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Even seemingly irrational beliefs can become ensconced in the social norms of a society. Research by biologists in the School of Arts and Sciences shows how.
Ancient Roman leaders once made decisions about important events, such as when to hold elections or where to build new cities, based on the presence or flight patterns of birds. Builders often omit the thirteenth floor from their floor plans, and many pedestrians go well out of their way to avoid walking under a ladder.
While it's widely recognized that superstitions like these are not rational, many persist, guiding the behavior of large groups of people even today.
In a new analysis driven by game theory, two theoretical biologists devised a model that shows how superstitious beliefs can become established in a society's social norms. Their work, which appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrates how groups of individuals, each starting with distinct belief systems, can evolve a coordinated set of behaviors that are enforced by a set of consistent social norms.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ledow on Friday April 19 2019, @02:47PM (3 children)
Well, quite besides things falling on your head, the risk with walking under a ladder is mostly not to yourself. It's the guy up the ladder.
Next time you're up a ladder, let a child run underneath it, or a person late for the bus barge through underneath. Do you feel safe? One little jolt, trip, nudge or touch and your ladder slides across the wall.
Not walking under ladders - with people on them - is sensible, rational and logical for safety reasons for all concerned.
However, if you were, say, running a cable up a long outside wall, would you not walk under your own ladder at some point, the one which has nobody on, in order to finish off the bottom bit, or get the ladder into position, or arrange the cable that you're running? I probably would. At that point, the risk is basically gone. It would be superstitious to avoid going under *any* ladder if that applied even in a controlled environment where nobody is at risk, the ladder is secured and there's no reason not to.
It's "rational" not to open umbrellas indoors, because it's fecking difficult to get through a narrow passage with a huge open umbrella, and it makes a mess of water. But that's not why people say "it's bad luck to do that"... they say that because they're idiots. Even children rationalise better than that and understand "That makes mess / damage" is a much better reason to listen to dad, than "oh, it's bad luck". That's why dad's mad... you poured rain on the damn stairs, not because he's worried that he won't win the lottery now.
Education is an ever-complicating series of lies-to-children. That's undoubtable. But children don't need mystical dragons, bad luck fairies, and nonsense to understand that they aren't being told the full picture.
"Breaking the mirror is bad luck"... no, you fool, you'll fecking hurt yourself if it does break and mirrors are fragile, so don't play around near the mirror. Children aren't stupid, they don't need luck-monsters to reason things. They need a clear explanation - even if that's "Look, it's complicated, darling, but this is dangerous, can you please go play over there and not come past this line while daddy's working". What they don't need is someone filling their heads with nonsense that they perpetuate and end up actually believing in.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday April 19 2019, @05:01PM
Breaking a mirror can be the result of bad luck, if you can allow luck in a deterministic world. You could also say that having a bunch of broken glass around is hazardous, and getting a laceration would be an unlucky outcome.
But other than constructing specific scenarios around luck and broken mirrors, breaking one won't cause bad luck, and certainly not for seven years.
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(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Friday April 19 2019, @09:45PM
Corollary: climbing ladders brings bad luck too.
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(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Friday April 19 2019, @10:53PM
They also would have been very expensive in the past when the myth was created.