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Locus of Control and Belief inSelf-Oriented SuperstitionsCandida Peterson aa Murdoch University , Western AustraliaPublished online: 30 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Candida Peterson (1978) Locus of Control and Belief in Self-Oriented Superstitions, The Journal of Social Psychology, 105:2, 305-306, DOI:10.1080/00224545.1978.9924131

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1978.9924131

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The Journal of Social Psychology, 1978, 105, 305-306

LOCUS O F CONTROL AND BELIEF I N SELF-ORIENTED SUPERSTITIONS*

Murdoch University, Western Australia

CANDIDA PETERSON

According to Skinner, superstitious rituals result from the erroneous perception of a contingency between one’s own action and an outside event.’ The ritual, or its corresponding belief, may develop from an acci- dental contingency in personal experience or may be transmitted culturally, like the beliefs examined in the present study which included (a) unspec- ified bad consequences from walking under a ladder, crossing a black cat’s path, breaking a mirror, etc.; (b ) unspecified good consequences from picking a four-leaf clover, touching a cricket’s leg, spilling sugar, etc.; (c) protective rituals involving spilling salt and knocking on wood; and (d) specific predicted consequences of planting parsley (pregnancy), crossing knives (quarrel), the itching of one’s palm (money), washing one’s car (rain), etc.

Scheidt2 found an association between externality on Rotter’s scale3 and belief in supernatural forces like witches, apparitions, astrology, and for- tune telling. Since each of those phenomena attributed control over an individual’s fate to powers outside the individual, the relationship he discovered was predicted by Rotter’s theory. The same theory might pre- dict, on the one hand, that belief in the superstitions examined in the present study (which are called “self-oriented” to distinguish them from the type Scheidt studied) would correlate with internality, since the believer perceives an association between hislher own action and an outside conse- quence, even though the two could not be linked by physical causality. On the other hand, since the aim of most self-oriented superstitions is to alter one’s luck, Rotter’s statement that externals are more concerned than internals with the role of luck in their lives could predict a correlation with externality.

* Received in the Editorial Office, Provincetown, Massachusetts, on March 9, 1977.

’ Skinner, B . F . Science and Human Behavior. New l’ork: Macmillan, 1953. * Scheidt, R. J. Belief in supernatural phenomena and locus of control. Psychol. Rep . ,

Rotter, J. B. Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforce-

Copyright, 1978, by The Journal Press.

1973, 32, 1159-1162.

ment. Psyrhol. Monog., 1966. 80(1), Whole No. 609.

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306 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

The Ss were 62 female West Australian trainee teachers who were asked to complete the I-E scale and another questionnaire which was represented as belonging to an unrelated study and required Ss to mark a five-point scale which accompanied each of 20 self-oriented superstitions. The scales were 15 cm long and the ends were labelled “Don’t believe; never influences me” and “Definitely believe; influences me a lot.” Scoring con- sisted of measuring the distance of each mark from the “Don’t believe” extreme. Ss’, mean scores (over the 20 items) ranged from 0 to 9.6 (out of 15 possible). A product-moment correlation between externality and super- stition scores yield an r of .42 (# < .01).

This association between externality and belief in self-oriented supersti- tion suggests that the apparent relevance of the superstitions to the state of one’s luck is a more important determiner of belief than is apparent internal control over the superstitious contingency. Perhaps the illogicality of the superstition is critical: externals, stressed as they are by fate’s unpredictability, may be the only ones able to ignore the laws of physical causality enough to adhere to self-oriented superstitions. School of Social Inquiry Murdoch University Murdoch, Western Australia 6153

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