Levels of Superstitious Belief and Perceived Control
There has been anecdotal evidence to suggest that highly superstitious people tend to believe that they have some degree of control over events over which they objectively have none. This is exemplified by highly superstitious sporting fans who must participate in superstitious rituals for fear that their team would lose if they did not engage in these actions. Credible studies have been done in relation to levels of superstitious beliefs and uncontrollable tasks. One study reports that learned helplessness occurs when participants are faced with uncontrollable tasks and is characterised by decreased motivation and cognitive capacity (Abramson, Seligman and Teasdale, 1978; Hiroto and Seligman 1975). An opposing yet valid study that was instituted by Matute (1994, 1995) exhibited that when participants were faced with an uncontrollable task they tended to respond according to their level of superstitious behaviour and generate an illusion of control. Thus, highly superstitious participants would have a higher illusion of control compared to their less superstitious counterparts who would have lower illusion of control. Langer (1975) describes an ‘illusion of control’ as the erroneous belief that once can influence outcomes in situations under which one has no control. Similar studies to Matute’s have frequently been reported in scientific literature (Ono, 1987; Rudski, Lischner and Albert, 1999). It has become apparent that learned helplessness is usually only observed in two-thirds of human participants (Abramson, Seligman & Teasdale, 1978; and Hiroto, 1974). Thus, Matute’s hypothesis appears to be of a greater consistency to a large amount of studies completed on similar top...
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reason for the superstition and the rituals that come along with them are they are one of
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...st century psychology : a reference handbook / 1.. Los Angeles, CA [etc]: Sage cop. 2008.ISBN/ISSN: 9781412949682 1412949688OCLC:774927767.
It seems that people these days have a lot of superstition from sports teams to the mysterious friday the thirteenth. Mark twain's Character Jim from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn also had many including ones about snake skins, Body hair, and the supernatural.
“Learned helplessness is a phenomenon containing three components: contingency, cognition, and behavior. Contingency addresses the uncontrollability of the situation. Cognition refers to the attributions that people make regarding their situation or surroundings of which they are a part. Behavior allows individuals to decide whether they will give up or proceed with the obstacle set before them” (Peterson, Maier, & Seligman, 1993; Firmin, Hwang, Copella, & Clark, 2004). When a student thinks about college he must take either the ACT or the SAT test to be admitted into the college. Students have a lot of decisions to make that can be stressful. Failure is an aspect that students fear and can determine whether they will succeed in life.
As stated in the article written by Kormanik and Rocco, “Rotter provided grounded theory on the locus of control construct in a discussion of generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement” (as cited in Rotter, 1966). Internal control of reinforcement refers to the ability to any person can be rewarded by their “own behavior” or their “own relatively permanent characteristics or traits” (Kormanik & Rocco, 2009). While internal control of reinforcement depends on each individual person and situation, external control of reinforcement refers to “factors beyond one’s control” such as “luck, chance, [or] fate” (Kormanik & Rocco, 2009). Through the use of a scale referred to as the “Internal-External Locus of Control Scale,” Rotter was able ...
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Implications and extensions suggest many forms of how the results of these studies can be influenced in future ones and more so, how they can go in many different paths. Forms of how a person’s day may go can also influence the way in which a person can make connections in determining the existence or bad. As too, countless conditions have a significant effect, but so, people rather make assumptions that many are benevolent, and not mischievous.
During finals week everyone has that lucky pencil or some lucky bracelet they take to the exam. If for some reason they forget it, it’s suddenly the end of the world and everything bad that happens that day is because they forgot that special item. In my opinion the absolute belief in superstition becomes harmful when it leads to self-destruction towards the individual when they become unfaithful to the ritual.
Psychological susceptibility to various faiths in the fact that human life is exposed to supernatural forces that affect a person's fate, and often prejudge its outcome, always existed in all human societies and cultures. One of the major determinants of this psychological susceptibility is superstitions that appear as the main engines of believe in the intervention of supernatural forces in human’s life. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica (2010) ‘superstition’ could be defined as ‘belief, half-belief or practice’, which does not have any rational explanation or basis. Despite this fact, according to Behringer (2004) the amount of believers in witchcraft and superstitions are significantly higher than in XVII century.
In conclusion, superstition in the past and today does indeed impact humans and their behavior. When the human brain is unable to comprehend a phenomenon, people turn to superstition to secure his or her self from unexplained fear. Superstitious people can be affected by this in a positive or a negative way. The only person that determines their fate when it comes to superstition is the person themselves.
Edited by Raymond J. Corsini. Encyclopedia of Psychology, Second Edition, Volume 1. New York: John Wiley and Sons Inc.
To me superstitions are simply beliefs or practices with no rational substance to them, for instance, ok a bird, if a bird flies into the house it is a sign of death. Now in all honest...