Think of that friend who refuses to play a fantasy football final without his old team jersey, or the colleague who always wears the same watch before a big presentation. It's all too easy to write it off as harmless quirkiness. But a study titled ‘Keep Your Fingers Crossed! : How Superstition Improves Performance,’ published in Psychological Science by University of Cologne researchers Lysann Damisch, Barbara Stoberock and Thomas Mussweiler, suggests that hanging on to a lucky charm or superstitious ritual before a task can help people perform better, not because of magic, but because of what it does to the mind.
The paper reports that this wasn’t just a vague feel-good effect. Across four experiments, activating superstition through sayings like “break a leg,” crossed fingers, or a lucky charm improved performance in golfing, motor dexterity, memory, and anagram tasks. The authors say Experiments 3 and 4 traced the boost to higher perceived self-efficacy, and Experiment 4 also found greater task persistence.
