PSYCOLOGY TERM

REPORT
SUPERSTITION IN THE PAKISTANI
SOCIETY

SUBMITTED TO: MR. MOHAMMAD IRFAN

SUBMITTED BY: ZAINAB LAKHANI
JANTA KUMARI
AFSHAN KHAN
SHIZA NASIM
SANA SOMRO
SARA JANOO

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 TABLE OF CONTENT
S.No Contents Page
No.
1 Acknowledgement 3

2 Executive Summary 4

3 Research Methodology 5

4 Introduction 6

5 Types of Superstition 8

6 Superstitions in the Pakistani society 9

7 Summary of the Results 11

8 Difference of superstition on the basis of gender 15

9 Difference of superstition on the basis of age 16

10 Difference of superstition on the basis of areas in Karachi 19

11 Difference of superstition on the basis of religion 20

12 Effect of superstition 22

13 Recommendations 24

14 Conclusion 25

15 References 26

16 Appendix 27

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First of all we would like to thank Allah Almighty for giving us the resolution and
determination to complete this report. We have taken efforts in this project. However, it
would not have been possible without the kind support and help of many individuals. We
would like to extend our sincere thanks to all our fellow colleagues and group mates who
directly or indirectly participated in working on this project. We would like to give due
credit to our teacher Mr. Muhammad Irfan for guiding and mentoring us throughout the
supervision and support that he gave, truly helped the progression and smoothness of our
work.

We would like to express our gratitude towards our parents for their kind co-operation
and encouragement which helped us in completion of this project. Furthermore, we
would like to express our special gratitude and thanks to the people who filled out
questionnaires and gave us their valuable response.

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 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Superstitions are irrational beliefs on magic, myths, supernatural and other phenomenon used
by people to explain unforeseen circumstances. As per the requirement of our psychology term
report, we will be conducting a research on the impacts of superstition in the Pakistani society.
It will focus on the importance of superstition in the life of an average Pakistani.

We have researched in Karachi on various groups of people living in different places and
belonging to different age groups and families. This will help us give a detailed view on the
effects of superstition in Karachi.

Pakistani superstitious believes are a bit different from the conventional superstitious beliefs
we hear about every day. People in Pakistani society are more inclined to explain their
misfortunes as a result of destiny. They believe in black magic, Pir baba’s, jinns etc.

Superstitious beliefs vary from person to person due to many economical, cultural,
demographic, educational and many other factors. In our research we have presented how
superstition varies due to difference in gender, age, religion, and area the person is living in.

In order to research on this topic we will use random sampling with a sample size of 100 and
distribute questionnaire that are reliable and valid. We would also use secondary sources such
as internet, past reports and articles.

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 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Methodology:
In order to conduct our research on the topic ‘influence of superstition in Karachi’, we
conducted a quantitative research.

We made questions with 20 items which covered a diverse range of questions which helped us
study the difference in superstition in terms of age, gender, locality and religion.

We used random sampling and got 100 questionnaires filled in order to get reliable and valid
results. We got them filled over the internet and manually by people.

We even used secondary sources of research such as internet, articles on superstition etc in
order to assist our research.

Limitation:
We faced some limitations as well while conducting our research. Firstly, people usually don’t
take filling questionnaire seriously and filled them randomly hence results weren’t very
accurate.

Secondly though we tried our best but our sample was a bit biased as it had more proportion of
people from the age group of 15-30 living in Clifton and Defense. But we overcame this short
coming by taking weightage of the respondents.

Lastly, people are not very honest while disclosing information about their beliefs. Moreover
superstition is most likely to be in our subconscious so even if a person does or doesn’t believe
in superstition they don’t know how much themselves.

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 INTRODUCTION
WHAT IS SUPERSTITION?
Superstition is an irrational belief in magic, myth, supernatural and other phenomena which has
not been proven. These beliefs usually have their roots in traditions and culture. They begin
from facts and eventually get distorted as they pass from one generation to the other. These
beliefs as they grow become a vital part of an individual’s live and they start explaining every
event good or bad through superstitions. This leads them away from reality and they stop
becoming accountable for their actions. Example: “My exam went bad because a black cat
crossed my way not because I had inadequate preparation.”

