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| A '''Superstition''' is the [[Irrationality|irrational]] belief that [[future]] events are influenced by specific behaviors, without having a [[causality|causal]] relationship.
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| ==Common superstitions from around the world==
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| Examples of superstitions vary greatly from one country to another:
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| *A gambler may credit a winning streak in poker to a lucky rabbit's foot or to sitting in a certain chair, rather than to skill or to the law of averages.
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| *In Afghanistan it is said that if you see a [[magpie]] sitting on a wall, a message will be coming for you.
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| *In China people say that one should not sweep or dust on Chinese New Year's Day lest good fortune also be swept away.
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| *An airline passenger might believe that it is a medal of St Christopher (traditional patron saint of travellers) that keeps him safe in the air, rather than the fact that airplanes statistically crash very rarely.
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| *Brides on their wedding day often do not see their groom until the ceremony, believing that to do so causes bad luck.
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| *Some people turn back from a journey if a [[black cat]] crosses their path.
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| *Among African Americans it is considered unlucky to sweep someone with a broom while cleaning house.
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| *Many Americans believe that if you can blow out all of the candles on your birthday cake with one breath while making a silent wish, your wish will come true.
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| *In Japan [[Tetraphobia]], the fear of the number 4 is widespread; the number's use is minimized or avoided where possible.
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| *Triskaidekaphobia, the fear of the number 13, is common among those of European descent.
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| *Baseball superstitions are numerous.
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| ==Academic and cultural viewpoints==
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| ===Superstition and the study of folklore===
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| In the academic discipline of [[folkloristics]] the term "superstition" is used to denote any folk belief expressed in if/then (with an optional "unless" clause) format. IF you break a mirror, THEN you will have seven years of bad luck UNLESS you throw all of the pieces into a body of running water. In this usage, the term is not pejorative.
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| Supersitions are based on general, culturably variable beliefs in a [[supernatural]] reality. Depending on a given culture's belief set, its superstitions may relate to [[cemetery|cemeteries]], [[animal]]s, [[demon]]s, a [[devil]], deceased [[ancestor]]s, the [[weather]], [[gambling]], [[sports]], [[food]], [[holidays]], [[occupations]], excessive [[scrupulosity]], [[death]], [[luck]], and/or [[Spirit]]s. [[Urban legend]]s are also sometimes classed as superstition, especially if the moral of the legend is to justify [[fear]]s about socially alien people or conditions.
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| === Superstition and religion ===
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| ==== Religious etymology ====
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| Superstition, as of today's understanding, is thought to derive from the both meanings of Latin 'superstes' composed on super (over, beyond), -sto (to stand):
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| * one who attends, can witness
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| * one who survives
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| The 'superstitio' was the gift of narrating events as if one had attended and survived them. This capability of the 'superstitiosus' was associated with divination, which when not performed by a regular [[augur]], was held in contempt as charlatanism. As a result, the superstitio became synonymous with "despisable religious beliefs", as antithetic with 'religio', the accepted official or traditional religion.
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| Thus, the English word "superstition," as understood from its original Latin meaning, implies a religion-like belief that stands outside the bounds of clerical religion.
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| In modern English, the term "superstition" is also used to refer to [[folklore|folkloric]] belief systems, often with the intention of casting negative, derogatory, or belittling scorn upon another culture's concept of the spiritual world.
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| ====Religious competition====
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| In keeping with the Latin etymology of the word, religious believers have often seen other religions as superstition. Likewise, [[Atheism|Atheists]], [[Agnosticism|agnostics]], and [[skeptic]]s often see all [[religious belief]] as a form of superstition. Thus, for instance, Edmund Burke, the great Irish orator, once said, "Superstition is the religion of weak minds".
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| Religious practices are most likely to be labelled "superstitious" by outsiders when they include belief in extraordinary events, supernatural interventions, [[apparition]]s or the efficacy of [[charm]]s, [[incantation]]s, the meaningfulness of [[omen]]s, and [[prophecy|prognostications]].
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| Greek and Roman pagans, who modeled their relations with the gods on political and social terms scorned the man who constantly trembled with fear at the thought of the gods, as a slave feared a cruel and capricious master. "Such fear of the gods (''[[deisidaimonia]]'') was what the Romans meant by 'superstition' (Veyne 1987, p 211). For Christians just [[Fear of God|such fears]] might be worn proudly as a name: [[Desdemona]].
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| The Roman Catholic Church considers superstition to be [[sin|sinful]] in the sense that it denotes a lack of [[trust (sociology)|trust]] in the [[divine providence]] of [[God]] and, as such, is a violation of the first of the [[Ten Commandments]]. The ''[[Catechism of the Catholic Church]]'' states superstition "in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion" (para. #2110).
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| The ''Catechism'' clearly dispels commonly held preconceptions or misunderstandings about [[Catholic]] [[doctrine]] relating to superstitious practices:
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| :Superstition is a deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand is to fall into superstition. Cf. ''Matthew 23:16-22'' (para. #2111)
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| ===Superstition and magic===
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| Superstitions differ from [[magic (paranormal)|magic spells]] in that the former are generally passive if/then constructs while the latter contain formulae, recipes, petitions, prayers, and enchantments for effecting future outcomes by means of supernatural, symbolic, and perhaps non-causal activities.
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| People who otherwise accept scientific de-mystification of the supernal world and do not consider themselves to be [[occultist]]s or practitioners of magic, still may consider that it is "better to be safe than be sorry" and observe or transmit some or many of the superstitions endemic to their cultures.
