- Superstitions come from the brain’s way of seeing false cause-and-effect links as part of what helped us survive as a species.
- Doing rituals—even if they don’t mean anything—can reduce worry and make you feel more in charge.
- Superstitions can improve how well you do because of the placebo effect, especially when you’re under a lot of pressure.
- People who are depressed are usually less affected by false cause-and-effect links, so they don’t think in superstitious ways as much.
- Being educated doesn’t get rid of superstitions, and they often stick around because they make us feel emotionally secure and are passed down through culture.
Superstitions might seem like strange habits or old-fashioned ideas, but there’s actually a lot happening underneath. From athletes holding onto lucky socks to students tapping pencils before tests, these rituals give a sense of comfort—even to people who know they don’t really have any power. The question is: why does our brain hold on to these patterns, and can they really be helpful? Let’s look at the science of superstitions—how they start, why they continue, and what good things they might offer for your mental well-being.
Superstitions Through a Scientific View
Your brain is designed to spot patterns—a way to survive that’s been with us since humans first existed. Early humans who quickly linked rustling bushes to dangerous animals were more likely to live, even if it was just the wind. This natural need to connect cause and effect gave humans an advantage in scary, uncertain places.
This way of seeing patterns, while helpful, isn’t perfect. It often sees connections where there are none, which is called patternicity. Cognitive scientists use the word patternicity to describe how we tend to find meaning in things that are just random. This brain shortcut sets the stage for what we now call superstition.
When something good happens after we do something—like getting a job after wearing a certain outfit—our brains might wrongly connect the two things, and think of the outfit as “lucky.” It’s not real, but it can feel very real emotionally.
Cause-and-Effect Bias: The Psychology of False Patterns
Understanding why superstitions start means understanding cause and effect bias. This bias happens when we think that because two things happen close together, one must have made the other one happen, even if they aren’t really related.
Think about stepping on a crack and then having bad luck. There’s no real connection, but our brains grab onto the coincidence and think one caused the other. This “better safe than sorry” way of thinking comes from how our brains are wired, which focuses more on being careful than being right.
In important research by Matute et al. (2011), people developed strong beliefs about results that had nothing to do with what they did. Even when experiments were set up so people had no real control over what happened, many still felt like they were in charge.
This continuing sense of imagined cause, called illusory correlation, shows that the idea of control is deeply rooted in how humans think. It’s the same idea that supports fake science and conspiracy theories—false links mistaken for truth.
Learning to Spot Cause – And When It Doesn’t Work
From the time they are born, humans learn to connect actions with results. It’s how babies learn how toys work and how children start to understand basic science. However, this natural skill also makes us see patterns that aren’t real, especially when things are unclear or random.
Studies have shown just how easily our cause-and-effect thinking can be tricked. In one study, people pressed buttons while watching lights flash in different ways. Even though pressing the buttons didn’t change what the lights did, many people still said they were responsible for “making things happen”.
This imagined control is even more interesting when we consider mental health. A significant study by Blanco et al. (2014) found that people with depression were less likely to make connections that didn’t matter. Their realistic view of depression meant they were less likely to see patterns that weren’t there, possibly because they were less likely to be overly optimistic.
Essentially, some level of unrealistic optimism might be key for keeping superstitious rituals going. The lack of that optimism is sometimes what makes magical thinking less common in people with mood problems.
The Good Things About “Not Thinking Straight”
At first, superstitions might look like just noise that doesn’t make sense. But not thinking straight doesn’t mean not being helpful. Actually, many superstitions have strong emotional and mental uses—especially when we don’t know what will happen.
Doing rituals gives a way to deal with stress in a structured way. For example, a student might feel really stressed before a test, but tapping their pen three times—something that has no real purpose—calms them down and helps them focus again.
Superstitions often act like mental support. They make mental states more stable by giving a sense of predictability when things are unpredictable. Athletes are a perfect example: almost 70% of Olympic athletes say they have some kind of ritual before they compete. Whether it’s wearing something special or eating a certain meal, these rituals help them mentally before they face high-pressure situations.
Confidence Boost or Placebo Effect?
One of the clearest examples of how superstitions can improve performance comes from the study by Damisch et al. (2010). People who thought they were playing with a “lucky ball” did better than people who thought they had a normal ball in a series of putting games.
The interesting thing? Both balls were the same.
This result supports the idea that what you believe really matters. When people think they have a secret advantage—even if it’s not real—they do better. This self-fulfilling idea is closely related to the placebo effect, where what you expect to happen greatly changes what actually happens.
Confidence, increased by superstition, seems to improve clear thinking, lower worry, and stop second-guessing—all of which are very important in tasks where you need to perform well.
Imagined Control and Emotional Balance
Few ideas explain why superstitions are so appealing as well as “imagined control.” Introduced by psychologist Ellen Langer in her important 1975 study, this theory shows that people often believe they can control things that are based on chance just by being involved or using personal methods.
Langer’s work showed that even in games of chance, people act as if they have some skill. For example, people who played the lottery were less likely to sell their ticket back if they picked the numbers themselves, showing a belief that their personal choice made their chances better.
