The superstitious Theory In 1948, a man by the name of B.F. Skinner conducted experiments to determine if superstitions can be taught, observed and then go extinct. The basis of this experiment was formulated from the hypothesis that human behavior’s such as superstitions are a learned behavior due to reinforcement, (the positive learning from an action). He summarized that any creature will form a superstitious behavior if rewarded after a time period, and then that very superstition would disappear, or go extinct, when that reward was no longer given, basically making the superstition a punishment. The experiment; Skinner took 8 pigeons and made a box. In the box he put a plate of food with an automatic dispenser. The box has come to be called “the Skinner Box”, and he placed 1 pigeon at a time and recorded the actions of the pigeon. He set the timer to drop one pellet every 15 seconds, and would observe the bird’s actions. Some would move counterclockwise, others
B.F. Skinner c. 1948 would move and bob their heads in a pendulum motion, and another would continually thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the box. The pigeons all formed a pattern in the 15 second intervals and would repeat that pattern until the food dropped and continued it after eating the dropped food. Skinner then wanted to see what would happen if the interval was increased. He took one of the head bobbing pigeons and slowly increased the interval to one minute. He noticed the pigeons reaction turned from bobbing and moving to outright dancing for the whole minute as if doing a “pigeon dinner dance”. All superstitious behaviors were never recorded prior to the automatic intervals.
Skinner with pigeon boxes c.1948
The extinction; Skinner then decided to stop the feeding and record the responses. All
pigeons eventually lost the superstitious tendencies after the food was no longer dispensed. The only difference was the dancing pigeon. Its interval was moved to one minute so it continued its superstitious behavior long after the food was stopped. Skinner recorded over 10,000 responses before the extinction took effect. The increase in interval led the animal to believe that the longer it continued its superstitious behavior, the food would return. Eventually all superstitions went extinct. The summary; The results of Skinner’s experiment have left ripples throughout the Psychology community. The links of behaviorism and superstition can be created, measured and taken away. Research is still done with various groups of people today. However, the hypothesis researched by Skinner and subsequent researchers has been proven correct.