Lucky I'm not Superstitious

Yet more gout, so I'm stuck in with my feet up - it's a hard life I know! Have just finished watching Deal or No Deal. For those who do not the idea of the game it is very simple. People are allocated random boxes with amounts of money in them ranging from 1p to £250,000 and then one of them is selected to play. They bring their box to the front with the unknown amount in it. In each round the player selects 3 boxes to eliminate and at the end of the round 'the Banker' phones up and offers the player a sum of money to buy their box. The player can choose to Deal (accept the Banker's offer) or No Deal (continue on with the game).

Essentially it's a guessing game. There's no real skill involved other than knowing when to cut your losses if things go pear shaped. There is an element of gambling in it, but basically you pick a box at random and see how it goes.

But because humans are involved it becomes more than a game. People arrive with 'a system', either picking odds then evens, or more usually numbers that have a personal significance e.g. birthdays, anniversaries, house numbers etc. At other times people hold hands before a box is opened, or else they other contestants lean to the left or spin around. Anything to try and influence the outcome of the box opening.

B F Skinner famously did an experiment with pigeons where an automated machine dispensed food randomly. The pigeons developed what seemed like particular rituals (which he called "adventitious reinforcement") which correspond to superstitious behaviour. Some pecked at the outlet while others waggled their heads, all seemingly to try and produce food when they performed. Of course, the distribution of food was completely random and what they did had no influence on it at all. Although Skinner's results have been disputed approx. one year ago Derren Brown did a similar experiment with people. A group of men and women were trapped in a room and told that when a digital counter on a wall reached 100 the doors would be unlocked. The counter increased in fits and starts, but pretty soon it was apparent that some people thought that the increase in numbers was due to them doing something - jumping up and down, or whatever.

It's amazing how often we think that particular things that we do have an influence in the physical world. Wearing a certain pair of socks, leaving the house in the same way, touching a piece of wood, rubbing a rabbit's foot can, some say, produce a favourable outcome. Of course this is utter nonsense.

Where does superstition come from? I'm not sure what the official line is on this one, but I'd imagine that it stems from an ego-centric worldview: a worldview that believes that the Universe owes us a living, or that we can control our environment.

In Deal or No Deal, when a superstitious behaviour "produces" a favourable then it is hailed as a good system. When it fails, it isn't really mentioned or dwelt on. The reality is that it's neither a good system, nor a bad one as the process is entirely random. The lady who won £75,000 today stated that she'd had some sort of dream in which she wrote herself a cheque for £75k. And she did. The dream was hailed as something special. If she hadn't won £75k but the £5 instead I'm sure it wouldn't have been mentioned.

I find this sort of behaviour with regards to prayer. People, very genuine people I might add, do believe that prayers changes the physical world. This is especially true when it comes to illness. People pray for the sick person, and if they recover it is hailed as the result of their prayers, but if it doesn't then it's ignored or an alternative positive spin put on it. Again, I think, this is a manifestation of a human/ego-centric worldview: that in this massive Universe of ours the Deity would want to intervene to help us find our car keys.

For me, prayer doesn't change the world around us, but rather it changes us. It helps us to cope with all the crap that life throws at us. It gives us hope, and strength, and a sense of purpose. But does it change a diagnosis, or alter an exam result, or secure a job? No. But it does give us the inner resources to deal with such things. Brown did a similar type of experiment with humans trying to win enough 'points' to get out of a room. Brown's results with people mirror those of Skinner's with pigeons.