In order to do our report we conducted a research on a sample of 100 people. In the research
we found out what percentage of people believed in superstition in Karachi, below is the
graphical representation.

How much do you believe in superstition

1%

4%

Never
30%
Almost never

Sometimes
42%
Often

Always

23%

This shows that 30% people never believe in superstition, 23% people never believe in
superstition, while 42% people sometimes believe in superstition, 4% often believe in
superstition and 1% always believes in superstition.

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In the research we conducted we asked people which definition best describes superstition.
Below is it’s graphical representation:

Which definition best describes superstition?

7% False beliefs that corrupt reality

27%
Rationalization that people develop to
explain unfortunate events
34%

An irrational belief on not proven

phenomena

31% Reasons due to which some unexpected

events happen

Around 27% people believe that superstitions are false beliefs are false beliefs that corrupt
reality. 29% people believe that they rationalizations that people develop to explain
unfortunate events. 36% people believe they are irrational beliefs on not proven phenomena.
And 7% people believe that they are reasons due to which some unexpected events happen.

The interesting finding was that some of the people who criticized superstition and said it
distorted reality believed in luck and owned a lucky charm.

Superstitious people are less tolerant to ambiguity and tend to worry about. This is one of the
reasons superstitious beliefs have started growing recently all over the world. People are faced
with great political and economic crisis. Living each day is like a battle and only the fittest
survive. Hence people resort to superstition for the sake of emotional stability and to explain
their failures.

Superstitions usually become an integral part of a person’s life and it’s usually very difficult to
get rid of them because they dominate the subconscious of a person. Hence people without
even realizing believe use superstition to justify events even if the claim not to believe in it.

TYPES OF SUPERSTITION
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There are various kinds of superstition that prevail the society. Some are very prominent and
globally believed. While others are limited to specific culture, religion, sect and countries.

Some of the common superstitions which are popular worldwide and are believed by most of
the people are listed below. The realities of these are up to the interpretations of the people
and cultures who believe in them. These are as follows:

1. Black cat brings bad luck.

2. Walking under a ladder is bad luck.
3. Friday the 13th is an unlucky day.
4. To step on a crack is bad luck.
5. To break glass is bad luck.
6. To put your hands on your head brings tension and bad luck.
7. Horse shoe brings good luck
8. If your one shoe is on top of the other that means you will travel in future.
9. A rabbit’s foot brings good luck.
10. A four leave clover brings good luck.
11. Garlic and salt protects you from spirits.
12. When people die they are reincarnated into other life.
13. Some people can predict future through reading hand
14. A cat has nine lives.
15. There is a life after death.
16. Some numbers, colors, stones etc are lucky for some people.
17. It’s possible to talk to the dead.
18. Witches, ghosts, spirits, angels etc exist.
19. Crossing finger brings good luck.
20. To open an umbrella inside the house brings bad luck.
21. Touching wood doesn’t jinx something god.
22. If a lizard falls on your head your mother dies.
23. Picking up a heads up coin from the street brings good luck.
24. If your left palm itches, you will get money
25. If your left eye itches it will bring bad luck or stress

There are numerous other superstitions which are widely believed in around the world. These
may sound stupid but people even in Pakistan practice them consciously or unconsciously.

SUPERSTITIONS IN PAKISTANI SOCIETY

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Superstitions are very common in Pakistan be it the form of black magic, lucky charms, card readings,
tarot cards, fortune tellers, Pir babas etc. All of these fall into the category of superstitious beliefs.
Victims of this superstition visit ‘pir baba’ and take ‘taweez’ to solve their problems like health issues,
bad eye, unemployment, family issues etc. Some of the superstitions followed in Pakistan are discussed
below:

 Itching Palm: under this superstition, it is believed that when you feel
itching in your left hand good luck will come to you.

