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.
