Superstitious behaviour is quite fascinating.  It turns out that we inadvertently seek patterns and connections in life. Perhaps it is innately part of our natural survival mechanism whereby we search for solutions to randomness in the world?

What is a superstitious behaviour?

It is something inadvertently attached to a good outcome! Perhaps you wore odd socks when you won a lottery ticket or a particular gemstone necklace worn at a time of success. Maybe these socks or that gemstone then became a lucky charm to you as an individual? I used to wear my lucky socks when I was eventing horses, they made me feel safer somehow.

Humans tend to be superstitious, not walking on the cracks between paving slabs, never walking underneath a ladder or fearing 7 years of bad luck if you break a mirror! It is deeply ingrained in our collective persona drawn either by experience or indoctrination from our pears, particularly from when we were very young. Being told not to do something because it will bring you bad luck. Never put brand new shoes on a tabletop. Strangely, we also have a saying of not tempting fate. We will avoid certain movements or numbers or stimuli so as not to tempt fate (walking underneath that ladder being a very common one).

Maybe you have a small ritual you perform to bring you good luck? Kissing your hand holding dice before a throw. Crossing yourself to bring protection or elicit good favour from your God.  How many can you think of which are engrained into your life without you realising just how superstitious you actually are!

Animals develop superstitious behaviour too, always through good outcomes. Timberlake, W and Lucas G. A. (1985). The basis of superstitious behavior: chance contingency, stimulus substitution, or appetitive behavior? J Exp Anal Behav. 1985 Nov; 44(3): 279–299.All animals can attach a behaviour which seemed to work just before a wanted goal or outcome. Your dog may bark at a closed door. Why? They want that door to open to let them either in or out. Unless you have specifically trained that behaviour, it is one to which the dog has attached to the outcome. It happened by accident and thus developed into a superstitious behaviour to be repeated for the hoped-for outcome-It then becomes a learned behaviour. Your dog barks outside your back door, you hear it and go to let your dog back into the house.

Stabled horses have a habit of kicking their doors with their front feet when their human arrives in the morning. They know that their hard feed is coming or that they will be taken out to their paddocks for freedom and friends. There is a big anticipation of reward. Hence, we inadvertently train them to kick their doors to gain our attention. This can also be driven by stress of confinement, hunger and the ensuing frustration. That behaviour will move away from just the arrival of food. It may well become generalised in many ways to gain our attention because the horse has an unmet welfare need. Classical conditioning has then occurred. X+Y=Z Abrantes, R. (2013) The 20 Principles That All Animal Trainers Must Know. Wakan Tanka Publishers.

B. F. Skinner was the first person to discover these patterns attached to outcomes. Skinner, B. F. (1948). Superstition in the pigeon. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38, 168-172.During his work of discovering and developing the rules of operant conditioning, he was famously using pigeons. His experiment outcomes and findings are integral to all science-based animal trainers the world over. He observed his pigeons performing repetitive behaviours like head swinging or circle turning, believing that these behaviours would elicit the arrival of food. In actual fact, the food was set to arrive at set times. However, these behaviours or actions took on meaning to those birds, so they kept repeating them over and over again.

As animal owners, we can often train superstitious behaviours without meaning to. Abrantes, R. (2016) Animal Training My Way, Wakan Tanka Publishers. Some are good and we happily accept them as simply part of our pet’s repertoire. Some may become a very real problem where you may well need the help of a Professional trainer to unpick them, shape wanted behaviours to replace them, therefore eliminating them. Training new incompatible behaviours is an absolute art, and one aspect of my world I love doing.

I just love positive, ethical animal training full stop! https://www.instinctivehorsetraining.co.uk/young-horse-training/clicker-training-horses/