 Ring finger: History tells that Egyptians used to believe that third finger of the left hand is
directly connected to heart therefore this finger was known as ring finger.
Ring holds the love between the couple and does not let it escape. Due to
this superstition married or engaged couples wear ring in the third finer of
left hand.
 Black cat crossing your way:
People believe that if a black cat crosses your way bad luck will they come
to you. They prefer not going from that path instead they take some other
route.
 Crossing fingers:
Another type of superstition is that came from Christians is that crossing the
two fingers will not destroy good fortune and good luck will come to you
without any hurdles.

 Rice throwing in marriages:

Under Hindu philosophy it is believed that during the wedding ceremony if
rice is thrown upon the couple, all the evil spirits will start collecting it and
therefore leaving bride and groom alone. Also the rice thrown upon them will
give them many children.

 Blinking of left eye: In our society we often hear that if your left eye blinks then it means things
will go wrong and it is considered as a bad omen.

 Breaking of glass is happiness:

Superstitious people believe that b is breaking of the glass brings happiness and it is considered
as a good omen.

 Opening and closing of scissor:

Generally old people have this faith that random opening and closing of scissor will cause
trouble to the house and housemates. Due to this bad faith they stop children from doing so.

 Singing of a crow:

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 In our society, it is commonly believed that singing of the crow in front of the window is a signal
for arrival of guest.

 Don’t cut nails at night:

Another superstition is that cutting nails at night will cause evil spirits to
harm us. We often hear this from our parents and grandparents as well.

 Howling of the dog:

Superstitious people believe that if a dog howls at night that means someone
will die in the neighborhood.

 Mental illness and Jins:

It is often seen that people justify a mental illness with the existence of ‘Jins’.
They believe that an evil spirit or jin has captured the body of the patient and ignore the
scientific reason behind this.

 Eclipse superstition: People have this belief that if abnormal children are
buried into sand and exposed to solar eclipse they will turn into normal. This
practice is very common and many of such incidents were reported during solar
eclipse.

 Hiccups: Another superstition commonly practiced in our society is that we have hiccups
because someone is missing us.

 Eating in pot: Superstitious people have this belief that eating directly from the pot will cause
heavy rainfall at the wedding night.

 Milk boil over:

Some superstitious women and old people have this faith that if milk boils over, bad luck will
enter the house and cause trouble.

 Card reading:
People visit fake fortune tellers who have a trained parrot to take out cards
that will predict their future.

 Visiting ‘dargahs’ and ‘mazaars’: Superstitous people visit dargahs and

mazaars of famous Sufis and saints. They pray over there for removal of
troubles. Majority of Pakistanis visit dargahs.

SUMMARY OF THE RESEARCH

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Following answers of the graphs express the commonality of superstition in Pakistani society
and summarize the results of the research:

Belief in superstition:

48% people who took part in the survey were not sure about their superstitious beliefs.
According to them, they judge different situations based on the level of rationality of the case
and do not jump to conclusions by relating it to superstition very often. 33% called themselves
very practical and denied any belief in superstition whereas hardly a short proportion of the
surveyed population expressed its belief in superstition.

Spending a bad day if a black cat passed by:

When asked if they ever found a practical example of a superstitious event like passing by of a
black cat, 89% clearly denied any uncertain outcomes of such an event and blamed the
concept’s legitimacy. However, a small proportion backed it up and said that they have
experienced and faced unlucky circumstances

Owners of lucky charms:

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When asked if they own a lucky charm, 14% of the survey population steadily accepted that
they own one (for example, a dress, bracelet or pendent). They believe in it strongly and carry it
with themselves at special events expecting good results. 75% disagreed to lucky charms’
authenticity and 21% was unsure.

Belief in destiny and fate:

The results show that 58% of the surveyed people believe in destiny and purpose of life,
majority of which are Muslims. 24% often believe that their life is not by chance but was
created for some meaning whereas, 24% is unsure and practices the belief sometimes.

