So really, what caused that earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan? A quick Google search posing this very question yields a wide range of answers. Fortunately a majority of the hits acknowledge and explain how plate tectonics caused this tragedy. Sprinkled throughout the scientifically accurate explanations are conspiracy theories suggesting that the US government caused it through hyper-excitation of radio waves in the ionosphere (HAARP) and perhaps even planned radiation releases. Other theories include the “Supermoon’s” increased tug on the earths crust due to the fact that it is at perigee (closest proximity to the earth in its cyclical orbit). Solar flares (coronal mass ejections) were also blamed; and by some, the flares working in concert with the moon in perigee are believed to have triggered the quake. Global warming also gets its share of the blame (but the proponents suggest that real cause is the removal of oil from the crust leaving voids that ultimately trigger earthquake). Some have even suggested that a comet or even God may have done this.
The problem with the scientific explanation is that plate tectonics is invisible to most of us. Its motion is so gradual that it does not “on the surface” seem plausible. We seemingly need a clear causal agent that fits within our understanding of the world. Scientifically literate individuals are inclined to grasp the agency of tectonics because the theory and the effects do in fact, fit together in observable and measurable ways. Others reach for causal explanations that better fit within their understanding of the world.
Our correlation calculators (brains) grab onto events temporally associated with such events and we then conjure up narratives to help us make sense of it all. It is easy to understand why folks might assume that the moon at perigee, or increased solar activity, or even an approaching comet might cause such events. Others, who are prone to conspiracy theories, who also have a corresponding belief that big brother is all powerful and sadistic, will grab onto theories that fit their world views. The same is true for those with literal religious inclinations. Unfortunately, this drive often leads to narrative fallacies that misplace the blame and sometimes ultimately blame the victims.
History is filled with stories drawn up to explain such tragedies. In the times of ancient Greece and Rome, many tales were spun to explain famine, plagues, and military failures. All of this occurred prior to our increasingly complex understanding of the world (e.g., germ theory, plate tectonics, meteorology), and it made sense to blame such events on vengeful gods. How else could they make sense of such tragedies? This seems to be how we are put together.
A study published in 2006 in the journal, Developmental Psychology, by University of Arkansas Psychologists Jesse Bering and Becky Parker looked at the development of such inclinations in children. They pinpointed the age at which such thinking begins to flourish. They also provided a hypothesis to explain this developmental progression. This study was summarized in a March 13, 2011 online article at Scientific American by the first author titled: Signs, signs, everywhere signs: Seeing God in tsunamis and everyday events.
In this study of children ages three to nine years of age, the psychologists devised a clever technique to assess the degree to which individuals begin to assign agency to events in their environment and subsequently act on those signs. What they found was that children between three and six years of age do not read communicative intent into unexplained events (e.g., lights flickering or pictures falling from the wall). But at age seven, children start reading into and acting on such events. So why is it that at the age of seven, children start inferring agency from events in their environment? Bering suggests that:
“The answer probably lies in the maturation of children’s theory-of-mind abilities in this critical period of brain development. Research by University of Salzburg psychologist Josef Perner, for instance, has revealed that it’s not until about the age of seven that children are first able to reason about “multiple orders” of mental states. This is the type of everyday, grown-up social cognition whereby theory of mind becomes effortlessly layered in complex, soap opera–style interactions with other people. Not only do we reason about what’s going on inside someone else’s head, but we also reason about what other people are reasoning is happening inside still other people’s heads!”
So as it turns out, this tendency to read signs into random events is associated with the maturation of cognitive processes. Children with less mature “Theory of Mind” (click here for a very basic description of Theory of Mind) capabilities fail to draw the conclusion that a supernatural being, or any being for that matter, knows what they are thinking and can act in a way that will communicate something.
“To interpret [capricious] events as communicative messages, … demands a sort of third-person perspective of the self’s actions: ‘What must this other entity, who is watching my behavior, think is happening inside my head?’ [These] findings are important because they tell us that, before the age of seven, children’s minds aren’t quite cognitively ripe enough to allow them to be superstitious thinkers. The inner lives of slightly older children, by contrast, are drenched in symbolic meaning. One second-grader was even convinced that the bell in the nearby university clock tower was Princess Alice ‘talking’ to him.”
