Superstitious Behavior Research Articles

A methodological critique of research on “superstitious” behavior

Much recent research on superstitious behavior involves a procedure in which an instrumental response is pretrained and its rate of occurrence later recorded during a schedule of nonresponse-contingent reinforcement. It is argued that because this procedure fails to take into account the variety of alternative behaviors which might simultaneously be maintained by adventitious reinforcement, the data derived from such research cannot provide best evidence, whether positive or negative, for the general notion of superstitious behavior. The direct observational procedure originally employed by Skinner (1948) is proposed as being necessary for a more sensitive analysis of superstitious behavior.

An Analysis of Superstitious Behavior in the Rat

Eighteen rats were exposed to non-response contingent food deliveries on one of six different fixed and variable interval schedules. All animals developed repeated, stereotyped patterns of behavior which they emitted between food deliveries, although these patterns showed more drift in topography and were more readily extinguished under the temporally variable schedules. Control animals developed no repeated behavior patterns during their exposure to the apparatus for an equal time in the absence of food. It is proposed that superstition represents an ideal paradigm for studying the interacting roles of contingency and contiguity in maintaining behavior, and that a contingency, per se, is effective only insofar as it specifies reliable contiguities between behavior and reinforcement.

Superstitions Among Certain Groups of Lebanese Arab Students in Beirut

This study is partly exploratory to assess the extent to which superstitious beliefs and behavior are common among different groups of high school and university Lebanese Arab students in Beirut. Class level, sex, high school science achievement, and major were the main variables that were investigated as to their relevance to superstitiousness. More than 600 students in the 8th and 11th high school grades and university sophomores answered 59 items relating to superstitions with respect to acquaintance, belief in, and influence on behavior. It was found that superstitiousness significantly decreases with increasing level of education. Among the other variables investigated, the major findings were that among the university sophomore students, females and arts students were respectively more superstitious than males and science students.

The Function of Magic Folk Belief among Texas Coastal Fishermen

FOLKLORISTS have collected many folk beliefs and superstitions in the United States, but few collectors have placed the items in their social context and few scholars have attempted to analyze the functions of modern superstitious behavior. Collections of superstitions most often are lists of beliefs with perhaps the name of the informant and collector added. Usually there is no indication whether the person who reported the item believes or practices it. This information is necessary for any analysis of superstitious behavior, and the lack of contextual material may explain the dearth of studies of the function of magic among modern people. Folklorists have shown more interest in collecting superstitions than in analyzing them, while anthropologists have concentrated their attention on superstitious behavior among primitive groups. The approach I have used here combines the collecting procedures of folklorists with the analytic methods of anthropologists in an attempt to get complete contextual information for a thorough study of a particular group. The most fruitful way to apply this approach is to use a group that has a strong tradition of folk beliefs and to question the members of the group as to their attitudes toward their own magical practices. Several modern occupational groupsminers, sailors, construction workers, and fishermen-have systems of superstitious beliefs that stand out from the rest of society. Of these groups, fishermen are representative, having maintained a viable pattern of folk belief in partial contradiction to modern American society. I chose the fishermen of the Texas Gulf coast because they were accessible and had not been the subject of any previous folklore collections. My field work was done in the summer and fall of I967, and I collected 155 different items of folk belief as reported by i21 fishermen. I tried to get the complete social background of the informants as well as their attitudes to-

Discrimination between Escapable and Inescapable Shock

8 rats were exposed to a procedure in which several escapable-shock sessions were alternated with inescapable-shock sessions. The conditioned escape behavior was observed to persist as superstitious escape during inescapable shock. The rate and resistance to extinction of the superstitious escape behavior was found to decline with repeated changes from escapable to inescapable shock. Amount of escape conditioning was not observed to affect this discrimination.

