Teodor Vehauc's 2nd Post

Sense And Superstition

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/opinion/sunday/sense-and-superstition.html

Published: October 4, 2013    By: Jane L. Risen and A. David Nussbaum

          We all know that superstitious people do strange things, but not only superstitious people knock on wood. Everybody does it from time to time, whether they're superstitious or not. Why do people who don't believe that it has an effect on what happens in the world still do it? Because actually sometimes works! We all know that knocking on a piece of wood won't actually change what happens, but it affects what we believe, and that’s equally important. The reason for this is that by boasting about, for example, not having been in a car crash for a really long time brings the thought of crashing to mind, and makes you worry about it. In a recent study, some college students were asked to say “I will definitely not get into a car accident this winter”, and some of those were asked to knock on the nearby table. When the results were being collected later on, the students that jinxed themselves and didn't knock on the wood worried about getting in a car accident more than before. The ones that did knock on the wood however, didn’t experience any change in their worry levels at all. In another study, the students were asked to throw a ball instead of knocking on wood, and that also eliminated their worries. It turns out that any “push” motion helps to unjinx yourself, because over the years, people have associated any type of push with dispelling bad thoughts, and calming the nerves. This just goes to show how powerful the mind actually is.

          For my analysis, I will be using the media triangle. For “Media Text”, the value promoted is the power of the mind, and how the silliest things can make us think differently, because the article talks about how we can jinx ourselves just by boasting about good things happening to us, and how we can simply erase all the negativity just by knocking on wood. For “Audience”, I think my parents would like it, because it focuses on everyday things that we do, while it looks into the deeper meaning within, to see why exactly we do those things. For “Production”, the article was made using information from regular college students that shared information about their way of thinking and their feelings, and the research was collected by Jane L. Risen, Yan Zhang, and Christine Hosey, who conducted the tests and displayed the results.

          The reason I liked this article was because it was based on things that almost everybody does, and that are so common, we don't even realize it sometimes. The article explained the deeper meaning about why exactly we do those things, and how they help, so I found it interesting to read about.