Superstitions
Superstitions may not only be urban legends passed on from generation to generation, they may also be learned by operant conditioning. In operant conditioning there is a reward for the good and a removal of reward for the bad. In other words the operant conditioning is a way of learning where the consequence of behavior changes the probability of that particular behaviors occurrence (1). Some common examples of superstitions include black cats are bad luck, or breaking a mirror or wearing lucky shirt (2) some even argue that humans are not the only species with superstitions, Skinner states that he believes that pigeons are also superstitious (3). My best friend in high school had lucky panties and she would always wear them for any test or any important day. She once told me that she forgot her lucky panties and left school before her test to go home and get them. This superstition could have been formed by operant conditioning because the positive response is her grades increased when wearing her lucky panties. The negative would be that she would freak out so badly if she did not have her lucky panties on that she would do a lot worse on her tests. This is a mind over matter situation, in which the panties never had the answers to her test in them, but they gave her the belief that she would do well. Although this superstition seems silly to the rest of us, to her this was no laughing matter. She really thought that without her lucky panties that she would fail her tests. Now, this superstition could be reversed with operant conditioning as well. All you would have to do is prove that her panties weren’t magical and they didn’t help her get an A on her test. So one day she has a pop quiz or a test she forgot about, and once she proves to herself that the power wasn’t in her lucky panties but in her mind, then she could overcome this superstition.