After a long period of experiments, these superstitions have long been broken, but why do so many people still believe them? Why can superstition be passed down from generation to generation and spread to this day?
1, uncertainty will make people more superstitious. In the period of increasing uncertainty, we will urgently pursue a sense of certainty to make ourselves feel at ease and calm. This need will make us believe in all kinds of things that can determine our destiny, such as superstition.
2, infection theory. We believe that once we touch someone or something, we will get the "essence" of that thing or person, so in some specific witchcraft, to curse a person, we need to get this person's hair or nails. Under normal circumstances, we don't want to go to the dead's room, or step on the charred ground, or go to places like cemeteries. In addition to fear, we are also worried that it will bring some "dirty things".
Coincidence makes us more superstitious. We have absurd ideas about this world because we have experienced some seemingly coincidental things, and at the same time, it makes us feel that it has another meaning, not just coincidence.
Superstition can spread and continue for various reasons. Even if we know the scientific basis for breaking superstition and understand its inaccuracy, there are still many people who are willing to believe and follow superstitious practices. Is it because of insecurity? Still don't believe in yourself? Some superstitions may be comfort, but more are excuses for inaction, giving people pressure and fear! Just like the previous example, it can even affect people's life and death. This superstition must be broken from yourself and educated from children, so that it will not spread again and will not hurt people around you.
People often suspect unexplained supernatural phenomena. Even in the technologically advanced United States, there are still stakes selling vampire nails in supermarkets. Many people in China still believe in the deception of fortune tellers, geomancers and astrologers. We can't help asking: Why are many superstitious ideas that have been knocked down by science so deeply rooted? Is there a neural basis in the brain to support its existence?
Some researchers believe that superstition can also be defined as a "wrong" connection between the real world and supernatural phenomena. Some researchers also pointed out that superstition is a by-product of adaptive strategy evolution and a means of survival. A large number of behavioral research results reveal that people tend to be superstitious when they lack self-control, especially when most people in the group show superstitious behavior, and the herding effect will make superstition more intense. So, will the activity of the cerebral cortex be related to superstitious behavior? Recently, researchers from the Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences tried to directly test whether superstition really caused related reactions in our human cerebral cortex with the help of functional brain imaging technology.
The researchers designed two options: "cheap banquet date without auspicious numbers" and "expensive banquet date with auspicious numbers", which expressed the visible financial motivation and the invisible superstition respectively. And put this alternative option in two different situations: "wedding banquet" (with "auspicious demand") and "friend gathering" (without "auspicious demand"). After the experiment, each participant answered the superstition scale. The results show that: firstly, people would rather sacrifice real and visible money for false and intangible good fortune; Second, this fake invisible thing does have a solid neural basis (negative activation in the right frontal lobe); Thirdly, the brain imaging data of the subjects with higher degree of superstition in the answers of superstition scale show that the difference of activation degree between superstitious choice and non-superstitious choice is greater in the middle and upper right frontal lobe.
Based on the above findings, the researchers speculate that the subjects are weighing the known cost of money and the potential "auspicious" benefits when choosing. When he finally chose an auspicious day, it was the result of the suppression of rational thinking. Maybe we can connect or inhibit the activities of superstitious brain regions by establishing correct conditions, so as to change some stubborn superstitious behaviors.
In fact, superstition is "irrational belief in a certain behavior or etiquette", which is a feudal bad habit left over by China for thousands of years. In the face of natural disasters, poverty and hardship, and lonely promotion, superstition has given the working people a spiritual expectation and strength. However, superstition is different from religion. It has no formal organizational form, no fixed classics, beliefs and places, and its behavior results are mostly aimed at fraud, which is the object of severe crackdown and ban by the state. To put it bluntly, superstition is not credible, so some people still believe it. The main reasons are nothing more than: first, fear of the unknown; Second, lazy thinking makes people unwilling to think.
To put it simply: in our real life, there are still problems that science and scientists can't solve, explain and solve! There is a popular saying: "The end of science is theology"!
Superstition is also a kind of belief!
Some people define superstition as: all problems and phenomena that cannot be scientifically explained and solved are called superstitions!
For example, some people have a strange disease that can't be cured by a well-known hospital, but they are cured by a Taoist priest. This matter, this person, this family, what will he choose to believe? Obviously, they will not refuse superstition.
In addition, the saying that "the poor tell fortune and the rich worship Buddha", whether fortune-telling or worshipping Buddha, is just a belief, but fortune-telling and worshipping Buddha face different realistic demands, and the poor hope to change the imprisonment and fate of the word "poor" through fortune-telling; There are also rich people who want to worship Buddha and wish their families health and safety!
Superstition or not cannot be generalized. There are still many people who believe in Feng Shui, reincarnation and retribution. We can't all conclude that they believe in superstition. For example, Li Ka-shing, Ma Yun and other famous people believe in Feng Shui. Of course we won't say that they also believe in superstition!
It can only be said that people who are superstitious now just don't know their real situation and needs!