Buyology - Martin Lindstrom [40]
A final daily ritual is called “protecting yourself from the future.” This involves all acts we perform before going to bed at night—turning off computers and lights, lowering the heat, setting the burglar alarm, checking on children and pets, locking the doors and windows, and parking packed bags and briefcases by the door so we won’t forget them in the morning. As the final ritual of the day, protecting yourself from the future helps us feel secure before the next day arrives and we start a new round of rituals all over again.7
These rituals have everything to do with gaining control—or at least the illusion of it—and we all perform them in one shape or form every day. But many of us also carry out other, less productive rituals that are grounded in superstition or irrational beliefs—and most of us aren’t even aware of it. Just for fun, let’s walk through an imaginary week.
You awaken early Monday morning to overcast skies and heavy rain (as usual, you’ve set your alarm clock ahead ten minutes). Upon arriving at work, you go out of your way to avoid walking under a workman’s ladder in the lobby. At lunch, you make your way to the outdoor fountain in a nearby park. You fumble around in your pants or purse for a coin, briefly make a wish—please, let me get that promotion—then toss the coin in. You walk back to the office feeling a little silly, yet more at ease.
The sun returns on Tuesday, and you decide you’ll walk to work. Traipsing down a crowded sidewalk, you recall the distant memory of a childhood rhyme: Step on a crack, break your mother’s back. That afternoon, the wish you made at the fountain comes true—you got the promotion you wanted. You know you won it because of your hard work, but you can’t help but give some credit to the coin you cast into the fountain.
On Wednesday, you greet a friend at a Chinese restaurant, kissing her on both cheeks—a European ritual you adopted after vacationing in France. After your meal, you crack open your fortune cookie to read your fortune. Your dining companion sneezes, and you murmur Gesundheit, roughly “bless you” in German and Yiddish. As you’re leaving the table you slip your fortune-cookie fortune into your wallet. You’ll be playing those numbers the next time you buy a lottery ticket. (On March 30, 2007, 110 people played the same numbers they found on the back of a fortune cookie—22, 28, 32, 33, 39, 40—and became second-prize Powerball winners, taking home anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000, costing the lottery association nearly $19 million.8)
Friday, as it happens, falls on the thirteenth of the month. Noting the date, you feel a surge of anxiety. You take a quick glance at your horoscope—nothing bad there. With Christmas approaching, you buy a tree, decorate it with lights, ornaments, and tinsel—saving the star for last—and finally tape mistletoe over all your doorways, not that you really believe anyone will angle you under a sprig for a kiss.
On Saturday, you go to a wedding. It’s raining—bad luck for the bride and groom (or is it good luck? It’s one or the other). At the reception, you join the throng in tossing rice at the newlyweds, and drink a champagne toast to their health and marriage. Do you really believe that knocking back a glass of Kava will ensure them a lifetime of good health and wedded bliss? Of course not. But the point is, most rituals and superstitious behaviors are so ingrained in our culture and daily lives that we often don’t even think about why we’re doing them.
Nor is such behavior limited exclusively to American culture. Take the fear of the number thirteen, for example. In early 2007, in response to countless customer complaints, Brussels Airlines reluctantly altered the thirteen dots in their airline logo to fourteen.9 If you want to sit in the thirteenth row on your Air France, KLM, Iberia (or for that matter, Continental) flight, you’re plain out of luck, as there isn’t one. Last year, on one Friday the thirteenth,