This result suggests that when it comes to superstitious beliefs, there may well be something intrinsic about pushing away from versus pulling towards the self, a notion that was supported in subsequent experiments, including one in which the researchers test the hypothesis that any action that involves outwardly directed movement, however random, will have a similar “unjinxing” effect. After participants tempted fate (in the same way mentioned earlier), the researchers had them either throw a tennis ball or just hold it. As expected, throwing a ball had a similar effect on participants’ perception of bad luck as knocking down did: the unwanted event seemed less likely to occur. The last experiment revealed that even pretending to throw a ball made people feel protected from the jinx.
The string of experiments points to a human predisposition to connect the abstract to the physical. Embodied cognition theory suggests that it is important to understand the mind within the context of the physical body, highlighting the importance of bodily and sensory experiences in influencing cognition and behavior. Earlier studies have borne this out, finding that people are more likely to agree with arguments when they’re asked to nod their heads while listening. Others have shown that people experience more positive feelings toward neutral objects when they are pulling them close rather than pushing them away.
Why we’re superstitious at all is somewhat of a question mark, but one theory has it that it’s part of our basic tendency to “impose order and create meaning, even out of randomness,” says Risen. Many superstitious beliefs arise from “a shared set of heuristics, or ‘rules of thumb’, for converting complex judgments into simpler mental assessments.”
If you’ve tempted your own fate, you may just want to try knocking on wood or throwing a ball—even if you don’t believe it will work, you may convince your brain otherwise.