When a capricious event has great significance, we are seemingly driven by a ravenous appetite to look for “signs” or “reasons.” We desperately need to understand. Our searches for those “reasons” are largely shaped by previously held beliefs and cultural influences. Divine interventions, for example, have historically been ambiguous; therefore, a multitude of surreptitious events, can be interpreted as having a wide variety of meanings. And those meanings are guided by one’s beliefs.
“Misfortunes appear cryptic, symbolic; they seem clearly to be about our behaviors. Our minds restlessly gather up bits of the past as if they were important clues to what just happened. And no stone goes unturned. Nothing is too mundane or trivial; anything to settle our peripatetic [wandering] thoughts from arriving at the unthinkable truth that there is no answer because there is no riddle, that life is life and that is that.”
The implications of this understanding are profound. We are by our very nature driven to search for signs and reasons to explain major life events, and we are likewise inclined to see major events as signs themselves. The ability to do so ironically depends on cognitive maturation. But, given the complexity and remoteness of scientific explanations, we often revert to familiar and culturally sanctioned explanations that have stood the test of time. We do this because it gives us comfort, regardless of actual plausibility. As I often say, we are a curious lot, we humans.
References:
Bering, J. (2011). Signs, signs, everywhere signs: Seeing God in tsunamis and everyday events. Scientific American. http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=signs-signs-everywhere-signs-seeing-2011-03-13&print=true
Bering, J., & Parker, B. (2006). Children’s Attributions of Intentions to an Invisible Agent. Developmental Psychology. Vol. 42, No. 2, 253–262
Halloween seems like an appropriate time to discuss superstition. What with ghosts and goblins and black cats and witches and all. But would not Easter or Christmas, or any other evening that a five year old loses a tooth be an equally appropriate time? In actuality, we massage magical thinking in our children with notions of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the tooth fairy. And recall if you will, some of your favorite children’s books and the supernatural forces employed to delight your youthful whimsies. Magic is, along with the thinking employed to delight in it, seemingly a rite of childhood, and in some ways the essence of what it is to be a child.
Much as magical thinking has its roots in childhood fantasies, superstition too has its roots in our species’ youth. In that nascent time we lacked the capacity to understand the forces and whims of the natural world around us. Our ancestors struggled to survive, and living another day in part depended on their ability to make sense of the forces that aided or impinged upon them. We must not forget that our forefathers lived much like the non-domesticated animals around us today. Survival was a day to day reality dependent upon the availability of life sustaining resources like food, water and shelter, and was often threatened by predation or the forces of nature. Death was a real possibility and survival a real struggle. The stakes were high and the hazards were plentiful. As it turns out, these are the very conditions under which superstition is likely to thrive.
So what is superstition? Bruce Hood, author of The Science of Superstition, notes that superstition is a belief “that there are patterns, forces, energies, and entities operating in the world that are denied by science…” He adds that “the inclination or sense that they may be real is our supersense.” It involves an inclination to attempt to “control outcomes through supernatural influence.” It is the belief that if you knock on wood or cross your fingers you can influence outcomes in your favor. It is the belief that faithfully carrying out rituals as part of a wedding ceremony (e.g., wearing something blue, something new, something borrowed) or before going to bat or before giving a big speech will improve outcomes. It is also the belief that negative outcomes can come as a result of stepping on a crack, breaking a mirror, or spilling salt. Hood argues that supersense goes beyond these obvious notions and surfaces in more subtle ways associated with touching an object or entering a place that we feel has a connection with somebody bad or evil. For example, how would you feel if you were told that you had to wear Jeffery Dalmer’s T-shirt or that you were living in a house where ritualistic torture and multiple murders took place? Most of us would recoil at the thought of this. Most of us also believe (erroneously) that we can sense when someone is looking at us, even when we cannot see them doing so. These beliefs and much of the value we place on sentimental objects stems from this style of thinking.