Defining successes in life as a result of hard work:

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55% believes that their efforts were the sole reason behind their victories in life and are certain
about the outcomes of their struggles. 7% believes that their successes were by chance and due
to their good luck whereas 28% are neutral and point some events as a result of hard work and
some other as an outcome of their good-deeds in the past.

Opinion of people about superstition in Pakistani society and lack of education:

When asked about their opinion of superstitious beliefs in the Pakistani society, majority of the
surveyed population added that there is a high level of superstitious beliefs in the society and
majorly, due to lack of education. They say that people who carry lucky charms and contact
babas to help them figure out their lives are a target of illiteracy and judge events without
interpreting the situations rationally. 15% said it’s not due to lack of education and 7% denied
any relation between education and existence of superstition

Women’s belief in superstition:

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The graph clearly shows that people point women as the major reason of increasing
superstitious beliefs.

Needs of government actions:

93% people who took part in the survey will to raise voice against the superstition-provoking
elements in the society and want the Government to take some action. They want total
elimination of the Pir Babas and mazaars that certain population of the country relies on in case
of uncertainties and want people to be more practical. 5% seems to take no interest in the idea
of government actions and calls it a waste of time whereas, 11% has a neutral opinion about
the situation.

Difference In Superstitious Belief Of Males And Females

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It is generally believed that women are more superstitious than men and may surveys prove it
as well. The core reasons behind this fact are lack of education, lack of self esteem in women,
less exposure to practical world, feeling of less control in life, belief in destiny and luck.

In our society men are given more power therefore they feel control over the happenings of
their life. It makes them more self confident and they rationalize things rather than believing in
destiny. Whereas, women usually have low self esteem due to which they tend to believe more
in bad luck and destiny.

In Pakistan, majority of the women are housewives and bounded in homes only therefore they
have very less exposure to the world outside which tends to make them less practical and more
superstitious. This trend is more common in rural areas as compared to urban. A study about
Pakhtoon women in Pakistan reveals that lack of deep rooted knowledge and understanding
about Islam lead to the development of different superstitions and they acquired the habit of
going to soothsayers ( pir baba). The author Dr Arab Naz (chairman of sociology department at
university of malakand) says that, they visit shrines called ‘Gailai’ and give ‘nazrani’( charity)
over there. Further it was observed that they have a firm belief in taweez and sakhtoona
(written scripts) for removal of their troubles. Some other superstitious practices include eating
salt and rubbing stones on body parts to remove pain. Women also go to these shrines and Pirs
for the desire of male child through which Pir babas earn a quiet handsome amount.

On the other hand men are believed to be less superstitious than women. Men have a lot of
exposure to the outer world and they have more opportunities of higher education. Where as,
women especially in rural areas are deprived of primary education. The difference in the
lifestyle of both also makes a difference. Males are considered more rational therefore it makes
them less involved into irrational beliefs. Generally we also observe it in our families that
women tend to associate superstitious beliefs to our daily life actions more than males. For
example, if milk boils over women in the house will condemn or get angry because it is
considered as a bad omen.

SUPERSTITION IN DIFFERENT AREAS OF KARACHI

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AREAS WITH THE MOST LITERATE PEOPLE:
These areas include well educated people. Mostly they belong to upper and upper
middle class; whose are given the opportunities to know what is right and what is wrong.
They work with facts and figures and not with rumors. Education is the biggest factor to
eliminate the wrong believes of superstition. Therefore the people that are exposed to
education know better what to believe and what not. Before believing anything they ask
for proves and reasons to believe it. So, people of educated areas are least
superstitious. Still in these areas superstitious beliefs are present among young
generation and female gender. Middle ages and old male population strongly disbelief
any superstitions things.

