It is exceptionally interesting how the brain tries to make sense of every little thing in life. You may eat Cheerios one night, have a snow day on an exam day the following day and have things rescheduled. Your brain will think something’s up. So the next five exam days you eat Cheerios the night before expecting the same results, but nothing comes of it. Maybe it was obvious that last attempt in July would not work… It happens to the best of us to varying degrees: superstition.
Now, picture this scenario. You go to a country concert, only because your best friend pulled your leg to come with them. You, being the classical, Tchaikovsky listening music buff you are, have no interest in Martina McBride or any sort of ‘twang’ in music for that matter. So what do you do? You observe the crowd and start generalizing and stereotyping the people around you. You now go home thinking that every country music listener rides tractors, drinks cold beer on Friday nights and likes perfectly fitting blue jeans and cutoff tees. (On a side note, country artists ought to start writing about different topics, but that’s beside the point.) You may have done this many times in your life: stereotyping.
The psychological reasoning behind both superstitions and stereotyping is known in the science world as illusory correlation (‘’Illusory’’ which comes from ‘’illusions’’ and correlations as in a relationship). This is the idea that our brain tries to create correlations or relationships between things, people, behaviors, or events that are not even associated with each other. That bowl of Cheerios on your study session night or the tractor loving, country music listening stranger walking passed you are simply perceptions of an illusion that your mind has created for you and in which you believe in. It’s almost like a mirage.
Personally every Sunday in the fall and early winter months, I give into illusory correlation big time. During the NFL season when I’m either at a Baltimore Ravens game when they’re home or watching it with family and friends in the comfort of my living room, superstition engulfs my environment. That’s right. We’re talking about assigned seats in the living room, only high fives on scoring drives, and bobbleheads that are placed just right. Sometimes we do things as a parody of ourselves… But yet we still perceive that our nonsense affects the game, or think it is funny to believe it affects the game.
One instance that shrill gets me today is when my neighbor would wear his Ngata jersey who is a defensive lineman for the Ravens. For five straight games he would wear this jersey to find out that each time he would wear it, the Ravens would win! The following week, his jersey was getting washed and wasn’t dry, so he wore a Ray Lewis jersey to our house for game day. What do you know, the Ravens lost. The following year, we started to test this theory that his jersey affected the outcome of the football games. Although not 100% effective, the Ravens ended up into the playoffs and became super bowl champions, all because of the Ngata jersey. Okay, actually not.
We like to perceive that our actions had affected the season but in reality, if the actual illusory correlation was true, the Ravens would be super bowl champions every year. As happy as that’d make me, it’s not happening. And I can say as a diehard Ravens fan who bleeds purple, the next super bowl win for the Ravens won’t be coming very soon. At any rate, illusory correlation in my life is here to stay. Whether you are extremely superstitious, giving into stereotypes or think you are none of the above, you have most likely had experience with illusory correlation at least once in your life. This is one psychological aspect that is difficult to explain sometimes, but is very apparent in all human beings. Go Ravens! But don’t take my seat during gameday…
This post was very interesting to read because the examples used made understanding an illusory correlation much clearer. Superstition is always going to be around and people believe that doing things the same way will affect the outcome (wearing the Ngata jersey). I read an interesting article about Michael Jordan a while back. He wore his college basketball practice shorts from the University of North Carolina under his uniform for every game, thinking it was the reason he was winning. Were the shorts the reason he won 6 championships and 5 MVPs? Probably not, but he imbeded into his mind that they had something to do with the outcome of every game throughout his entire career.
I completely agree with this post! I think it is unbelievable how many people around us have so many superstitions in their everyday lives. A common example of this is the idea that opening an umbrella inside will bring you bad luck. This is something I am guilty of and I constantly catch myself subconsciously reminding friends and family to beware of this superstition. Another favorite superstition that I followed religiously, while growing up, was the idea of wearing your pajamas inside-out and dancing in circle outside in hopes of a snow day the next morning. All of these superstitions are perfect examples of how our brain reacts when we cannot explain something. It is human nature to try to create a relationship where none exists. We are simply trying to make sense of the information and provide ourselves with some sort of explanation. Overall, interesting post and very well written!
Interesting post. The football example reminded me of the Bud Light commercial where every time the guy would go down to the basement for a beer his team would score a touchdown, and he thought he had “cracked the code” to his team’s success. Like you stated in the beginning, it’s hard for our brains to comprehend that some things are just a random series of events that just happen to coincide. However, there are definitely times where I think some illusory correlations are on to something. Kind of like the Final Destination movies, where the leading character has a vision/dream and predicts people’s deaths and then the deaths actually happen in the same order they did in the dream. And though those are movies, something similar could have actually happened and gone undocumented… “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.” Maybe?
love the post! superstition is so widespread throughout the world, its almost accepted. all around the world, people think that because when they do something it affects an outcome of something else. the most widespread example of this is prayer. if you pray for someone to get healthy and they do, it reinforces the religion, but if the person gets worse or dies, the gods are just angry.