The Truth Behind 10 Common Superstitions

To further hammer home the link between animal and human superstitious behaviour, Skinner's experiment can be reproduced in a group of humans.

The TV mentalist Derren Brown once did it as part of one of his shows whereby he locked a group of people (including Doctor Who actor David Tennant) in a room filled with lots of different items and a points counter. The group quickly spotted what they believed to be a causal relationship between their interactions with the room and the points going up, but actually it turned out that the point counter was really tracking how many times a goldfish swam past a sensor backstage.

So why do we behave like this? Evolutionary biologist Kevin Foster thinks that it could be an evolutionary trait.

The humans in our past who had a predisposition for superstition would have, for example, always linked the rustling of grass with the approach of a predator and would have legged it, even if it was just the wind. These early humans would have passed on this behaviour to their children, whilst all the non-superstitious people became lion food.

It can even act as a sort of psychological placebo. Researchers have found that people who believe in the power of a "lucky" object are more likely to succeed in their endeavours because they approach them with a more confident attitude in the first place. So, in a manner of speaking, your lucky socks do work after all.

Have you heard of a weird superstition that we haven't mentioned? Let us know in the comments.