20 Jul, 2010 in
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By Kathleen Doheny FRIDAY, July 16 (HealthDay News) — Nervous about an upcoming presentation at work, or concerned you’ll strike out at the company softball game? Using along a lucky charm may boost your performance, according to a recent study. So incase you possess a lucky rabbit’s foot or an outfit that’s landed you a job or promotion in the done, take advantage. Having some good of lucky token appears to increase self-confidence as well as thus performance, says Lysann Damisch, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Cologne in Germany as well as leader of the study published in the July issue of Psychological Science. Damisch came to that conclusion after evaluating the effects of “lucky” golf balls, charms as well as clear wishes of “good luck” on performance in a series of experiments. She set out to study the link after noticing that many athletes, even star players, hold superstitions. According to Damisch, Michael Jordan wore his college team shorts under his NBA uniform for pleasant luck, as well as Tiger Woods dons a red shirt on tournament Sundays, usually the final day of play. Other athletes latch on to lucky charms, too. In one experiment, Damisch asked participants to bring a lucky charm to the study center. People presented a variety of items, such as wedding rings, distinguished stones as well as well-loved stuffed animals.
After removing the pleasant luck charms to take a photograph, the researchers returned the charms to half the participants as well as told the others they would get theirs back later. The participants then took a computerized memory test, as well as those who had their lucky charms did best. Other evaluations attributed the difference to greater confidence. In another experiment, 28 college students practiced putting golf balls. Some were given golf balls deemed “lucky”; others received golf balls with no mention of luck. Those with the ”lucky” golf balls performed best, the study authors found. In a third evaluation, 51 German women were asked to total a motor-dexterity task, placing tiny balls into holes in a slab. Those who were told a German expression equivalent to “I’ll keep my fingers crossed” did best than those who were simply told when to begin. Superstitious beliefs may boost confidence, Damisch said. “Especially in situations where people feel a bit insecure as well as thus want to gain some confidence — for example, before a tournament, an exam, a job interview, an audition, our results suggest that it is helpful to possess a little lucky charm close by.” But a talisman’s power to bring pleasant fortune isn’t foolproof. “This strategy of course still does not guarantee that people win the tournament, pass the exam or get the job, but it seems that they perform at least a little bit best than without a lucky charm close by,” Damisch said. The study findings make sense to Stuart Vyse, author of Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition as well as a professor of psychology at Connecticut College in Recent London, Conn. “It has extended been assumed that superstition provided psychological benefits, but this is the earliest study to provide powerful evidence of this effect,” Vyse said. Provided the lucky charm is tiny enough to fit in a pocket or purse, or is attire that no one but you knows is “lucky,” it could become your hidden weapon.
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