This Strictly curse is not helped by the shows demanding schedule, long practice hours, and intimate dancing.
Strictly is not the only modern curse featured in the media of late.
Thecurse of the Tour de Francereturned, with the failure of a French rider to win thecycling race.
Hopes that Julian Alaphillippe would this year end the 34-year drought were dashed.
Meanwhile, the rapper Drake has been linked to a series ofsporting failuresover the years.
Other popular culture curses around James Deanscarand the nextJames Bondfilm, have also circulated of late.
Whats this all about?
Most people these days surely dont believe in supernatural curses.
It’s free, every week, in your inbox.
From a scientific perspective, curses have rational explanations.
These clarify why people directly ascribe supernatural powers to negative events.
For instance, belief in curses can arise from thinking style.
Psychologist Daniel Kahneman hasproposedthat there are two distinct modes of decision making.
System 1 is automatic, rapid and largely unconscious.
Subsequently, this system is intuitive and prone to biases and systematic errors.
In contrast, System 2 is controlled, slow, effortful, and produces rational thought.
So, perhaps people believe in curses because their spontaneous, subjective, System 1 thinking predominates.
Why do people sometimes see faces in clouds or Jesus in their toast?
We have a tendency to find meaningful patterns in meaningless noise: which some callapopheniaand otherspatternicity.
Phloxii/Shutterstock.com
Those who believe in curses may also be susceptible to theBarnumor Forer Effect.
This is where people wrongly infer that general information has specific personal relevance.
This confirmatory bias produces coherent, but logically inconsistent narratives supporting the presumption of supernatural forces.
This was true of the curse of Tutankhamun, for example.
This derived from the general notion that a curse would befall anyone who broke into a pharaohs burial site.
At the time of the excavation of Tutankhamuns tomb, the archaeologists suffered no misfortune.
Similarly, the movies Poltergeist and The Omen have over time acquired a reputationas cursed.
Sean M Smith/Shutterstock.com
The power of curses to influence people stems from belief in their veracity.
This often arises from an external locus of control, where people feel unable to influence events.
In the absence of perceived control, people become more accepting of mysterious, external forces.
Psychologists refer to this asmagical thinking.
In addition, belief in curses is associated with certain personality characteristics.
Particularly, tolerance of ambiguity and neuroticism.
Tolerance of ambiguity describes the degree to which an individual cancope with uncertainty.
People with low tolerance of ambiguity tend to look for closure.
This manifests as the failure to critically consider evidence and to jump to conclusions.
These factors can lead to indiscriminate, premature acceptance of material.
Neuroticism, meanwhile, can facilitate worry, concern and rumination about curses.
In extreme cases, belief in curses can undermine confidence in oneself and ones future success.
Psychologists refer to this as self-fulfilling prophecy.
This is where belief in a curse produces the perception of inevitable misfortune.
Indeed, the mere suggestion of bad luck can produce negative outcomes.
Researchers call this theNocebo Effect.
Social factors
The influence of curses also originates from their grounding in culture.
Specifically, through education and social narratives, the notion of curses perpetuates over time.
Consequently, they become culturally acceptable and in some instances plausible.
For example, theevil eyehas a long tradition around the world.
Socially, media coverage can induce the notion that curses exist.
A recent example is theMomo Challenge.
The communication also predicted unfortunate consequences if the receiver failed to follow instructions, or pass on the message.
This story went viral and caused children and parents great anxiety.
Believing in curses can undermine decision making, well-being and self confidence.
In extreme cases, they can also facilitate unusual ideas, undermine critical thinking and produceodd behaviors.
Despite evidence to the contrary, some curses are compelling.
