Are you a superstitious person? Some of us will answer this question in the affirmative, some will think about it, and the bravest ones or those who understand the true meaning of this word will say a categorical “no.” We know what it means to be superstitious, and we can explain the concept of “superstition” - a sign, a belief. A black cat, a fallen fork, empty buckets... Anyone can continue this chain.
We are accustomed to living in the world according to the laws of superstition, without realizing it ourselves.
The history of superstitions and signs
All signs and superstitions are aimed at finding a logical connection between seemingly incompatible and illogical things. And its roots go back to the distant times of undeveloped science. Today people know a lot about the world, its laws, society and human characteristics, the interaction of man and nature. Previously, in order to get rid of oppressive ignorance and not be afraid to live, one had to rely on signs, superstitions and intuition:
- Someone alone noticed a random coincidence and established a connection between two completely different signs (phenomena).
- This scheme is supported by a feature of our memory: we remember the confirmation of signs, but forget the refutations. A sign (prophecy, fortune telling) may come true once and not come true 20 times, but it will be remembered in memory as always coming true. That's how it started.
But the peculiarity of the psychology of belief is that the piggy bank of various kinds of beliefs is regularly replenished. Why is it so popular nowadays? Old signs are alive in the public historical consciousness. There's no escaping this. And new ones are born for the same reason - ignorance, fear. Although science has made a huge leap forward, there are still many secrets and mysteries in the world. As a result, we can say that superstitions and signs are the unconscious basis of personality, which cannot be eradicated.
What is a premonition? In the language of psychology, this is a combination of a natural and useful property of intelligence - assumption (the probability of some event without determining the specific numbers of this probability) and anxiety. The likelihood of a person developing a premonition (assumption + anxious expectation) increases in situations of stress, tension, and critical conditions. If the premonition does not justify itself, then it will, of course, be forgotten. Otherwise, it will be remembered. This is how the superstition “premonition never deceives me” is born.
Interesting fact: in 1939, New York psychologists were able to confirm the power of superstitions. At one of the exhibitions, a stepladder was installed, and although it did not interfere in any way, 70% of people preferred the trajectory with extra meters, just so as not to pass under the stepladder (a bad omen).
Psychologists' opinion
Psychotherapists explain that through superstition, people are accustomed to building cause-and-effect relationships for themselves, which, in fact, are necessary for our brain to calm itself and organize thoughts. It is easier for the mind to believe in the existence of the magical and otherworldly between several events independent of each other than to think about a possible coincidence of circumstances. There is no explanation for this. It is in this way, thanks to imagination, we can say consciously, that our brain, by organizing, makes it easier for us to perceive reality.
Approaches to the study of superstitions
Superstition is a belief in forces and laws of nature unknown to man, which positively or negatively influence people, animals and the whole world. Superstitions can be viewed as a psychological phenomenon through several approaches.
Cognitive approach
From the perspective of this approach, superstition is an attempt to comprehend the unknown and inexplicable. Superstitions are passed on from generation to generation through the psychological characteristics of the crowd: infection, imitation, suggestion. With the help of signs and superstitions, a person tries to gain control over the whole world. In this context, superstitions are the result of memory and imagination.
With the help of superstitions, people order the world around them. But the perception of ongoing events is too subjective and situational in nature, distorting the true mechanisms and features of the things that are happening.
He tries to explain everything that goes beyond the usual ideas and knowledge of a person with the help of supernatural forces, omens, superstitions, fortune telling, and astrology. Accordingly, we can say that the higher a person’s intellectual level, the less prone he is to prejudice. Knowing the world through superstition is a simplified form of knowledge that relies on clarity and avoids learning the world through abstract scientific concepts.
Affective-motivational approach
Superstitions are a form of protecting a person’s emotional state and self-awareness. This is the satisfaction and support of your unconscious desires, emotions and feelings. At the same time, in this concept, superstitions are considered as a means of providing psychotherapeutic assistance: getting rid of fears, giving confidence, relieving tension.
Belief is closely related to a person’s suggestibility, which intensifies at the moment:
- frustration and psychological fragmentation, for example, with fear of death, aging, reality or the burden of loneliness;
- difficult life situations;
- grief experiences;
- job loss;
- unrequited love;
- cultural and socio-economic instability of society;
- awareness of one's own powerlessness.
“What is not done is for the better,” a person tells himself, and the pain from personally significant misfortunes that have happened is no longer so acute. Signs and this kind of superstition can give a person the strength to overcome depression and other undesirable conditions. Think about it, for every person’s condition you can find a saying that removes some of the responsibility from him and shifts the burden of what happened onto someone else’s shoulders: “Everything is God’s will.”
On the one hand, this is good, but on the other, it seems to me that it deprives a person of personal development. How can you grow and draw conclusions from what happened, avoiding responsibility for your own life? Is it possible to develop if you do not really know your thoughts and feelings, do not consciously fight fears and do not accept inevitable realities, for example, death? I think in this case, superstitions are a form of escape from reality and hinder personal growth.
This is a defense mechanism of the psyche of irresponsible, anxious people with pessimistic thinking and who do not want to recognize themselves as the creator of good and bad in their lives, independently control it, make decisions and bear responsibility for them. Superstitions help a person adapt to repeated, but frightening, unknown conditions.
