People are most likely to turn to superstitions or lucky charms to help them achieve their goals when they face high levels of uncertainty, a new study has found.
The study, published in the latest issue of 'Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin', also distinguishes between two different types of goals, a performance goal versus a learning goal, and finds that people are more likely to turn to superstitions to achieve a performance goal.
Performance goals are when people try to be judged as successful by others.
"We show that using superstition increases people's confidence in achieving performance goals, and it is certainly possible that under certain circumstances, increased confidence may lead to improved performance," said Eric Hamerman at Tulane University, adding that performance goals tend to be extrinsically motivated and are perceived to be susceptible to influence from outside forces.
On the other hand, the study says, learning goals are intrinsically motivated and are often judged internally.
There is also a perception that learning goals are also internally controlled and less likely to be impacted by outside forces.
Hamerman, along with Carey Morewedge at Boston University conducted six experiments to test whether the type of achievement goal would change the likelihood of those engaging in superstitious behaviour.
They found that people used superstitious behaviour to help achieve both chronic and temporary performance goals, but not for help in achieving a learning goal.
"We show that using superstition increases people's confidence in achieving performance goals, and it is certainly possible that under certain circumstances, increased confidence may lead to improved performance," Hamerman said.
Though, the research does not investigate, said Hamerman, "whether belief in superstitions has an effect on actual performance".
