It's Religion -v- Reality

Is all I'm saying. I'll often joke that cheering on my town's professional sports teams is my Religion. That's simply because it's the exactly same type of belief system and I totally let m'self become quite emotionally tied-up in the outcomes of their games. The difference being, I have no problem acknowledging how silly my beliefs in this regard really and empirically are.

Since the religious beliefs with which I was raised showed just as much efficacy in providing a good life pour moi and, in fact, did a whole lot more towards stripping away my natural ability to earn and feel confidence and self-respect, I was lucky enough to be able to let those go.

Intellectually anyhow . . .

The Sports beliefs? Meh. . . I shed 'em when I'm sick of my teams' abundance of poor performances, then I welcome them back when it looks like there's an empirically decent chance that those teams have done their prep-work and are actually gonna make a run for being, on the Scoreboard, what they are in my heart and mind: the Best.

A Game of Magical Thinking Leaves Reality on the Sidelines
By Shankar Vedantam
Monday, February 5, 2007; Page A02

-snip-

A sports event such as the Super Bowl is a perfect venue to examine a phenomenon that influences many aspects of life: Large numbers of people regularly display signs of magical thinking -- they believe they have influenced distant events or can sense connections between things that have no known physical connection.

Have you ever told yourself that something you want very much would happen if the next three traffic lights turned green as you drove down the road? Have you ever forgone a warranty on an expensive new electronic gizmo and then worried about whether your decision would cause the gizmo to fail? Have you ever worn a lucky shirt to a big game?

Many people, of course, explicitly believe in the paranormal, but that is not what we are talking about. What interests psychologists such as Pronin is that people hold fast to beliefs in magical powers even as they explicitly say the beliefs do not make sense.

"It points to the question of how we can be of two minds," said Jane Risen, a social psychology graduate student at Cornell University who has conducted experiments on magical thinking. "You believe something is true even as you know it is false. When you invoke a rational mind-set, you know one thing, but we still have these intuitions that lead us to something very different."

When it comes to sports, magical thinking is merely funny. We implore the TV set to do our bidding and mightily exert our will to get an opposing team to make a mistake. But such thinking is less funny elsewhere in life: Magical thinking gets people to waste money on unnecessary insurance -- buying expensive warranties on products that are unlikely to fail because they believe not buying insurance will make it more likely that the product will fail. And once people buy insurance, magical thinking prompts them to handle it carelessly because they believe they are unlikely to face a problem.

[To read the rest, repeat 3 times: "Open Sesame!" (or just click here, eh...)]

Comments

  1. I get into sports because it's fun. It's an escape and more like a toy to play with, rather than a belief. After 10 thousand losing years for the Dallas Cowboys, I have to just laugh and enjoy the ride, good or bad.

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  2. 10,000 losing years for the .. Cowboys...

    Hmmm... Pop. You'll get no pity from me, mi amiga. How many SuperBowls have the Cowboys won???

    Last time C-Town got a Championship was the year before I was born. I've practically had to become of apostate and be fan of the Stillers {shudder} or at least the Bungles.

    :-P

    None the have fun ya!!!

    :)

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  3. Hey Michael, I did a post about magical thinking a while back. I really love thinking about logical fallacies. It amazes me how many people engage in behaviors that they think will bring them luck, or ward off evil.

    If you want to read our take on magical thinking, check this out.

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  4. That was a very well-related post and Very Cool that you got to photograph the "kitty".

    I suppose when you're living in "God's Country" a li'l bit o' cat magic can't do much harm, eh. {-;

    That's a fuzzy line for me more and more though, lately. Dawkins uses his "The God Delusion" to point out how "moderate" religious beliefs help lend credence to the extremist varieties by virtue - heheh - of the fact that neither stance is any more believable than the other. It's simply what folk do with it that makes one more destructive.

    I'm all for tolerance of thoughts - damn but I'd better be, eh! - but that doesn't mean I'm in any way adverse to pointing out magical thinking as an item of interest; whether in friends or acquaintances who choose to share their own varieties as if in efficacy. Silly Humans, so We be.

    Thanks for sharing your take, Robin! They are always appreciated muchly.

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  5. I bet a lot of people aren't even aware of magical thinking, especially since much of it is handed down generation to generation. So many things just become part of our culture or tradition and have no basis in logic. I don't know about sports being part of it, but there sure are some strange behaviors related to it. I wouldn't even consider going out and ramming as hard as I can into another person for enjoyment. So there must be some twist to the mind to play football at all.

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  6. RE: " The process of inferring causation is automatic. It leads us to accurate conclusions in many cases, but on some occasions, the mind fools itself."

    I think that on many, many occasions we do falsely correlate actions with an event. Trying to define the cause of an event is the trickiest part, which may help to explain why we humans are prone to leap to conclusions.

    Maybe leaping to conclusions by falsely correlating information is part of a survival mechanism, I dunno. For example, it might be advantageous to act as if that shape in the dark is a person intent on harm, than to rationalize it as a trick of the senses.

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  7. This post was great, had me laughing like a silly human all by myself. I have on occasion fallen prey to magical thinking....mostly in my ability to buy stuff, like kids' boots, or a garage, and then having the mildest ever winter on record (til now).

    The way around the sports thing is simple: Steelers. There's no magic. They're just BETTER.

    ;-)

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  8. So many things just become part of our culture or tradition and have no basis in logic.

    That's why I love the sports reference so much, Mary. It's easier to see how one's glorification of their "Team" can be overblown, but you have to be more patient to try getting folks to see the same in their belief in their Religion.