Areas such as:

 Malir cantt
 Clifton
 Defense
 North Nazimabad
 Boat Basin
 P.E.C.H.S.
 Bahadurabab

Defence: Belief in Clifton: Belief

Superstition amongst amongst people
15-30 aged individuals aged 15-30
Believe Don't believe Believe Don't Believe

45%
50% 50%
55%

AREAS WITH MODERATELY LITERATE PEOPLE:

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These areas include moderately educated people. Those who are educated but also
believe in their custom and traditions. They are mostly middle class and lower middle
class people. They are forced to follow their ancestor’s superstitions, these people are
just confused whether what they are doing is right or not, in this dilemma, some are
stuck with their ancestor’s concepts and others break free. These areas include:

 Gulshan e Iqbal
 Gulistan E Johar
 Tariq road
 Garden
 Faisal e colony
 Addamjee Nager
 Shahra -e Faisal
 Saddar

Gulshan: Belief Jauhar: Belief

amongst people aged amongst people aged
15-30 15-30
Believe Don't Believe Believe Don't Believe

44%
50% 50%
56%

AREAS WITH LEAST LITERATE PEOPLE:

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These areas include less educated people. They mostly belong to lower classes. The
people of these areas are purely following the traditions and norms which are coming
from their ancestors. As due to lack of knowledge they can’t differentiate what they
should follow and which to abide because of these big misconceptions the mass is
going with the beliefs creep into their minds and leading their life according to those
believes. Thus, will also impact on an individual perfomance. These areas include:

 Orangi Town
 F.B area
 Site area
 Korangi
 Lalu khet
 Landhi
 Liyari
 New Karachi
 Sohrab goth

FB Area: Belief amongst people

aged 15-30
Believe Don't Believe

33%

67%

SUPERSTITIOUS BELIEF AND RELIGIONS

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Superstitions are there since ancient times. They are found in every society, country, culture,
and religion. Most of the people of different religion have belief on superstitious things. Much
population of Muslims, Hindus Christians, Zoroastrians, etc has such belief. Even though Islam
taught us that there is nothing superstitious in this world, only Allah has the power to control,
no leaf of a tree can fall without His will, only He knows about the future, none other power in
this world can overcome His commands. Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H) strongly condemned such
belief and said that these are unlawful.

But today there is weakening of faith in segments of Muslim societies which is due to seeping in
superstitious practices from other societies. The illiterate masses may go to a soothsayer who
tells the future with the help of a bird. Especially the Muslims of Indo_pakistan greatly suffers
from unlawful beliefs, may be its due to influence of Hinduism superstitious belief and as
Muslims lived in great proximity with Hindus in sub continents for many years, so they not only
adopt their many cultures but also superstitious beliefs. This is the reason that most of
Pakistani Muslims have almost strong unlawful beliefs. But at present time which is shown also
by research that young generation is less superstitious than the old generation.

Talking about the Hindu society there are great supersites belief among them, Hinduism is one
of world’s oldest culture and Hindus are said to be more superstitious. They won’t do any
important work, before or after the so called Shubh mohrat, they avoid embarking on new
ventures during the waning phase of the moon. Coupled with this, every day of the week has a
90-minute period, Rahu Kaalam, which is inauspicious. They break of a coconut to remove evil
eye on many different occasions. Many of the superstitious beliefs they practice are of their
religious customs n commands

Superstitious beliefs in Christianity are also much prevalent, even the modernized American
society have such beliefs, apart from American Christians, other Christians living in any part of
world, even in Pakistan have some common superstitious religious belief like Calling down the
“blood of Jesus”,” Doing a Jericho prayer walks”, “Belief that objects can carry the power of
God’s spirited

Thus almost more than a half population of modern world , belonging to any religion have
superstitious beliefs, may be because of their rituals and customs, or any such belief brought a
good desirable result in their life incidentally. we can say that irrational belief history is as
ancient ,as the history of man.

Influence of age on superstition

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Age has a vital role in the intensity of superstitious beliefs. The age group a person belongs to
effects their belief in superstition and what kind of superstitions they believe in. Age has an
important role in a person’s maturity and how they perceive reality.

Below is a graphical representation on the difference of superstitious belief in terms of age.

