attribute pejorative characteristics to superstition and try to distance this concept from the religious field. However, objectively speaking, we cannot forget that many rites of different religions establish irrational cause and effect reasoning.

In such cases, the explanation for them would be the faith itself in the belief of a superior reality that transcends human understanding. But the reality is that a series of behaviors or thoughts destined to attribute a control over situations of uncertainty is established, just as superstitions do..

Therefore, and although it is a controversial subject, we should not ignore the relationship that the different religions, majority or not, have had throughout history with the question that concerns us, which is none other than why superstitions exist.

Practical examples.

We have faced the question of why superstitions exist in a general way. Now we will try to review the origin of some specific superstitions. There are a multitude of them, so let's focus on some of the most popular ones.

1. Meeting a black cat

A situation as simple as crossing with a black cat is capable of generating a tremendous anxiety to some people, who really believe that this is a black cat.They really believe that this is a fatal omen and try to divert their path so as not to cross the imaginary line that the animal has crossed. But where is the origin of this strange belief?

In other words, what we want to know is why superstitions exist, and more specifically the one about meeting a cat with black fur. To do so, we have to go back to the Middle Ages, no less. At this time, stray cats used to receive food from some neighbors of the towns, especially from old women.

It was then when the belief that there were witches hidden among the people became popular, and a relationship was established between them and the cats, especially the black ones, thinking that the witches had the power to transform themselves into them to camouflage themselves.or even that the devil himself was hiding behind this animal figure.

Therefore, people began to think that meeting a black cat was something very dangerous, because it could actually be an evil being. This is how the superstition was established that meeting a black cat is a sign of bad luck.

2. Spilling salt

To continue investigating why superstitions exist, we will now focus on another of the most popular ones. It is the one that says that spilling salt is an omen of bad luck. The origin is not entirely clear, but some versions point to a very simple explanation.

Although today salt is a very easy object to find, and can be obtained very cheaply, the truth is that in ancient times it had much more value. So much so that payment for certain jobs was made by the delivery of a quantity of salt.. In fact, to this day we have somehow preserved that custom, since the root of the word salary comes precisely from salt.

For this reason, spilling something as valuable as salt was considered an act of bad fortune, since it represented the waste of something that had cost a lot of effort to obtain. But this is only one of the explanations.

Another of the answers to why superstitions exist, thinking now about the bad luck that would hypothetically be triggered by throwing salt on the table, has to do precisely with the Christian religion. Some people believe that Judas himself, who betrayed Jesus Christ after the last supper, spilled this element on the table that night.

What is the reason to think such a thing? That this seems to be represented in the picture that Leonardo Da Vinci painted to represent this moment.

3. Touching wood

To conclude with another example of why superstitions exist, we will now review the popular expression of knocking on wood. On many occasions, when a person finds himself in a situation that he expects to end favorably for him, he utters this expression and then tries to, in effect, touch a nearby wooden object.

The objective of this superstitious action is, somehow, to attract good luck (in a totally irrational way, let's not forget). Likewise, the origin does not seem clear, even though some authors point out that the origin is none other than to grab the wooden crucifix that formerly used to be worn around the neck in Christian societies, in order to take an oath in the name of God. in Christian societies, to swear an oath in the name of God.

Others, on the other hand, believe that it is an even older custom, from the first European settlers, who tried to drive away the bad spiritual presences by means of rites that sometimes consisted in the beating of wooden logs.

Bibliographical references:

• Michelet, J. (2004). The witch: A study of superstitions in the Middle Ages. Ediciones Akal.
• Miguel, J.M. de, Martín, N., Márquez, M.O. (2012). Relationships between the desire for control and superstition. Studies in Psychology. Taylor & Francis.
• Vyse, S.A. (2013). Believing in magic: The psychology of superstition-updated edition. Oxford University Press.