Preliminary research of superstitious behavior in orienteering

Abstract

Superstitious behaviors stem from athletes' need to reduce competitive pressure and uncertainty of outcome, as it gives them the illusion of control over a number of external factors (luck factors) that may affect their competitive result. This study aims to determine the presence of superstitious behavior, its relationship to age, gender, competitive experience and self-confidence of competitors, and adequacy of Bleak and Frederick scale (1998) use to our athletes. From the original Superstitious Rituals Questionnaire developed by Bleak and Frederic (1998), after translation into Serbian, four items were removed, and the question of confidence in one's own orienteering skills was added, and the respondents were allowed to list personal superstitious behaviors not mentioned in the questionnaire. The questionnaire was completed by 78 orienteers (45 men, 33 women), aged 10-70 years and with an average competitive experience of 15.2 years. Based on the obtained research results, it was determined that from 10 to 68% of Serbian orienteers use 15 out of a total of 41 superstitious rituals, that the average number of these rituals per respondent was small (M/SD = 5.38 +/-3.46), that their effectiveness assessed on a scale of 0-5 was low (2.88 +/-1.31), that no one used 6 rituals, and that a significant number of orienteering-specific rituals were listed that were not present in the applied questionnaire. There is a significant positive correlation between the number of uses of superstitious rituals and female gender (r=.25), and a negative one with age, competitive experience, and self-confidence in orienteering skills (r=-.40; -.38; -.39, respectively). The fact that Serbian orienteers practice a relatively small number of superstitious behaviors listed in the applied questionnaire, mentioning at the same time, other superstitious rituals that they usually consider necessary routines of pre-start preparation, indicate the need to construct a new superstitious behavior questionnaire specific to orienteering and our sports culture.