I explored the deep evolutionary roots of superstitious thinking in a previous post, The Illusion of Cause: Vaccines and Autism. The principle underpinnings are the same. In that post I noted the following:
Michael Shermer (2000), in his book, How We Believe, eloquently describes our brains as a Belief Engine. Underlying this apt metaphor is the notion that “Humans evolved to be skilled pattern seeking creatures. Those who were best at finding patterns (standing upwind of game animals is bad for the hunt, cow manure is good for the crops) left behind the most offspring. We are their descendants.” (Shermer, p. 38). Chabris and Simons (2009) note that this refined ability “serves us well, enabling us to draw conclusions in seconds (or milliseconds) that would take minutes or hours if we had to rely on laborious logical calculations.” (p. 154). However, it is important to understand that we are all prone to drawing erroneous connections between stimuli in the environment and notable outcomes. Shermer further contends that “The problem in seeking and finding patterns is knowing which ones are meaningful and which ones are not.“
From an evolutionary perspective, we have thrived in part, as a result of our tendency to infer cause or agency regardless of the reality of threat. For example, those who assumed that rustling in the bushes was a tiger (when it was just wind) were more likely to take precautions and thus less likely, in general, to succumb to predation. Those who were inclined to ignore such stimuli were more likely to later get eaten when in fact the rustling was a hungry predator. Clearly from a survival perspective, it is best to infer agency and run away rather than become lunch meat. The problem that Shermer refers to regarding this system is that we are subsequently inclined toward mystical and superstitious beliefs: giving agency to unworthy stimuli or drawing causal connections that do not exist. Dr. Steven Novella, a neurologist, in his blog post entitled Hyperactive Agency Detection notes that humans vary in the degree to which they assign agency. Some of us have Hyperactive Agency Detection Devices (HADD) and as such, are more prone to superstitious thinking, conspiratorial thinking, and more mystical thinking. It is important to understand as Shermer (2000) makes clear:
“The Belief Engine is real. It is normal. It is in all of us. Stuart Vyse [a research psychologist] shows for example, that superstition is not a form of psychopathology or abnormal behavior; it is not limited to traditional cultures; it is not restricted to race, religion, or nationality; nor is it only a product of people of low intelligence or lacking education. …all humans possess it because it is part of our nature, built into our neuronal mainframe.” (p. 47).
Bruce Hood takes this notion further and adds that the cultural factors discussed at the opening of this piece and other intuitive inclinations such as dualism (a belief in the separation of mind and body), essentialism (the notion that all discernible objects harbor an underlying reality that although intangible, gives each and every object it’s true identity), vitalism (the insistence that there is some big, mysterious extra ingredient in all living things), holism (that everything is connected by forces), and anism (the belief that the inanimate world is alive) shape adult superstition. These latter belief mechanisms are developmental and naturally occurring in children: they are the tendencies that make magic and fantasy so compelling for children. It is when they lurk in our intuition or are sustained in our rational thought that we as adults fall victim to this type of illusion.
It is interesting to note that much like our ancestors, we are more prone to this type of thinking when faced with high stakes, a low probability of success, and incomprehensible controlling circumstances. Think about it. In baseball, batters often have complex superstitious rituals associated with batting. The best hitters experience success only one in three times at bat. And the speed at which they have to decide to swing or not and where to position the swing defies the rational decision making capacity of humans. On the other hand, these very same athletes have no rituals when it comes to fielding a ball (which is a high probability event for the proficient).
Superstition is a natural inclination with deep evolutionary and psychological roots embedded deeply in our natural child development. These tendencies are nurtured and socialized as a part of child rearing and spill over into adult rituals in predictable circumstances (particularly when there is a low degree personal control). When one deconstructs this form of thinking it makes complete and total sense. This is not to suggest that reliance on superstitions is sensible. Often, however, the costs are low and the rituals therein can be fun. There are some potential costs associated with such thinking. Some of the dangers are materialized in notions such as vaccines cause autism and homeopathy will cure what ails you in lieu of scientific medicine. Resignation of personal power in deference to supernatural forces is a depressive response pattern. Reliance on supernatural forces is essentially reliance on chance and in some cases its applications actually stack the deck against you. So be careful when employing such tactics. But, if you’re in the neighborhood, NEVER EVER walk under my ladder. I’ve been known to drop my hammer.
References
Chabris, C. F., & Simons, D. J. (2010). The Invisible Gorilla. Random House: New York.
Dawkins, R. (2009). The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. Free Press: New York.
Gelman, S. A. (2004). Psychological Essentialism in Children. TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 404-409.
Hood, B. (2008). The Science of Superstition (Formerly Titled: Supersense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable). HarperCollins Publishers: New York.
Novella, S. (2010). Hyperactive Agency Detection. NeuroLogica Blog. http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1762
Shermer, M. (2000). How We Believe. W.H. Freeman/Henry Holt and Company: New York.
