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Understanding, defining and measuring the trait of superstition

Understanding, defining and measuring the trait of superstition. Éva Delacroix, Professor Valérie GUILLARD PhD student. Are you superstitious ?. What is superstition?. Beliefs or behaviors that are contrary to rational norms within a specific society ( Campbell, 1996 )

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Understanding, defining and measuring the trait of superstition

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  1. Understanding, defining and measuring the trait of superstition Éva Delacroix, Professor Valérie GUILLARD PhD student

  2. Are you superstitious?

  3. What is superstition? • Beliefs or behaviors that are contrary to rational norms within a specific society (Campbell, 1996) • Confusion around this concept: frontiers between superstition, the paranormal, witchcraft or religion are vague. • Superstitions are culturally anchored by members of a given society • In China, prices ending with the digit 8 are very common (local belief that number 8 brings luck, prosperity and happiness) (Simmons and Schindler, 2002). • Aim of this research: • clarify the definition and the dimensions of superstition • Propose the adequate measurement scale

  4. What is superstition? (continued) • Superstition beliefs rely on a mistaken causal link between two phenomena that, from a rational standpoint have nothing to do with one another. • Primitive superstition is related to true beliefs: people in Middle Age truly and deeply believed that crows brought bad luck(Skinner, 1948 ; Staddon and Simmelhag, 1971 ; Devenport and Holloway, 1980)

  5. What is superstition? (continued) • Modern superstition: • People says « It’s a very old ritual, I know it’s absurd, but… » (qualitative research) • People do not believe in the existence of a mistaken causal links between two events (cross the finger and to pass an exam). But they practice some rituals. • Half belief (Campbell, 1996): people adopt superstitious behaviors without deeply believing in them. • They are reluctant to say they really believe in the validity of superstition BUT they are reluctant to say the do not believe in it.

  6. What is superstition? (continued) • Superstition gives the illusion of control(Langer, 1975, 1977) • Superstitions are used to fight anxiety by filling the psychological gap caused by uncertainty(Malinowski, 1948) • Superstitious thoughts or behaviours are used as a substitution to instrumental acts that people would have liked to achieve in order to influence the situation

  7. Measure of superstition • Need for a reliable and valid measurement scale of supersistion • When you ask people if they are supertitious  “No”. • People are reluctant to admit their irrational beliefs, even if they have such irrational thoughts or practices. • What are the variety of superstitions behaviours? • Lack of such measure in the literature • 2 dimensions measure superstition (Jahoda, 1969 ; Wiseman and Watt, 2004) • Definition of superstition • Superstition consists in unfounded half-beliefs that certain facts (external uncontrollable events or internal actions) or objects can • carry good or bad luck, or • be omens of futur positive or negative events.

  8. Measure of superstition (continued) • Study 1 • Exploratory qualitative study (N=52 students, aged 23 years) • “Do you have some rituals which bring you good luck” • “Before a stressful event (competition, exams, etc), do you have some rituals to move the bad luck away?” • “Are you superstitious?” • List of superstitious beliefs and behaviours • Study 2 • Psychometric scale development procedures: Test of a large pool of items • Sample 1 : 150 french business students (45 items) • Sample 2 : 119 french business students (32 items) • Sample 3 : 215 french non student individuals (27 items)

  9. Measure of superstition (continued) • Items of practice and beliefs are highly correlated (r > 0,8) • We only kept the belief formulated items • When I see a black cat I turn my way • Black cats carry bad luck • 24 items measure superstition with 5 dimensions • 60 % variance explained

  10. Measure of superstition (continued)

  11. Measure of superstition (continued)

  12. Measure of superstition (continued)

  13. Measure of superstition (continued)

  14. Measure of superstition (continued)

  15. Discussion Contributions • 5 dimensions conceptually interesting for a better understanding of superstition • Existing scales not relevant: they only measure popular belief superstitions Limitations • Fate and signs: dimension inside our definition? • Related to external locus of control whereas others dimensions related to internal locus of control (by respecting some mental rules, I can control the world) • Violation of normality, most people exhibit low scores • How can we take the distribution asymetry into account? • Scale developped in France and might not be applied in other cultures

  16. Discussion(continued) • Relevance in literature • Superstition and marketing • In the USA, between 800 and 900 millions dollars are lost in business of each Friday the thirteenth because people do not want to go to work (Kramer and Bloke, 2008) • Beijing Summer Olympic games are scheduled to open on August 8, 2008 at 8 PM Thank you for your attention !!!

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