Damon Oliver Psychology Research Introduction Superstitious beliefs have never been extensively studied.

. Ofcourse, when we speak about superstition, we assume it to mean bad or good luck dependent on an action. However, this is not the case. A superstitious belief is simply a preconceived belief that something may occur or happen due to a course of action that we take. One piece of research, which supposedly proves the idea of superstitious belief in animals, was done by Skinner. It involved using pigeons, in a box, with food being given to the at regular 30second intervals. The observation showed that the pigeons repeated a certain action, believing they would get the food more frequently. For example, some pigeons span round in circles, believing this would get them more food, not realizing the food was only coming every 30seconds, regardless of what they did. Assuming that we can generalize animal behavior to human behavior, we can then assume that humans will also behave according to a belief that they will get something if they complete a certain action, even when they reward is given randomly or may not occur at all. This same experiment was replicated by Derren Brown, but with real people, not animals. Signs were displayed tell participant to earn 100 points in 30 minutes, when doors will be unlocked and they can win money: 500 on the table for each person. Rewards were given on a random basis but all the participants believed it was due to their actions, and so they began to repeat their actions - making many false connections between cause & effect. The counter that is kept track of their points was increased by a production staff member in another room faced with a goldfish tank with two fish in it and a line down the middle. Every time either Mr. Big or Mr. Little crossed the line, a point was added. The production member couldnt see the participants. This reinforces the idea that people would develop superstitious behavior if they believe something will occur because of it. The main aim of our experiment is to see if people will also behave differently due to superstitious behavior, but in this case, it is in a natural environment. We aim to discover if people will change their path to avoid a ladder, a superstitious belief. Our hypothesis is that people will avoid walking under the ladder due to superstitious beliefs. The null hypothesis is that there will be no deviation in direction due to the ladder. Any deviation will be due to chance alone. I hope that through this experiment will be able to reinforce both Skinners and Derren Browns work. To be sure of this, we will be asking the sample the question why did/didnt you walk under the ladder? so that we can understand exactly why they may have avoided the ladder.