Many sports fans put on a “lucky” shirt before a big game, fully aware that clothing cannot change the outcome—but they do it anyway.
Even well-educated, emotionally stable adults sometimes hold on to superstitions they know are irrational. New research from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business offers a clearer explanation for how and why this happens.
In work to appear in Psychological Review, Associate Professor Jane Risen shows that recognizing a belief as irrational and choosing to correct it are two distinct mental steps. She calls the process by which people notice an irrational intuition yet allow it to guide their thoughts and behavior “acquiescence.” This separation helps explain why people can both know a belief makes no sense and still act on it.
Risen’s research argues against the common assumption in many dual-process cognitive models that detection of an error automatically triggers correction. Instead, the studies suggest that people can detect a faulty intuition but still choose—or fail—to override it. In practical terms, an individual might mentally register that a ritual or charm is implausible, but because the intuition feels compelling or the perceived cost of following it is low, they comply with the intuition anyway.
Several situational factors make acquiescence more likely. People are especially prone to yield to an intuition when they can rationalize it—by treating the current situation as unusual or special, for instance. Another common pattern arises when the perceived costs of following the intuition are small compared with the social or emotional costs of resisting it. A familiar example is the chain letter: recipients often recognize that the letter’s supposed penalties are nonsensical, yet they forward it anyway because the immediate cost of forwarding is negligible and it feels safer to comply.
Risen’s findings extend beyond quirky rituals and game-day habits. The cognitive mechanism she describes helps illuminate why people sometimes act irrationally in personal finances, workplace decisions, health behaviors, and public life even when they intellectually understand the rational alternative. When detection and correction operate as separate processes, interventions intended to change behavior must be targeted more precisely: raising awareness about an error is necessary but not sufficient to alter action.
For policymakers, managers, educators, and clinicians, this distinction has concrete implications. If people detect an error but do not correct it, interventions that only present facts or point out mistakes may fall short. More effective strategies will directly address the motivational and contextual reasons that make acquiescence attractive—by increasing the perceived costs of following the irrational intuition, reducing its emotional appeal, creating social norms that favor correction, or making the rational response easier and more salient in the moment.
Risen’s work also suggests avenues for research and practice that do not rely solely on improving people’s analytic abilities. Designing choice environments and incentives so that the benefits of correcting an error are immediate and obvious can reduce the likelihood that an intuitively appealing but irrational belief will dictate behavior. Likewise, training that focuses on the decision moment—helping individuals rehearse correction under realistic conditions—may be more successful than abstract instruction alone.
Overall, the research reframes how we think about everyday irrationalities. Rather than treating superstition and magical thinking as failures to notice errors, it highlights a more subtle phenomenon: people sometimes notice the error and still acquiesce. Recognizing and responding to this two-step process provides a clearer path toward changing behavior where it matters.
Source: University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Image Credit: The image is in the public domain
Original Research: The study will appear in Psychological Review.