This graph is based on three age groups:

 Youngsters
 Middle aged
 Elderly

Difference in superstition according to

age

28%
Youngster
49%
Middle aged
Elderly
23%

Young adults, they are considered as youth. They refer to superstition as something obsolete
and a clique. Today most of the youth is educated, so they usually don’t believe in such kind of
things. Twenty first century is the age of technology, youth has drifted away from religion and
has become secular, their lives has a lot of influence from science and technology. They tend to
believe more in facts and figures, hence disregard phenomena’s such as superstition. However
youngsters coming from families that have a very conservative culture and well aligned values
are more likely to believe in superstition if their family does. Most youngsters tend to believe in
few superstitions, which they think that these are good for them or they might term them as
‘cool’ which are adopted basically from the western culture. Here are few superstitions: lucky
charms, lucky numbers, lucky colors, crossing your fingers etc.

 Crossing your fingers before the start of the exam or before the declaration of the result
is the most common superstition during exam.
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  Eating curd before going out for new work or exam brings good luck.
 Not shaving during exams is considered another charm.
 The color white depicts purity and holiness according to superstitions.

Middle aged, these people are mostly married and are indulged in jobs. Hence they have a very
busy schedule and don’t tend to believe in superstition that much. They are more ambitious
and define their success as a result of their hard work and don’t rely on luck or destiny to
decide their fate.

Old aged people are those above the age of 60 they are on the last stage of their life and they
basically at this stage analyze the life they led as good or bad. They get closer to religion and
god and start using supernatural explanations to explain their misfortunes. They take refugee
from phenomena’s such as superstition for emotional stability. Whenever a good thing
happened, they related it with some supernatural power and whenever a bad thing happened
they thought it as curse of god. They hold strong believe in superstitions, they are religious.
Such things become their culture, and then they follow it.

EFFECT OF SUPERSTITIONS
There are three main effects of superstitions, which are as following:

 Psychological effects.

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  Social effects.

Psychological effects: superstitions play an important role in impressing the minds of the
people. They immediately hammer our mind in taking us to positive or negative things. The
psychological effects of superstition are the main effects. It can change the mind of the people.
Conscious superstition to be true or false always because thinking in our minds that
superstition may be the something that may exist. It is also a fact that many people refused
these superstitions evidently. If the positive effects of superstition are viewed, then it can be
used as a consequence. It is used for the dummy treatment of some patients. In consequence
the treatment is done through “expectations”.

Social effects: In fact social effects play an important role in their expanding. It regards the
social life of people to great extent. The alarming situation is that many professional are also
involved in this regard.

Some examples that explain such conditions are:

Many professional athletes use particular object of costumes to set their minds on creating a
winning bound in competition.

In this regard many great players of cricket, football, hockey etc. always prefer to wear the
shirts with some specific object and may a number also.

According to the ideas of these people there is a period which favors you. So doing anything in
that period will never cause a failure. For this purpose such people are at the hands of the
astrologers who guide them at right time.

Religious effects: one of the alarming situations that have taken place due to excessive believes
in superstitions are the effects that are badly affecting our religion. The faith of the most of the
people is becoming weak and weak as their believes in superstitions is increasing. They never
care whether our religion has said all this or not.

The most important point is that the image of our religion is does not count well when we
follow superstition rather following the principles of our religion. Many people have made
some superstitions in the religion also. This creates some bad effects about our religion.
Superstitions has made us away from our religion to such an extent that we have forgotten
what our religion says, what Allah has said, and what our beloved prophet Hazrat
Muhammad(S.A.W) has said.

