Rituals in Sports
Cultural Anthropology
Final Research Paper
Dec. 15, 2012
Sports Rituals
The only reason why your team won the last game was because you wore your lucky hat, and the only way they will win the next game is if you wear your lucky hat again. Is it perchance by magic? Have the gods conspired to make sure your team gets to the playoffs because you wore a particular hat? Of course! It wasn’t just any hat; it was your lucky hat! Rituals in sports are very common, and every fan holds their own superstition. Superstitious rituals are defined as unusual, repetitive, rigid behavior that is perceived to have a positive effect by the actor, whereas in reality there is no causal link between the behavior and the outcome of an event (Womack,
1992). Do they work? Maybe, but what’s most important about sports rituals is the believer and the positive psychological affects they can have. There is a rich history in terms of people around the globe participating in rituals. All rituals are based in a belief system, since ancient times the majority of superstitions have come from some sort of religion. This spread to other aspects of life such as birth, sacrifices and life changes. Although rituals in sports do not have a pin-point of origin, it has been prevalent since gladiator times when gladiators were careful to step into the arena with their dominant foot forward, giving us the saying “put your best foot forward”. So it has been recorded that these superstitions have perpetuated and flourished since before creation. It was B.F. Skinner (1948, 1953), who discovered that superstitious behavior can arise through conditioning in an experiment he did with birds. He fed pigeons at random intervals, and noticed that these pigeons would do exactly what they were doing when they were fed. This suggests that they had created a ritual and thought that every time they would perform a specific action, that they would be rewarded with food. This behavior was hard to
Final Research Paper
Dec. 15, 2012
Sports Rituals
The only reason why your team won the last game was because you wore your lucky hat, and the only way they will win the next game is if you wear your lucky hat again. Is it perchance by magic? Have the gods conspired to make sure your team gets to the playoffs because you wore a particular hat? Of course! It wasn’t just any hat; it was your lucky hat! Rituals in sports are very common, and every fan holds their own superstition. Superstitious rituals are defined as unusual, repetitive, rigid behavior that is perceived to have a positive effect by the actor, whereas in reality there is no causal link between the behavior and the outcome of an event (Womack,
1992). Do they work? Maybe, but what’s most important about sports rituals is the believer and the positive psychological affects they can have. There is a rich history in terms of people around the globe participating in rituals. All rituals are based in a belief system, since ancient times the majority of superstitions have come from some sort of religion. This spread to other aspects of life such as birth, sacrifices and life changes. Although rituals in sports do not have a pin-point of origin, it has been prevalent since gladiator times when gladiators were careful to step into the arena with their dominant foot forward, giving us the saying “put your best foot forward”. So it has been recorded that these superstitions have perpetuated and flourished since before creation. It was B.F. Skinner (1948, 1953), who discovered that superstitious behavior can arise through conditioning in an experiment he did with birds. He fed pigeons at random intervals, and noticed that these pigeons would do exactly what they were doing when they were fed. This suggests that they had created a ritual and thought that every time they would perform a specific action, that they would be rewarded with food. This behavior was hard to
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