Keep Your Fingers Crossed!: How Superstition Improves Performance
Abstract
Superstitions are typically seen as inconsequential creations of irrational minds. Nevertheless, many people rely on superstitious thoughts and practices in their daily routines in order to gain good luck. To date, little is known about the consequences and potential benefits of such superstitions. The present research closes this gap by demonstrating performance benefits of superstitions and identifying their underlying psychological mechanisms. Specifically, Experiments 1 through 4 show that activating good-luck-related superstitions via a common saying or action (e.g., “break a leg,” keeping one’s fingers crossed) or a lucky charm improves subsequent performance in golfing, motor dexterity, memory, and anagram games. Furthermore, Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrate that these performance benefits are produced by changes in perceived self-efficacy. Activating a superstition boosts participants’ confidence in mastering upcoming tasks, which in turn improves performance. Finally, Experiment 4 shows that increased task persistence constitutes one means by which self-efficacy, enhanced by superstition, improves performance.
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Superstition, such as belief in lucky golf balls or charms, enhanced performance relative to control conditions.
“In a series of experiments using both motor (e.g., golf putting) or cognitive tasks (e.g., solving anagrams), Damisch, Stoberock, and Mussweiler (2010) demonstrated that superstition-for instance, believing in”
From Optimizing performance through intrinsic motivation and attention for learning: The OPTIMAL theory of motor learning (2016) · cites this paper as Damisch, Stoberock, and Mussweiler (2010)
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- Authors
- Damisch, L., Stoberock, B., & Mussweiler, T.
- Affiliations
- University of Cologne (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Damisch, Lysann
- ORCID
- Mussweiler, Thomas
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2010-05-28
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 1014-1020
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- OpenAlex
- W2147094445
- Cited by
- 251
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 29 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 19 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 14
- FWCI
- 15.23
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Association for Psychological Science
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Sport Psychology and Performance
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Keywords
- superstition, good fortune, performance improvement, self-efficacy, task persistence, lucky charms, golf performance, motor dexterity, memory, anagram solving
- MeSH terms
- Female, Humans, Male, Memory, Motor Skills, Sports, Students, Superstitions, Task Performance and Analysis
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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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