Superstition is very important both as a social phenomenon and an economic one. It’s part of human culture.
Superstitions are beliefs or attitudes that make connections between events that are not related to each other. They often go against logic or rational science. Superstitious behavior or rituals usually have very little with the desired results.
Are you a superstitious person? As irrational as superstitions are, we all have one or more.
In most cases, superstitions are harmless, and in themselves don’t cause any harm.
There are a lot of studies on this topic.
For many people, superstitious behavior provides a sense of control and reduces anxiety. Therefore, the level of superstition increases during times of stress and anxiety. This is especially true in times of economic crisis and social uncertainty, especially wars and conflicts.
It has been proven that superstitions contribute to the formation of a positive psychological attitude. Superstitions often help people with low self-esteem become more self-confident, but often get in the way of people with high self-esteem. It has been proven that women are more superstitious than men. We’re thinking that this happened because, until recently, women were more dependent and relatively recently received the same rights to influence their lives as men.
Superstition manifests itself in the market in different ways. For example, the product itself may be based on superstition (good luck charms, spell sets, healing crystals, etc.). Services based on superstitious beliefs are also common (services of fortune-tellers and psychics, Feng Shui, etc.). Pseudo-scientific and superstitious products are widespread, potentially very profitable for firms and costly for consumers. If superstition is not a product, it can still play a role in the consumption of other goods and services (gambling addiction, investing in stocks, sending superstitious e-mails, etc.). A person's consumer superstitions can unconsciously influence the evaluation of a product after it has failed.
Our survey on superstition is playful. We want respondents to think for themselves: «Are they superstitious? And, if they are superstitious, then do they control superstitions or do superstitions control their lives?» The survey results are presented in our report «Are you afraid of black cats?»
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