Interesting Concept

One interesting topic that caught my attention that we have not yet discussed would be reversing cause and effect. Reversing cause and effect is what people tend to do when they mix one for the other, or that they believe B caused A just because B happened right after A. For an example, a student runs into a black cat, who crosses her path during her walk to school in the morning. Being superstitious, the girl automatically reflects on what possibilities running into a black cat will cause her. Soon, her day is filled with bad news: failing a test, being late to a class, and forgetting to do a homework assignment that was worth as much as about a test for her math class. After each of these events, the girl would get more fustrated and blame the black cat from earlier on the day and think that all her misfortune throughout the day was caused by this creature. However, she got things mixed up. It's true that although while some superstitions may coincedently be true, this one needs a little more logic: forgetting her homework assignment had nothing to do with the cat-- she forgot to do it the night before, which took place even before she crossed paths with the cat. Failing her tests only means she did not take precaution and study for her exam the night(s) before it took place, a cat cannot be blamed for procrastination. Being late to her class may have resulted from several different things: some stuff came up, or she walked extra slow: therefore she did not make it to class on time. However, this is an example of reversing cause and effect because this girl would then go home and think that she failed her test, was late to class, and did not bring her assignment all because of the black cat bringing her bad luck, which we can all see that is not the case!