Levels of Superstitious Belief and Perceived Control

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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