Is it worth eating 12 grapes on New Year's Eve?

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New Year's Eve arrives and, with it, the ritual of the

.

Twelve amulets that we devour in their corresponding

.

A cultural tradition that achieves the effect of a collective hypnosis: an entire country gulping down grapes in unison to the rhythm of the twelve chimes of the great totem: the Puerta del Sol clock!

The emblematic (so called every December 31).

Go ahead, it's a ritual that seems

to me (what to say about the previous nervousness, the inevitable warning of "eye, it's the rooms", the face of speed -grape in hand- of everyone and the subsequent hugs because yes there is a tomorrow, indeed, a whole year).

Also, I wonder: "What would you think if an alien who had just landed on our planet were watching us right now?"

Exactly, as it happens in Eduardo Mendoza's funny novel,

.

He would ask himself: "Why do they do it?

Is it useful for something?"

BRAIN AT TWO SPEEDS

Another of the most followed rituals is to wear red underwear at the end of the year to attract luck.Shutterstock

"The brain is not looking for the truth, but for survival," says psychologist Cordelia Fire.

It is clear that being

provides more survival resources, since it encourages us to fight for what we want, but without going overboard because reality also has its laws of subsistence.

For that we have "two brains": a

one that believes without hesitation and a slow rational one that reflects.

The former makes

spending very little energy, especially when there isn't much time to think.

Against him he has to be a

The second analyzes each of the aspects of a situation and

its conclusions.

This, in turn, entails considerable energy expenditure.

Merche, my patient, with a lot of humor, defines the activity of these two systems with a lapidary "sometimes I think and other times

".

We tend to function on a day-to-day basis through the fast brain because it is efficient and sustainable.

I like to imagine these two brains competing like the characters in the cartoon "Coyote and the Road Runner."

The Coyote (slow brain) spends the day reflecting to get an idea, while the Road Runner (fast brain) has seen the solution for a while, because he has

The latter are responsible for us believing in magic for a while.

THE TRAPS OF THE BRAIN

The quick system shortcuts serve to

to complex problems (given the huge amount of information that the brain receives).

They are called heuristic (when we arrive at positive solutions) or biases (when they lead to error).

In 2002, the psychologist Daniel Kahneman received the Nobel Prize in Economics for having studied the functioning of the

when making judgments and making decisions under uncertainty.

As complex as it sounds, it is what we all do every day.

In his book "Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow" (a very interesting essay for his "Coyote" brain) he describes how these heuristics/biases work to make us easier or harder when faced with a problem.

THE RITUALS

By resetting the counter to zero, we think it's a good time to start doing things right.Shutterstock

In 1909, due to the good harvest of grapes, the farmers created a successful marketing campaign (they put the excess product in bags of twelve for twelve months and called them "lucky grapes").

Since then, Spanish human beings -would say the alien- like

and optimism grape in hand for a while (there are other times in the year to feel fear and anxiety).

To achieve this, your brain activates the following shortcuts or biases (among others):

• The illusory correlation.

  The human tendency to believe that there is a cause-effect relationship between two events, even though there isn't.

  Since that date we associate -without further questioning- grapes with luck.

  As with the placebo effect, if you think something works, it will work.

• The focus effect.

  We look at only one aspect when making assessments and forecasts.

  It's easy, if I focus on luck at the beginning of the year, my sense of satisfaction with life will be greater.

  You know, where you put your eye you put happiness (or unhappiness).

• The illusion of control.

  The tendency to believe that we can influence certain events, even though logic tells us otherwise.

  For twelve seconds we all think "with the ritual of the change of the year, I change my luck" (after this time the effect can fade quickly).

• The positivist or Polyanna bias.

  It consists of thinking that nothing bad is going to happen to you and that by magic (or bias) the future will be better than your past when moving from one year to the next.

THE MAGICAL THOUGHT

In addition to brain shortcuts, our ancestors have passed down their desire to

and explain the inexplicable.

We carry it in our genes, we can't stand uncertainty and we want to control chance.

The ancient peoples had their magical systems to

and their rituals to influence their world.

Myths and legends translate the world and produce a sense of security, which is why each culture has its own particular mythology.

With this I do not mean that by eating the twelve grapes you activate your prehistoric self, but

does have something ancient.

In turn, while we are children up to the age of seven, in the so-called pre-operational stage, we only use magical thinking to understand the world.

It serves to

and intelligence through basic functions of that stage, such as fantasy and imagination.

By this I do mean that when we believe in magic, we activate that childish part that generates illusions.

Homo prospectus

is the name that Martín Seligman gives, in his book

to that human tendency to look to the future with optimism and, with that projected image,

from the present.

So, with the arrival of New Year's Eve, let's participate together in the magic of the ritual of the twelve chimes, the twelve grapes, the twelve seconds of illusion in which all of us in unison can

and that, this time, everything will be fine.

The clock is ready, your brain too.

Happy New Year!

THE POWER OF RITUALS

A ritual is a repeated action that aims to ensure that

(lucky grapes), prevent something from going wrong (knock on wood) or protect from uncontrollable threats (avoid black cats).

Rituals are characterized by:

• Collective participation.

• They maintain their magical power despite the evidence to the contrary.

• There is no association between the ritual and what is expected to be achieved.

• They all have a symbolic character.

• They activate faith and hope.

• They fight against anxiety and uncertainty.

Magical thinking and performing rituals can

when they interfere with day-to-day activity, as in the case of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), gambling, psychotic delusions, substance abuse, and certain anxiety disorders such as phobias.

*ISABEL SERRANO-ROSA is a psychologist and director of www.enpositivosi.com

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