Superstitious Escape in the Albino Rat

5 albino rats were conditioned to escape from shock either on a FR 6 or a VR 6 schedule of reinforcement. Following escape conditioning, Ss were exposed to inescapable shock of 0.5 to 4.0 sec duration. The previously conditioned escape behavior was observed to persist during inescapable shock for 25 to 45 sessions. Short values of inescapable shock, when presented immediately after escape conditioning, resulted in higher response rates. Short durations of inescapable shock following exposure to longer shock values did not result in higher response rates for all Ss. The observed effects of shock durations on responding during inescapable shock are different from the effects of shock durations on shock-elicited aggression. This difference suggests that lever-pressing during inescapable shock is superstitious escape behavior and not aggression.

Avoidance learning in fish as a function of prior fear conditioning.

90 goldfish, Carassius auratus, were given 0, 5, 10, 20 or 40 fear conditioning trials prior to 40 standard avoidance learning trials in an aquatic shuttlebox. Results indicated that avoidance learning was inversely related to the number of fear conditioning trials and were discussed in terms of the development of superstitious behavior during fear conditioning which was incompatible with the shuttle response required during subsequent avoidance training.

A quick and simple method for magazine training the pigeon.

Pigeons are usually magazine trained before they are trained to peck a response key for food reinforcement. Magazine training aids in adapting out emotional responses generated by the noise accompanying food delivery and the sudden illumination of the food aperture (Ferster & Skinner, 1957). This training expedites building a specific response into S's behavioral repertoire by ensuring that reinforcement immediately follows appropriate responding. In the usual procedure (Ferster & Skinner, 1957) E waits for the bird to discover and eat grain from an open magazine. This is followed by repeated manual operations of the magazine until the bird eats without delay while food is briefly presented. The initial operation of the food magazine invariably elicits a startle response which must be adapted out before the pigeon will again approach and eat. One unfortunate concomitant of this approach is the involvement of accidental contingencies affording an opportunity for the development of superstitious behaviors which must be broken up before conditioning can proceed effectively. As a consequence, the method frequently proves timeconsuming and exhausting. Recently a simple yet effective alternative has evolved in this laboratory, yielding a substantial savings in time and effort. The procedure to be summarily described has been independently employed by several workers. Ss were adult White Kings and Silver Kings of undetermined sex. The apparatus was a pigeon box of standard design (Ferster & Skinner, 1957). A translucent response key was mounted on one wall of the compartment above the food aperture. The interior of the chamber was illuminated by two 7y2-w house lights. In each instance, the experimental chamber was removed from its soundproof ventilated environment, and magazine training and shaping were undertaken with the top or side open and the room lights extinguished. Throughout training, the response key was transilluminated with green light. During each operation of the food magazine, the house lights and key light were extinguished and the food aperture was illuminated. The pigeon was introduced to the appararus securely held by E so that its wings were pinned to its sides and was positioned with its feet resting on the floor of the compartment facing the food magazine. While maintaining his grasp on the bird, E closed a manual operate switch with his free hand to raise the food tray and illuminate the aperture. E then pushed the pigeon's beak down into the food aperture and held it there until the bird ate some of the grain. At this point, the food tray was lowered and raised again immediately. This sequence was repeated several times until the bird no longer showed an emotional response to auditory and visual stimuli produced by operation of the magazine. The pigeon was then slowly released and allowed to move freely about the box. Final conditioning to peck the lighted key was bcgn when it was determined that the bird would move quickly toward the food magazlne from any position in the box upon presentation of the magazine stimuli. Magaz~ne training in the manner described was accomplished for 12 Ss in an average of less than 1 min., a striking reduction in the amount of time (often 20 min. or more) ordinarily required in this phase of the conditioning process.

PERFORMANCE ON A FIXED-RATIO SCHEDULE WITH CORRELATED AMOUNT OF REWARD.

Four rats were trained to bar press on FR 9 TO 30 sec. They were reinforced with a large or small amount of water according to whether their final IRT was long or short respectively. Four control rats always received the small amount of reinforcement. The control animals produced the high rates of responding typical of fixed-ratio performance. The experimental animals, with one exception, developed superstitious behavior and maintained slow responding throughout the ratio. However, some features of the results pointed to a persistent influence of the factors which favor short IRTs.