People turn to 'superstitions' to achieve performance goals

A new study has recently revealed that people likelier to turn to superstitions or lucky charms achieve performance goals rather than learning goals.

Eric Hamerman at Tulane University and Carey Morewedge at Boston University have determined that people use superstitious behavior to help achieve both chronic and temporary performance goals, but not for help achieving a learning goal.

Hamerman said that previous research has shown that when a goal has high uncertainty people are more likely to turn to superstition and when performance goals become more uncertain, people use superstition to help achieve them, however, increasing the uncertainty of learning goals does not affect whether or not people turn to superstition.

Hamerman cautions that the research does not investigate whether belief in superstitions has an effect on actual performance.

It showed that using superstition increases people's confidence in achieving performance goals, and it was certainly possible that under certain circumstances, increased confidence might lead to improved performance; however, they acknowledged that superstition was not a rational way of actually helping to achieve such goals, and the purpose of the research was not to recommend superstition as a method of goal achievement.

The research is published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.