Psychoanalytic approach
Superstitions are the result of a person’s transference of true, but for some reason unsatisfying, motives for action to the outside world. It is based on a person’s needs and pleasures, which he wants to satisfy quickly and not on his own. Thus, within the framework of the psychoanalytic approach, superstitions are the result of a lack of knowledge and unfulfilled current needs.
Behaviorist approach
Superstitions are behavior caused by an inability to understand the presence or absence of a connection between a person’s actions and their consequences. This style of behavior develops as a result of random reinforcements.
Social and moral approach
Superstitions are the basis of morality, a regulator of relationships in a group and society. These are the conditions for successful survival and contact with nature, which have reached man through the cultural heritage of other generations. Superstitions concretize, personify, and praise socially acceptable desirable forms of behavior (“Good always returns”) and impose taboos on undesirable forms and activities (“Chickens squawking on the roost means a domestic quarrel”). Thus, signs and superstitions help preserve, transmit and transmit social values and norms of behavior.
Evolutionist approach
All the superstitions that exist among our people are echoes of the religions of different countries. For example, the negative attitude towards the black cat came from Egypt. By the way, this sign exists in many European countries.
Within the framework of the evolutionist approach, superstitions are echoes of the unfree behavior of members of tribes and tribal communities. It is possible that in those days a particular superstition made sense, even if its components were generalized erroneously. But moving further and further, in each generation it lost its strength.
I think that of all the approaches for psychology, the consideration of superstitions as a protective mechanism of the psyche, that is, the affective-motivational approach, is of particular interest.
Functions of superstitions and signs
Signs and superstitions play an important role for our psyche - they give a sense of security, a sense of control over the situation and its management. They serve as a kind of placebo, instilling in a person confidence in their own abilities.
This is how, for example, various amulets and amulets work. It's hard to believe that they can actually attract good luck or give a person what he dreams of. But the fact that human thoughts are material leaves no doubt. And if a person is confident that success in love will soon await him, then so it will happen:
- Amulets give a person a feeling of calm and confidence.
- The psychophysiological background is restored, and the individual himself is able to rationally manage his life.
As a rule, a person does not notice this and believes that the amulet really helped. This in turn strengthens faith. That is why superstitions do not leave our lives.
Or, for example, the well-known sign that birds shit on money. Faced with this, a superstitious person not only begins to expect profit, but his brain also begins to look for sources of income. Signs are undoubtedly useful in this regard.
But there is also the other side of the coin: superstitions and signs can turn into obsessive states and then interfere with a person’s life. For example, according to one of the signs, if you break a mirror, it will lead to a streak of misfortune. A superstitious person programs himself for this, and misfortunes really happen. In general, the essence of signs (good and bad) is the placebo effect.
Thus, superstitions:
- on the one hand, they give safety, comfort, protection;
- on the other hand, they interfere with the development of human cognitive and creative abilities.
Despite all the advantages of beliefs described in the article, I have a rather negative attitude towards superstitions and signs. I believe that they hinder a person’s personal growth, do not solve real problems, but only mask them, and interfere with the disclosure of creative potential.
What if this is a disease?
I would like to draw the reader’s attention to another important detail - the tendency to invent various signs is a sign of nervous exhaustion. If a person begins to track what he was wearing on the day when he won a significant amount in the lottery, what desk he was sitting at, when he successfully passed the exam, or what chain of small events preceded his promotion, then it would not hurt him to consult a psychologist. The desire to perceive life as an abundance of small chains of events leading to the right or wrong result is characteristic of a sensitive, unbalanced person, prone to dramatize a situation and “make a mountain out of a molehill.” He often has sudden mood swings, he is visited by feelings of loss, instability and inability to influence what is happening around him. Therefore, if you too often ask yourself the question “what is this for?”, then it’s time for you to unwind and change the situation.
Afterword
Superstition is the victory of emotions over reason. And one of the main driving forces is fear. This is blind faith that inhibits thinking. Prejudices are similar to superstitions:
- superstitions are an element of the structure of prejudices;
- prejudice is an erroneous perception of something caused by information imposed from outside (superstitions and signs).
Signs, superstitions, and prejudices relate to the psychology of the masses. This makes it difficult and impossible to completely eradicate beliefs. But it is possible and necessary to work with an individual person if superstitions interfere with his personal development and life, bordering on anxiety-phobic disorders and obsessiveness syndrome.
How to do it? Understand what function superstitions perform in this case. This will help you find the true reasons: lack of knowledge, fear, lack of self-confidence, personal problems and more. Next, you have to work to eliminate this cause and gain a sense of control over yourself and your life through internal resources and a logical, rational understanding of the world. Once you develop creative and positive thinking, superstitions will begin to fade into the background.
However, some signs and superstitions can be confirmed from the position of science, which is why they are still alive in the public consciousness. Read more about this in the article “10 signs that have a scientific explanation.”
Not superstitious
Thus, a person who considers all sorts of rituals and talismans to be stupid and unnecessary superstitions most likely strives to be independently responsible for everything that happens to him. He builds his destiny with his own hands, striving at all costs to achieve his goals. He is pragmatic, trying to find meaning or benefit in any phenomenon. Such a person ponders any failure until he has calculated all the prerequisites and patterns that caused the disruption to the planned course of events. In short, people from this group often have a “mathematical mindset.”
Superstitions related to numbers
