Beyond the Pigeon

I bought a small item at the local market the other day. The total with tax was $6.66. “You’d better buy something else, too,” the clerk said. I assumed she was joking. I smiled as I handed her $10. “I’m serious,” she said. “No, that’s OK,” I answered. She sighed as she gave me back change. I could see the exchange really did bother her however.

Numerological hopes and fears are commonplace. Many people play lucky numbers in lotteries and on roulette wheels. (With high frequency those lucky numbers are birthdays.) The number 4 is unlucky in parts of East Asia. Fear of the number 13 is so common in the West that there is a specific word for it (triskaidekaphobia). Many Western buildings lack a 13^th floor – or, more accurately, the 13^th floor is labeled the 14^th. The number is often missing from addresses. As it happens, the street number of my own house is 15. My street is numbered in the usual US fashion with odd numbers on one side and even ones on the opposite side. My adjacent neighbors to left and right are 11 and 17. The assumption, apparently, is that evil gremlins can read “13” on a mail box but that they can’t count.

I don’t normally think about my street number, but it came to mind as I turned into the driveway when returning from the market. It prompted me to pull from my shelf for a reread Superstition by Felix E. Planer. I have the 1988 revised edition. A peek on Amazon reveals that it is out of print; used copies are offered for sale there for $52 and $100. I paid something close to $6.66 back in ’88 or ’89, which is $13.59 in 2019 dollars. It is worth a read: not $52 worth IMHO, but it is worth borrowing from the library anyway. Be aware that some of the terminology in the book, though perfectly correct when written, is regarded as un-PC in some circles today; the reader might find this refreshing.

Planer was born in Berlin in 1914 but moved to London where he earned his doctorate; during the war he conducted scientific and engineering research for the British Admiralty. He was a lifelong skeptic, but was aware he was fighting an uphill battle, not least with himself. People are hardwired to see patterns even where they don’t exist and to worry about them – and not just people. B.F. Skinner’s classic Superstition in the Pigeon demonstrated that pigeons fed on a random schedule develop meaningless rituals; they repeat an action that preceded getting fed the last time, and the more often they repeat it the more likely (just by the odds) they will be fed again soon afterward. So, the ritual behavior is reinforced. This is very similar to a baseball player who eats a Twinkie before a game because he scored a run the last time he did; he might know intellectually that the Twinkie wasn’t the reason, but if he doesn’t eat one he might well be slightly distracted by the thought, which could hurt his batting. That’s how superstition works. It is how obsessive-compulsive disorder works, which is just superstition on overdrive. Fear underlies it, and fear is the problem with it.

Planer’s definition of superstition (in humans: he leaves the pigeons out of it) is therefore two-part: 1) “a belief in influences and events that are incapable of being justified on rational grounds,” and 2) the additional constituent of fear. Planer discusses the global evolution of beliefs in magical objects, rituals, spirits, and the paranormal from Sumerian to modern times. Unlike pigeons, humans are able to think rationally and to overcome superstitions, if not our tendency toward them. Ritual behavior really does temporarily ease superstitious fears, which is why it gets reinforced, but he argues that it is better for longer term happiness and personal freedom to get past them.

I agree for myself, but I’m not sure this is entirely true for everyone. Psychologist Gregg Henriques has written of the three fundamental world views. There is “supernatural dualism, which is the view of most traditional religions.” This posits a spiritual world distinct from the readily tangible material one. Second is “parapsychological mysticism, which refers to a belief about a conscious reality that surpasses conventional scientific understanding.” If this sounds New Age-y, it is. Third is the naturalistic world view, which regards the physical world as all there is. Planer regards the first two as superstition. He may be right (and I think he is) but that doesn’t mean people who belong to the first two categories aren’t happier than naturalistic realists. There is some evidence that a larger percentage of them are: naturally there are depressive and giddy folk in all categories, but the percentages differ. As that may be, each of us believes what he or she must. There are still downsides to many superstitions regardless. Even a mystic might want to give up eating that Twinkie before the big game.

Howlin' Wolf - I Ain't Superstitious