    Even then, as long as there's a popularity contest of Celebrity Believers and semi-celebrity non-believers, regardless of how those each live their lives off-stage, the masses of sheople will follow their disdainful shepherds' leads.

    ...it might be advantageous to act as if that shape in the dark is a person intent on harm, than to rationalize it as a trick of the senses.

    I don't know where I just read that, Beep (on your site maybe?) but just read it recently I did. Maybe in The God Delusion. Regardless, is so true that it's safer to be wrong and feel foolish than right but think your wrong and be dead. Yes. Foolish over dead any day, thanks.

    Ha! MM. The Stillers ain't better. They're just Lucky! We'll see who's "better" Next Year*!

    ---
    * Next Year: the mantra of Cleveland Sports Fans since 1965.

    {sighhh}

    {-;

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  9. I am not a sports minded person, although I can enjoy a Braves game every so often.
    "Getty into it" reminds me of a cartoon I saw while flipping through a few New Yorkers at my son's house today... Santa was arriving, I think at a department store for the season, with spotlights and masses of kids, and one Santa's Helper said to another Santa's Helper, "Doesn't this look like a cult to you?"

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  10. Does spending a buck on a lottery ticket and dreaming of what you'll do with the "winnings" count ? Cause that's one of my favorite forms of entertainment. For about an hour after the purchase, the endorphins flow.

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  11. There's always room for one more on the Steelers bandwagon. The Pirates are another story; we need people to help push.

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  12. The "Cult of Claus"... Hhhmmm... Sounds corporate to me, Ed. Then again, what isn't anymore, eh. And your right about Baseball. It still seems to be the most accessible game for casual fans cuz of the pace of of play.

    Thanks for the reminder, CB. Mega Millions is up to $77mil and I haven't played it yet this year. If the single digit temps don't daunt me, I think I'll hit the quickie mart at lunchtime today. Cool

    The Bucks shoulda re-signed Barry, Roxtar. Then they'd have had all the Pub they could handle! {-;

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  13. At least in football you know the other side wnats to smash you in the mouth....religious people sometimes want to do that but they deny it!

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  14. They deny while they're doing it!

    No last word for Stillers' fans!

    {-;

    Ha!

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  15. No sports for me, thank you. My blood lust id well satisfied and then some with politics.

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  16. If dancing around a 20-foot stone while wearing a ceremonial loin cloth and playing a flute made out of a walrus's penis bone would have magically turned Rex Grossman into a good quarterback on Sunday, I would have done it.

    Actually, that gives me an idea for next season....

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  17. D'you ever play the lotto, Frederick? If it weren't for Color Bob, I'd still just think it does a decent job of keeping some people out of the political fray. Fewer though it drives into it. If nobody hits, I'll play Friday.

    Brando, Make that a commercial on Next Year's SuperBowl - Browns -v- N'Orleans - and you'll be a multimillionaire!

    I forgot to buy that ticket today. My Luck. Tonight I woulda won.

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    NOT.

    L8

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  18. I think sports is a religion for lots of people... or is it "sports ARE a religion"? Not sure we can escape having gods as long as we're human, but they don't have to be supernatural to count, just things that are worshipped, adored, loved, obsessed over, feared, etc. Can be anything. I have them for sure. They change all the time. My "gods" are just things that are kind of running my life and determining my activities.

    I was taught to be superstitious just like most people were. I have had to actively fight the tendancy by breaking the spell, so to speak. Step on the cracks, whatever is the opposite of what I'm compelled to do. It's always going to be nearly impossible not to say "bread and butter" whenever I'm walking with someone and one person walk on the other side of a pole. Very weird. hard to shake off the "mother" and all the things she gave me that I don't need.

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  19. Yep, Mrs Blueberry. "My place in the family" is morbidly intertwined with just about every instinctual motivation I have.

    Trust my gut?

    Well, yah, when my head's not in the way. This cold spell seems to have knocked it back up on my shoulders where it belongs, for now. ;-} Teh screws are still not snugged down, but I ain't yet comfortable enough with some of Life's concepts to go an' bolt down my approach to it.

    Thus is the Fan in me alive and chanting and tauntin' and pumpin' fists with a Dawg's roar. Thus I'm the -really angry and trying to figure out how I want to live guy, dude - man with a silly smile on his face because I had it too easy while having it so hard. Lots a Love and "support" but lots a Religion to pervert it in m' noggin'.

    RAmen.

    Thus I also hate VD, but am gonna chill out and be glad about where I am. Then if something feels good I'll trust it.

    I did buy that MegaMillions today.

    {-;

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  20. Great post MB.

    But where I live in Melbourne, your joke about your town's professional sports team being your religion is no laughing matter.

    Australian Rules Football is considered a religion here, and there is a fair amount of evidence to suggest that it is that.

    Exhibit A: Local community newspaper, The Melbourne Times devotes its entire Religion section each week to football results.

    Exhibit B: Former Geelong Cats star, Gary Ablett, is nicknamed "God" by fans.

    Exhibit C: Ablett retired for half a season. When he returned to football in 1991, the Herald-Sun's headline was "The second coming"

    Exhibit D: Ablett's son Gary Jr, who now currently plays for the Cats, is referred to by fans as "Son of God".

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  21. I know it, Dikkii. My Cavs have "The Chosen One" to lead them to the promised land of an NBA Title. We're all "praying" that he's our era's Jim Brown in hoops.

    "The Drive" and "The Fumble" are legendary bits o' sport mythology 'round here as well.

    Exhibit A: is one honest Paper! It would have to be a community job. No MSM fishwrap would dare satirize even half its potential income base like that.

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