Professional tennis player Serena Williams has confessed that she won't replace her winning socks throughout an entire tournament; Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player who ever lived, has revealed that underneath his Chicago Bulls uniform, he always wears his shorts from his days at the University of North Carolina, where his illustrious career began; Golf ex-champion Tiger Woods always wears a red shirt when he plays on a Sunday and we all touch wood, cross our fingers or adopt different irrational behaviour due to the foolish belief that we can influence the course of events in our lives, particularly their outcome.

Superstitions tend to appear in situations of uncertainty, acute psychological stress or a perceived lack of control. Therefore, it is not surprising that superstitions are rife among those who are regularly evaluated according to the results they produce: students and athletes. Until recently, the influence of superstitions had not been thoroughly investigated.

One of the first such studies was conducted in 2010 by Lysann Damisch and her colleagues at the University of Cologne in Germany, who set out to determine whether there is a scientific foundation for the human inclination to turn to superstitious behaviour in the hope that it will improve our performance.

A large body of serious studies refutes the belief that the power of suggestion can influence performance. It turns out that those who envision a wonderful and carefree life, devoid of any burdens, with an interesting job and a perfect spouse, harm their ability to face the inevitable obstacles that life often puts in our path, thus reducing their ability to realise their fantasies.

However, superstitions operate differently. Early research regarding the link between performance and superstitious beliefs revealed that one's faith in one's own ability to succeed in a particular situation was likely to play a significant and beneficial role in turning a seemingly irrational desire into reality.

With regards to superstition, previous studies have shown that the more one believes in luck, the more likely one is to be optimistic, hopeful and confident. As for performance, aside from one's actual abilities and skills, studies have proven that one of the most important contributing factors to performance is one's subjective perception of one's own ability to achieve certain things.

The more confident you are, the better you perform.

Activating our superstitions can lead to improved performance

Based on this early scientific work, Damisch assumed that strong performances that result from superstitious acts are in fact the result of a stronger belief in one's abilities to make a difference. The researchers directly examined the hypothesis that references to superstitions that bring good luck before a performance enhance one's feeling of capability to perform the task at hand, consequently leading to a better performance.

In one experiment, a group of 28 students was asked to roll a golf ball into a hole while standing one metre away.  Every participant repeated the experiment 10 times. Some were asked to roll a ball after the examiner had told them: "Here's the ball; until now it has always been a lucky ball."

The control group was handed a ball which the examiner described as such: "Every participant until now has used this very ball." Previous questioning revealed that the vast majority of participants in the experiment believed in luck. The average success rate of those who receive the ‘lucky ball’ was 6.42 out of 10. Those who used the ‘normal’ ball succeeded 4.75 times out of 10 - a significant statistical difference.

In another experiment, the researchers asked participants to bring from their homes their personal lucky charms. After describing them and their many virtues, the experimenter took their talisman to another room, ostensibly to photograph it.

Some participants received their amulets back within a short amount of time, while others were told that their good luck charm was being kept for a while longer due to temporary technical problems with the camera.

In the next stage, participants were asked to match 36 cards to the same forms which they were briefly exposed to earlier. As expected, participants who had their amulet in the room with them did significantly better (less time and fewer attempts to match the forms) than those who's talisman remained in another room.

They also reported a heightened sense of belief in their abilities.

These and other experiments have led to two key insights. Firstly, there is a causal link between the presence of a superstition and one's level of performance. Participants whose

superstitions were ‘activated’ performed better on a motor and cognitive level.

Secondly, improved performance stems from one's subjective feeling of personal ability.

Activating our superstitions can lead to improved performance, because they encourage us to believe in our ability to effectively perform the task.

Niels Bohr, a Nobel Laureate in physics, was once asked to explain how is it that he, the rational scientist that he is, has a horseshoe hanging from his door.

"I heard it also helps those who don't believe," he said.

Jacob Burak is the founder of Alaxon, a digital magazine about culture, art and popular science.