Superstition

A man walks down the street, he approaches a building, there is a man up a ladder who is washing the windows, the ladder rests on the edge of the pavement a few inches from the kerb, the man walking down the street walks onto the road narrowly missing traffic passes the ladder then steps back onto the pavement.  The scene is rather odd for some, but sitting watching the man is followed by several strangers who all do the same, in a half an hour some hundred or so people pass all braving traffic rather than walk under the ladder.

If you aren't from a western background, or in particular from the UK, Ireland or the USA you might find this entirely weird, if you are from any of these places you are likely to find this entirely normal and have already said to yourself "I would do the same" - for those that don't get why, allow me to explain.  There exists a superstition which I believe is most prominent in the UK and the USA that walking under a ladder brings 7 years bad luck.  In the same vein, breaking a mirror carries a penalty of 7 years bad luck.  Superstitions are peculiar things but altogether intriguing, here's another, although this time demonstrating how the belief of the superstition can change: in the USA a black cat is seen as bad luck if it should cross your path, whereas in Ireland, a Black cat crossing your path is meant to signify good luck.

Superstitions are intriguing for a number of reasons to me, namely that although no evidence exists to say that any of these beliefs are founded in any reality, I do have to question to what extent belief in a superstition will lead the believer to unconsciously manifest or pay undue attention to behaviours and events that seem to confirm the belief.  Several Psychological theories already exist in other areas that state that an individual specifically trying not to do something is more likely to accidentally do it than if they had simply relaxed.  This extends into a number of other areas and I have mentioned it before in other posts, we are more likely to look for and remember anything that confirms our belief and discard anything that contradicts it.  So putting all this together I have to question whether superstitions on some level do have some basis in reality - namely people paying more attention to certain things associated with superstitious events.