Sport superstition : Mediation of psychological tension on non-professional sportsmen's superstitious rituals

Brevers, Damien [UCL] Dan, Bernard [ULB] Noel, Xavier [ULB] Nils, Frédéric [UCL]

This study examined the effects of personality and situational differences on superstitious behaviours in sports at three non-professional competition levels. The participants were 219 athletes (169 males, 50 females). We measured superstition by the number and kind of superstitious rituals (SRs), degree of superstious feeling, and ritual commitment (RC). We used a within-group design that involved manipulating competition importance and uncertainty using scenarios to examine changes in pre-game psychological tension and RC. We found that sport supersitition is positively correlated with athletic identity and pre-game psychological tension. Level of competition affects RC. RC is greater when uncertainty and importance of the game are greater. Moreover, within-variable mediation analysis revealed that state of psychological tension mediated the effect of both uncertainty and importance on RC. Collectively, the results of the present investigation offer empirical support for Neil's (1980) hypothesis that sport supersitition acts as a "psychological placebo".