The Parapsychological Association Convention 2004 291 MEASURING SUPERSTITIOUS BELIEF: WHY LUCKY CHARMS MATTER

A large body of research has attempted to develop theories about the function and origin of superstitious beliefs on the basis of the psychological correlates of such beliefs. Most of this work has measured superstitious belief using the Paranormal Belief Scale (PBS), and has tended to find that superstitious belief is associated with poor psychological adjustment such as low self-efficacy and high trait anxiety. However, the PBS refers solely to negative superstitions (e.g., breaking a mirror will cause bad luck) and omits items referring to positive superstitions (e.g., carrying a lucky charm will bring good luck). Positive superstitions may serve different psychological functions to negative superstitions. Indeed, as with other forms of positive illusions, beliefs in positive superstitions may be psychologically adaptive. This paper reports two studies investigating this neglected aspect of the psychological correlates of superstitious belief. If positive and negative superstitious beliefs serve different psychological functions, then we might expect, using Analysis of Variance, to find interactions between superstition type, and various relevant individual difference measures. Study 1 was a large-scale Internet-based study which investigated the relationship between endorsement of superstition type, gender, and a single-item measure of neuroticism. Participants were asked to indicate the degree to which they endorsed three negative and three positive superstitious beliefs using five response options (anchored with Definitely Yes and Definitely No)