This feeling of control that isn’t really there can be very comforting. When faced with life’s random events—health problems, job interviews, natural disasters—rituals help people feel like they’re at least doing something. This emotional comfort is especially important during stressful times.
When Superstitions Become Unhealthy
However, there’s a negative side. Superstitions become a problem when they change from a helpful ritual into something you have to do and can’t stop. A flexible habit becomes unhealthy when it causes stress, takes up too much time, or stops you from doing everyday things.
In a clinical sense, these kinds of patterns can look like or make worse mental health issues like OCD or general worry problems. The ritual is no longer something that helps but something that gets in the way—something you feel you must do to prevent something bad from happening.
Mental health experts look for warning signs like
- Not being able to start a task unless you do the ritual first.
- Becoming more and more afraid of what will happen if you don’t do the behavior.
- Spending a lot of time doing things that are repetitive and don’t make sense.
Therapy often focuses not on getting rid of rituals completely—especially if they are comforting—but on changing them to be healthier.
Natural Bias or Helpful Brain Trick?
Basically, superstitions come from a system made to keep us safe. Cause and effect bias—the habit of thinking that if two things happen together, one caused the other—isn’t a mistake in how we’re made. It’s a brain trick that has helped us survive, a quick way for early humans to react fast with very little information.
From this point of view, the belief that lightning and thunder must be related to angry gods wasn’t silly in ancient times—it was a reasonable guess when they didn’t know about weather science. Acting on information that wasn’t complete but felt emotionally right was often safer than doing nothing.
Today, that same bias might show up as lucky charms or actions that don’t make sense, but they come from deep within our minds as ways to survive.
The Education Puzzle: Even Smart People Believe
Against what many people think, superstition isn’t just for people who don’t know much. Very educated people, including scientists and doctors, say they do ritualistic things.
This shows a truth: thinking errors like cause and effect bias don’t just disappear when you learn things. Being smart adds understanding and detail but doesn’t erase the basic instinct to take mental shortcuts or see patterns that aren’t there.
Actually, when things are more important—school tests, medical operations, high-pressure talks—people often depend more on rituals. It’s not being uninformed that makes people superstitious at these times; it’s being worried. And rituals calm that worry better than just logic.
Cultural Growth of Superstitions
The way superstitions continue through generations is as much about culture as it is about psychology. Actions like knocking on wood, avoiding black cats, or carrying lucky objects didn’t just stay in old stories—they became shared cultural rituals.
These customs are often passed down through families or local traditions. They become part of weddings, holiday celebrations, and important life events—not because they make logical sense, but because they create emotional connection.
Even when people know that an action doesn’t make sense, culture often wins out over reality. If your grandmother believed throwing salt kept away bad spirits, doing it today might not be superstition—it might just be a way to connect to her memory.
Superstitions in Daily Life: What’s Okay, What’s a Problem
So how can we tell the difference between a cute ritual and one that might mean there’s a bigger issue?
Here are three questions to think about
- Does it lower stress or make it worse?
- Helpful superstitions create calm. Unhealthy ones add fear.
- Can you do things without doing it?
- Habits that are flexible are fine. Things you have to do limit your freedom.
- Does it improve how you do things or limit what you do?
- Rituals that give you power can improve results. Rituals that limit you can create dependence.
Mental health experts often try to help people move from needing rituals all the time to using better ways to cope that can change as needed. The aim isn’t to stop magical thinking completely—it’s to make sure it’s helping the person, not controlling them.
Practical Uses
Understanding the psychology of superstitions makes it possible to give better support in therapy, education, and everyday life. Therapists might use the placebo-like parts of rituals—creating emotionally calming actions that soothe clients or confirm their personal control when things are uncertain.
In schools, teachers might allow rituals on test days—lucky shirts, repeated phrases—while also guiding students toward study methods based on reality. There’s no reason to say no to the locker stomp or pencil tap if it calms nerves and improves focus.
Final Thoughts: Let the Black Cat Walk Through
Human thinking is a wonderful mix of brainpower and instinct. Our need for control, meaning, and ritual leads not only to science and reason but also to superstition and myth. These mental shortcuts might seem not based on reason, but many have a purpose—comfort, clear-headedness, and emotional strength.
So go ahead, knock on wood, cross your fingers, or wear your lucky shirt. Superstitions might not change the universe, but they might just improve your mood and sharpen your mind—thanks to the amazing biases inside your brain.
Citations
- Damisch, L., Stoberock, B., & Mussweiler, T. (2010). Keep your fingers crossed! How superstition improves performance. Psychological Science, 21(7), 1014–1020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610372631
- Blanco, F., Barberia, I., & Matute, H. (2014). The lack of outcome-irrelevant learning in depression. Biological Psychiatry, 76(8), 610-616. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2014.01.013
- Matute, H., Yarritu, I., & Vadillo, M. (2011). Illusions of causality at the heart of pseudoscience. British Journal of Psychology, 102(3), 392–405. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8295.2010.02029.x
- Langer, E. J. (1975). The illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32(2), 311–328. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.32.2.311
