We all know someone who, to a greater or lesser extent, is carried away by superstitions. But what is the explanation?
Let’s try to analyze these mental processes to understand why some people act based on supersitious beliefs, 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 need to first focus on this concept to fully understand what it means and what its implications are. A superstition is an irrational belief about the explanation of a certain phenomenon.
That is to say, Superstition involves believing that there is a certain supernatural condition about an object or circumstance, which can affect our own destiny, either positively or negatively Sometimes there are small rituals to try to get rid of the bad luck that an act can imply on a person’s life, always according to these irrational beliefs.
When we try to understand why superstitions exist, we must know that this phenomenon has accompanied humanity since ancient times. In fact, for the Romans they were common. The diviners themselves were known by the word superstitiosus.
In Rome, a meaning was usually assigned to different natural elements, attributing to them the status of harbingers of certain phenomena, which could be good or bad fortune. That is to say, Superstitions were created, irrational beliefs, without scientific basis, to facts that were neutral in themselves, such as the sighting of a certain animal or element
In that sense, they believed that bees brought messages from the gods and therefore gave good luck. The flight of the eagle heralded storms with lightning. They also thought that simply listening to the ringing of bells acted as a painkiller for a woman in labor. They even thought that smelling cyclamen was useful in stopping 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 question underlying why superstitions exist is none other than what their usefulness is. And the answer is actually simple: superstitions They give us a feeling of control over situations in which we don’t really have it That is, we assume cause and effect relationships without any scientific basis, due to the fact that in this way we reduce uncertainty.
The problem is obvious, and it is that this reduction of uncertainty is nothing more than a chimera, since in reality superstition, as we have already seen, is a simple irrational belief. Therefore, in reality there is no such thing as a 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, on a psychological level, we must review the work of BF Skinner on operant conditioning. For this author, superstitions originate through 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 said connection and repeated it 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 lowering the head or turning in a circle.
Another way to consider why superstitions exist from psychology, but with a more modern vision of the matter, is through the concept of cognitive distortion. In that 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 terrain. However, from objectivity, we cannot forget that many rites of different religions establish irrational cause and effect reasoning.
In those cases, the explanation for them would be one’s own faith in the belief in a superior reality that transcends human understanding. But the reality is that A series of behaviors or thoughts are established aimed at granting control over situations of uncertainty, just as superstitions do
For this reason, and although it is a controversial topic, we must not ignore the relationship that different religions, majority or not, have had throughout history with the question at hand, 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 many of them, so we are going to focus on some of the most popular ones.
1. Cross paths with a black cat
A situation as simple as coming across a black cat is capable of generating tremendous anxiety for some people, who 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 traveled. But where is the origin of this strange belief?
In other words, what we want is to know why superstitions exist, and more specifically the one regarding encountering a black-furred cat. To do this we have to go back to nothing less than the Middle Ages. At this time, stray cats used to receive food from some residents of the towns, especially from elderly women.
It was then that the belief that there were hidden witches among people became popular, and a relationship was established between them and cats, especially black ones, thinking that witches had the power to transform into them to camouflage themselves or even that the devil himself was hiding behind that animal figure.
Therefore, people began to think that encountering a black cat was very dangerous, as it could actually be an evil being. This is how the superstition was established that coming across a black cat is a sign of bad luck.
2. Spill the salt
To continue investigating why superstitions exist, we will now focus on another of the most popular. It is the one that says that spilling salt is an omen of bad fortune. 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 delivering 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, as it represented the waste of something that had cost a lot of effort to obtain. But this is only one of the explanations in this regard.
Another answer to why superstitions exist, thinking now about the bad luck that throwing salt on the table would hypothetically trigger, has to do precisely with the christian religion And 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? Which is how it seems to be represented in the painting that Leonardo Da Vinci painted to represent this moment.
3. Knock on 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 hopes will end favorably for him, he utters this expression and then actually tries to touch a nearby wooden object.
The objective of this superstitious action is, in some way, to attract good luck (in a totally irrational way, let’s not forget). Likewise, the origin does not seem clear, although Some authors suggest that the origin is none other than grabbing the wooden crucifix that was formerly used to be worn around the neck in Christian societies, to take an oath in the name of God.
Others, however, believe that it is an even older custom, from the first European settlers, who tried to drive away evil spiritual presences through rituals that sometimes consisted of hitting wooden logs.
