A Cognitive Model of Superstitious Belief

在富有成效的直觉和误导人的迷信之间有一条细微的界限。拟议的研究试图通过检验产生著名的创造性洞察力的相同直觉过程如何也产生常见的迷信来探索这条微妙的界限。这项研究的重点是一种普遍的信念，即使是受过高等教育的人也不应该“冒险”，因为这样做会增加坏结果发生的机会。这项提议的研究旨在测试这种信念的理论模型，该模型借鉴了先前的研究，表明想象行为涉及许多与感知相同的过程和大脑结构，因此仅仅是想象事件的行为就给了它一种现实的光环，增加了它发生的主观可能性。因为消极的结果往往比积极的结果更能引起人们的注意，把一个人置于这种结果风险中的行为可能会诱发心理过程，使这些结果看起来特别生动、流畅和熟悉，从而提高他们的主观可能性。因此，拟议中的研究试图理解一种常见的基于迷信的消极思维，这种思维与大多数针对普通人群的心理学研究中记录的过度乐观形成鲜明对比。拟议的研究还将检验这个理论模型在多大程度上可以帮助解释：(1)为什么人们倾向于对尚未确定的事件（例如，即将进行的足球比赛）的预测比已经确定但结果还不知道的类似事件（例如，一场录像足球比赛）的预测更乐观；(2)为什么人们不愿意采取“猝死”策略，在这种策略中，无论收益是好是坏，都是一次迅速解决的，而不是随着时间的推移而延长的。

There is a fine line between productive intuition and misleading superstition. The proposed research seeks to explore this fine line by examining how the same intuitive processes that give rise to celebrated instances of creative insight also give rise to common superstition. The focus of this research is on the widespread belief, even on the part of highly educated people, that one ought not to "tempt fate" because to do so would be to increase the chances of a bad outcome coming to pass.The proposed research is designed to test a theoretical model of such beliefs that draws upon previous research indicating that the act of imagination involves many of the same processes and brain structures as perception, and so the mere act of imagining an event gives it an aura of reality that increases its subjective likelihood of occurrence. Because negative outcomes often command more attention than positive outcomes, actions that put one at risk of such outcomes are likely to induce mental processes that make those outcomes seem particularly vivid, fluent, and familiar, and hence enhance their subjective likelihood. The proposed research, then, seeks to understand a common category of superstition-based negative thinking that stands in marked contrast to the excessive optimism documented in most psychological research on the general population. The proposed research will also examine the extent to which this theoretical model can help explain: (1) why people tend to be more optimistic about predicting events that have yet to be determined (e.g., a football game about to be played) than comparable events that have already been determined but whose outcome is not yet known (e.g., a videotaped football game), and (2) why people are reluctant to pursue "sudden death" strategies in which payoffs-good or bad-are resolved in one swift stroke rather than drawn out over time.