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| === Superstition and social science ===
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| Superstitions are not defined by the laws or verifiable methods of science, but social scientists have occasionally studied superstitions.
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| The [[behaviorism|behaviorist]] psychologist [[B.F. Skinner]] placed a series of hungry pigeons in a cage attached to an automatic mechanism that delivered food to the pigeon "at regular intervals with no reference whatsoever to the bird's behavior". He discovered that the pigeons associated the delivery of the food with whatever chance actions they had been performing as it was delivered, and that they continued to perform the same actions:
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| :One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a 'tossing' response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return. ("'Superstition' in the Pigeon", B.F. Skinner, ''Journal of Experimental Psychology'' #38, 1947 [http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/Pigeon/])
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| Skinner suggested that the pigeons believed that they were influencing the automatic mechanism with their "rituals" and that the experiment also shed light on human behavior:
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| :The experiment might be said to demonstrate a sort of superstition. The bird behaves as if there were a causal relation between its behavior and the presentation of food, although such a relation is lacking. There are many analogies in human behavior. Rituals for changing one's fortune at cards are good examples. A few accidental connections between a ritual and favorable consequences suffice to set up and maintain the behavior in spite of many unreinforced instances. The bowler who has released a ball down the alley but continues to behave as if she were controlling it by twisting and turning her arm and shoulder is another case in point. These behaviors have, of course, no real effect upon one's luck or upon a ball half way down an alley, just as in the present case the food would appear as often if the pigeon did nothing -- or, more strictly speaking, did something else. (''Ibid''.)
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| Modern behavioral psychologists have disputed Skinner's "superstition" explanation for the behaviors he recorded. Subsequent research (for instance, by Staddon and Simmelhag in 1971) failed to replicate his results. Eduardo J. Fernandez of the Department of Psychology of Indiana University sought to follow up on Staddon and Simmelhag's debunking of Skinner's hypothesis and to "further contrast superstitious versus functional interpretations of behavior" in pigeons. In a 2004 paper titled "Superstition Re-revisited: An Examination of Niche-Related Mechanisms Underlying Schedule Produced Behavior in Pigeons," he demonstrated that what Skinner had seen as "supersitious" behaviour was accounted for by the natural foraging behaviours of the species he used as test subjcts.
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| ==See also==
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| *[[Triskaidekaphobia]] (the fear of the number 13)
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| *[[Tetraphobia]] (the fear of the number 4)
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| *[[Baseball superstition]]s
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| *[[Folk religion]]
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| *[[Tradition]], [[convention (norm)|Custom]], [[Practice]], etc.
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| *[[Magic (paranormal)]]
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| *[[Mediation (culture)]]
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| *[[Obsessive-compulsive disorder]]
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| *[[Prayer#Experimental evaluation of prayer]]
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| * [[Cargo cult programming]], superstitions developed by computer programmers who do not understand the deep workings of the computer.
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| *[[Correlation implies causation (logical fallacy)]], urban legends like "Teenage girls eat lots of chocolate.", built on unprooved correlation.
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| *[[Idolatry]]
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| *[[Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels With Science]]
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| ==Books==
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| * Opie, Iona and Moira Tatem. ''A Dictionary of Superstitions''
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| *[[Carl Sagan|Sagan, Carl]], 1995. ''The Demon-Haunted World : Science As a Candle in the Dark'' New York: Random House
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| *Hyatt, Harry Middleton. "Folk-Lore o Adams County Illiniois"
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| *Planer, Felix E. [http://www.prometheusbooks.com/catalog/book_6.html ''Superstition''], 1988, New York: Prometheus Books
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| *Puckett, Newbell Niles. "Folk Beleifs of the Southern Negro"
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| *Veyne, Paul. 1987 ''A History of Private Life: 1. From Pagan Rome to Byzantium''.
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| == External links ==
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| ===Superstition sites===
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| These articles examine beliefs, faiths, and superstitions from a respectful and informational viewpoint:
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| *[http://www.oldsuperstitions.com Lengthy list of superstitions at oldsuperstitions.com]
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| *[http://alt.xmission.com/~emailbox/folklore.htm Superstitions and beliefs about cats]
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| *[http://members.tripod.com/~mccurtain_2/genietips/tip1.html American Superstitions and Beliefs about Death]
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| *[http://www.weddings.co.uk/info/tradsupe.htm British Wedding Customs, Beliefs, and Superstitions]
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| *[http://www.educ.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/438/CHINA/taboos.html Taboos and Superstitions of Chinese New Year]
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| *[http://www.doghause.com/superstitions.asp Animal Superstitions]
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| *[http://www.afghan-network.net/Culture/superstitions.html Superstitions of Afghanistan]
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| ===Anti-superstition sites===
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| These articles examine beliefs, faiths, and superstitions from a negative and debunking viewpoint:
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| *[http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/superstition.html Superstition] by Robert Green Ingersoll
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| *[http://www.geocities.com/vaksam/supers.html The Science of Superstitions] by Dr. [[Sam Vaknin]]
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| *[http://skepdic.com/ The Skeptic's Dictionary]: Discusses maters from the viewpoint that paranormality is dubious.
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| *[http://www.infidels.org/desk.html The Secular Web Reference Desk]
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| *[http://www.nobeliefs.com/problemswithbeliefs.htm Problems with beliefs]
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| Some of the text on this page was formerly from ''Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary'' (1913)
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