Transcript What is this thing called superstition?

What is this thing called
superstition?
Konrad Talmont-Kaminski
KLI & UMCS
A sample of superstitions
• What do these have in
common? 



Tarot card reading
Triskaidekaphobia
Whistling for wind
Bad luck from
breaking a mirror
 First footing
 Water dowsing
• That these possibly do
not?  Believing in fairies or
UFOs
 Using Vitamin C
against colds
 Saying Mass
 Wishing people ‘good
luck’
 Newtonian physics
Jahoda definition
• Gustav Jahoda, 1956
 “the kind of belief and action a
reasonable man in present-day
Western society would regard
as being ‘superstitious’”
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A ‘subterfuge’
A place-holder
Relying on intuitions
Awaiting a proper definition
Definition and explanation
• Phenomenological definition
 Seemingly easier to obtain
 May be misleading
• Definition in terms of underlying processes
 Requires that superstition be understood
 More valuable
• Neither has been agreed upon
• But numerous suggestions
Uncertainty
• Superstitions form under
conditions of uncertainty
 Malinowski (1925)
on Trobriand islanders
 Empirical support
• Vyse (1991) matrix-task study
• Keinan (1994) on Israelis
under SCUD attacks
• Padgett, Jorgenson (1982) on economic threat in Germany
• Reason for the link is not well understood
Anthropological explanations
• Motivational - Anxiety reduction
(Malinowski 1925)
 Main thesis in anthropology
• Alternative explanations
 Cognitive - Primitive attempts
to understand the world
(Frazer 1922)
 Social - Communicating
willingness to cooperate
(Palmer 1989)
Psychological explanations
• Originate with
Skinner’s 1948
pigeon study
(Skinner 1948)
• “Operant
conditioning is not
just for rats and
pigeons” (Vyse
1997)
Pattern seeking
• Psychologists focus on pattern
seeking
• Pattern seeking explanations:
 Emotional need to find a pattern Vyse (1997) seems to accept this at
times
 ‘Finding’ non-existent patterns
sometimes less costly - Killeen
(1997, 1981) on ‘just in case’
justifications
 Evolutionary biasing - McKay
(2007) applying Haselton’s error
management theory
Naïve inductivism
• Danger of a naïve inductivist view of pattern
seeking
 Beck, Forstmeier (2005) on adaptive learning strategies
• Position is philosophically unacceptable
 Hume (1748)
 Goodman (1955)
• Selective associations are the norm
 Cook, Mineka (1990) on monkeys learning to fear
snakes
• General idea of relating superstition to pattern
seeking not reliant on naïve views of learning
Superstition as false belief
• Superstition as:
 “a wrong idea about external
reality”! (Beck, Forstmeier
2005)
 “ascription of false causal
connection” (Maller, Lundeen
1933)
• Problem
 What about non-superstitious
false beliefs?
 A profound difference
Supernatural beliefs
• Superstitions as involving supernatural beliefs
 Seemingly attractive approach
 But highly problematic
• Problem 1 - distinguishing supernatural beliefs
 Vague concept
 Not used by certain societies which
distinguish superstition (Martin 2004)
or magic (Durkheim 1921)
Religion
• Problem 2 - difference between religion and
superstition
 Superstition as false religion (Aquinas 1265)
 Religion as true superstition?
 Institutionalisation/function of
beliefs/practices
(Durkheim 1912, Wilson 2002)
 Difference in espoused aims?
Pseudoscience
• Problem 3 - Pseudoscientific
superstitions
 Saher, Lindeman (2005) on
alternative medicine and
supernatural beliefs
 Other evidence for post hoc
explanations
 People may opt for
supernatural/pseudoscientific
explanations of patterns due to
unavailability of natural
explanations
Thus far…
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Superstition linked to uncertainty
May be due to ‘just in case’ pattern seeking
Not to be identified with false beliefs
May not necessarily involve supernatural
claims
• Need to consider the cognitive processes
which lead to superstition
Cognitive processes
• Cognitive explanations
 Logical versus pre-logical thinking (Durkheim 1912,
Lévy-Bruhl 1910)
 Childhood versus adult modes of thought (Piaget 1929)
• Reify superstitious/rational distinction in terms of
different modes of thought
• Problem - Not all pre-logical or childhood
thinking results in superstitious beliefs
 Identification of superstition still problematic
Recent cognitive approaches
• Dual-aspect reasoning
 (Epstein, Pacini, Denes Raj, Heier
1996) on intuitive versus
analytical thinking
• Developmental psychology
 (Hood, Bloom 2007, Lindeman,
Aarnio 2006) on essentialist
accounts of childhood intuitive
reasoning
Weaknesses
• Can not identify superstition with a mode of
reasoning
 But provide a richer picture of limited human
abilities
• The modes of reasoning not competing but
mutually supportive
 Modes of reasoning not superseded
 Later modes reliant upon earlier modes
Ecological rationality
• Reasoning needs to fit the specific problems
it is applied to (Simon 1956)
• Superstitions may be the result of a
mismatch between
the reasoning and
the situation it is
applied to
Thank you
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