By Saadhana Kalimuthu (27A01C)

In the age of Google, ChatGPT, and instant access to every fact in human history, you would think superstition would be dead. But no: it survives in TikTok trends about “manifesting” good grades, group chats that blame bad weeks on Mercury retrograde, and students who absolutely refuse to take an exam without their specific “lucky” pen. Is all this simply a silly joke? We laugh and behave as if it is one, but it’s difficult to proclaim that we don’t believe in it at all.

So, why do we still hold onto these beliefs when we know the science behind them? Why do perfectly rational students still hold their breath when walking past a dark corner?

The Illusion of Control

According to psychologists, superstition is essentially a survival mechanism for dealing with uncertainty. Think about the exact moments you feel most superstitious. It’s rarely when you’re chilling at home watching YouTube. It’s when you’re waiting for a terrifying exam result, watching a penalty shootout, or waiting to see if you got into your dream university. In those moments, we feel completely helpless, and the human brain hates feeling helpless.

So, we create little rituals to give ourselves an illusion of control. In the 1940s, the psychologist B.F. Skinner proved this with a famous experiment on pigeons. He put them in a cage and fed them at regular intervals, regardless of what they did. The pigeons quickly developed weird, repetitive rituals—some spun in circles, others bobbed their heads at the floor—because they earnestly believed their actions were causing the food to drop.

We do something similar. While wearing a specific “lucky” shirt during a test does not magically transform questions into easier ones, it tricks your brain into feeling calmer. And a calmer brain performs better. Sometimes, we would follow a silly ritual than admit that some things are just out of our control.

Why Some People Just Don’t Care
If superstition is so natural, why are some people totally unfazed by Friday the 13th, while others won’t even leave the house? It comes down to how our brains handle control.

Psychologists call this our “locus of control.” If you have an internal locus of control, you believe you’re in the driver’s seat; you think studying hard is what gets you good grades. If you have an external locus of control, you believe in luck, fate or higher powers pulling the strings. If you lean towards the external side, you’re much more likely to be superstitious because you feel as if the universe is in charge.

Still, even the most die-hard sceptics will suddenly start looking for “lucky signs” on results day when the stakes are high and the outcome is out of their hands. So, it’s not that non-superstitious people are immune to fear; their brains just process uncertainty differently.

The Allure of Horror (Safe Fear)
However, if we hate feeling helpless, why do we willingly pay money to walk through a haunted house? If we avoid dark roads at night, why do we line up for Halloween Horror Nights just to get chased by actors with chainsaws?

This is where the thrill of “safe fear” comes in. When you step into a haunted house, your brain undergoes a fight-or-flight response and is flooded with adrenaline. Your heart races, your palms sweat, and your body panics. This all runs contrary to your logical brain, which knows it’s just a set. The chainsaws don’t have blades, and the ghosts are just people in makeup. Once your mind realises there is no real danger, it swaps that panic for a rush of dopamine, the feel-good chemical.

It’s basically a legal emotional rollercoaster where you experience the intense thrill of danger and explore the dark and scary parts of the world from a safe distance. In this way, fear can be a great way to feel alive since it shocks your system out of its boring, everyday routine. In that momentary jump scare, you are completely present and alert, without actually having to fight a real ghost.

The Gen Z Shift
So, how does this apply to Singaporean teens today? The short answer is that we aren’t less superstitious than the older generations. Rather, we are just superstitious about different things.

Our grandparents grew up in a world where survival was a communal effort. The unknown was literal—spirits, the afterlife and the dark. Because a whole village shared the same risks, their rites were highly public and communal, like altars or strict taboos to appease the unseen and protect everyone.

For Gen Z, our survival is highly individualistic. Our “unknown” is the future, and it’s entirely personal. We are stressed about the bell curve, university admissions, and whether our PW groupmates are going to do their work. Because we know a ghost isn’t going to help us pass our A Levels, our superstitions have become smaller, quieter rituals. It’s the unwashed jersey because your team is on a winning streak. It’s the unspoken rule of never praising a paper before it’s officially marked in case you jinx it. It’s having a specific “lucky” seat in the library.

But don’t let the quietness fool you. We might actually be doing more rituals than before. According to a 2026 survey published by DatingNews, 64% of Gen Z have tried manifesting, astrology, or tarot compared to just 25% of Gen X. We might know that most of this doesn’t actually work, but still, we do them as a shared joke and a way to bond over the stress, without admitting we are actually panicking.

So, are we all just irrational hypocrites? Not exactly. Superstition is essentially our brains’ way of screaming into the void. The future is wildly unpredictable: you can study for 100 hours, and the exam paper could still be a nightmare. Our tiny rituals are just a way to feel like we’re holding the steering wheel, even if most of our lives are actually on autopilot.

But maybe there’s a deeper reason we still love a good ghost story or a lucky jersey. Secretly, we don’t want the ghosts to go away. A world where everything can be explained by science and cold, hard statistics is boring, even bleak. The idea that a spirit haunts a dark road, or that a specific pen performs miracles, keeps the world that bit more mysterious and makes life a whole lot more interesting.

So whether you’re paying to get chased by a fake chainsaw or blaming a bad day on the stars, let yourself enjoy it. In a city obsessed with logic, efficiency and grades, holding onto a little bit of magic might be the most human thing we do.