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 RECOMMENDATIONS
There are hundreds of thousands of superstitions engraved in our lives. Many of our daily
activities are affected by superstitions, such as we may return back home if a black cat pass our

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way. Superstitions are usually part of our culture or nationality. Being overly superstitious
creates a difficult life so we must get over superstitions and learn to live our lives without
anxiety. Few methods to get over superstition are as follows:

1. Examine the basis for the superstition and make sure it is credible.
2. Take some time out to write about your superstitious beliefs and rate them according to
the degree they affect you.
3. See your reaction when you are thinking about a particular superstitious belief. Do you
feel angry, sad, happy, anxious etc.
4. Consider how the superstitious belief affects your daily life and routine. Is it
inconvenient for you to follow the superstition? Decide if you feel inconvenience, grief,
annoyance, or joy to perform the activity associated with the belief.
5. Logically think about the superstition. Search the internet and use your common sense
to debunk some of your superstitions.
6. Understand the way the world really works. Look for the real causes of events around
you rather than believing in things that do not exist.

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 CONCLUSION
These superstitious notions seem sometimes to be so ingrained into our belief system that
people automatically find themselves looking at a cracked mirror in horror and visualizing years
of misfortune ahead. In my opinion superstitions are self-created. One may think it is bit weird
but usually when I have chewing gum I get a headache. This has created a superstition related
to chewing gum in my mind. The problem is I like to spend a routine day, and if anything
happens that is not normal and out of routine I blame other things for it such as the chewing
gum.

By being superstitious, you are being blinded and don’t realize that a powerful side to you is
being wasted away. By believing in superstitions to a high level, you are making yourself
emotionally weak as all superstitions give nothing but false expectations in a negative way, and
can affect you in your performance and goals on a daily basis.

I firmly believe that you attract the energy that you vibrate. This means that if you believe that
something bad is going to happen then it will and vice versa! So you have to believe in the
power of positivity.

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 REFERENCES
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-superstition.htm

http://valeed.hubpages.com/hub/What-are-Superstitions

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061121010329AAhbVEd

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_superstition

http://www.truthpizza.org/logic/stition.htm

http://www.richardwiseman.com/resources/superstition_report.pdf

http://members.tripod.com/~do_you_believe/super/superstitions-I.html

http://www.csicop.org/superstition/library/common_superstitions/

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/aSGuest101069-1056219-presentation1/

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 APPENDIX
SUPERSTITION IN THE PAKISTANI SOCIETY

1. What’s your gender?

Male Female
2. Which age group do you belong to?
15-30 31-45 46-60 61 and above
3. Which area in Karachi do you live in?

_____________
4. What religion do you belong to?

_____________
5. Which definition best describes superstition
False beliefs that corrupt reality
Rationalization that people develop to explain unfortunate events
An irrational belief on not proven phenomena
Reasons due t which some unexpected events happen
6. How much do you believe in superstition?
Never Almost never Sometimes Often Always
7. How many times have you justified an event through superstition?
Never Almost never Sometimes Often Always
8. Have you ever had a bad day if a black cat crossed your way?
Never Almost never Sometimes Often Always
9. Do you believe that horseshoe brings good luck?
Never Almost never Sometimes Often Always
10. Do you own a lucky charm?
Yes No Maybe
11. Do you believe in destiny and that everything happens for a reason?
Never Almost never Sometimes Often Always
12. Would you define your successes in life a result of your hard work or sheer luck?
Never Almost never Sometimes Often Always Never
13. Do you think that there is a great influence of superstition in Pakistani society?
Yes No Maybe

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14. Do you believe that someone can tell you your destiny through reading your hand or
tarot cards?
Never Almost never Sometimes Often Always Never
15. Do you believe in black magic and jinn’s?
Never Almost never Sometimes Often Always
16. Do you believe that “Pir Baba” can relieve you from the effects of black magic?
Never Almost never Sometimes Often Always
17. Do you think lack of education increases the tendency of superstitious beliefs?
Yes No Maybe
18. Women are generally more superstitious then men because?
They are more emotional and tend to believe easily
They are mostly free and indulge in such beliefs
They are lacking the same educational background then men
They are not more superstitious then men
19. Do you think superstitious beliefs are bad in long run?
Yes No Maybe
20. Should the government and media take steps to educate people about the adverse
affects of superstition?
Yes No Maybe

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