If you expose pidgeons to intermittent random reward, you can observe the birth of supersticion: the animal will try to correlate the most disparate things to the reward. I long thought this was the kind of mechanism underlying human supersticions, but now it seems more likely that it can also be a self counterfactual mugging: if I open an umbrella in the house, I’m inviting death inside (I don’t know if this belief exists outside Italy). Inviting death has such a bigger disutility that even in the tiny probability that the supersticion is real you’re better not opening an umbrella in your house.
If you expose pidgeons to intermittent random reward, you can observe the birth of supersticion: the animal will try to correlate the most disparate things to the reward. I long thought this was the kind of mechanism underlying human supersticions, but now it seems more likely that it can also be a self counterfactual mugging: if I open an umbrella in the house, I’m inviting death inside (I don’t know if this belief exists outside Italy). Inviting death has such a bigger disutility that even in the tiny probability that the supersticion is real you’re better not opening an umbrella in your house.
I’ve always heard it said that it’s “bad luck” to open an umbrella inside (and live in the US), though not specifically that it invites death inside.
I always assumed it originated as a tale to get children not to open umbrellas indoors.