People dump superstition when faced with death

WASHINGTON - People who believe in fate and destiny tend to dump superstition when faced with the death, says a recent study.

Researchers were surprised to find that study participants’ thoughts about their own deaths jolted their superstitious beliefs, because the event happened to be one of extreme uncertainty.

Superstitious behaviour can include actions like wearing a lucky jersey or using good luck charms.

“We theorised that when people thought about death, they would behave more superstitiously in an effort to gain a sense of control over it,” said Scott Fluke.

Fluke led the research at the Kansas State University with Russel Webster and Donald Saucier, associate professor of psychology.

“What we didn’t expect was that thinking about death would make people feel helpless — like they cannot control it — and that this would actually reduce their superstitious belief,” Fluke said, according to a Kansas State release.

Based on two studies, Fluke and his team ascribed it to three reasons: to gain control over uncertainty; to overcome feelings of helplessness; and because it is easier to rely on superstition instead of coping strategies.

“People sometimes fall back on their superstitions as a handicap,” Saucier said. “It’s a parachute they think will help them out.”

In the first study, the researchers conducted questionnaires with 200 undergraduates, asking about how pessimistic they were, whether they believed in chance or fate, if they liked to be in control and other questions.

One of the major discoveries was that people who believe that chance and fate control their lives are more likely to be superstitious.

In the second study, researchers wanted to know how participants reacted to death, and asked them to write about how they felt about their own death.

Fluke got the idea for his research when he realised there were many unanswered questions about psychology and superstition. He decided to pursue the topic further as a research project.

“I was interested in superstition because it frustrates me when people do things that don’t make sense,” Fluke said.

For BOX

Saucier offers some tips to avoid superstitious behaviour:

* Don’t believe in bad luck and take some ownership over what control you do have in situations. Sometimes we use bad luck to let ourselves off the hook, but we should instead focus on what we can do to avoid difficult situations in the first place.

* Be decisive and proactive. People who are less decisive believe in superstition more, and those who are proactive are less superstitious.

* Don’t be in a situation where you have to rely on bad luck. Bad luck would never occur if only good things happened. If something bad happens and you call it bad luck, do it as a coping mechanism after the fact rather than before the event.