Those processes, Risen says, involve what’s known as “System 1 thinking,” from the dual process model of thinking as developed and popularized by psychologist Daniel Kahneman. In that model System 1 offers quick, intuitive answers to judgment problems that are sometimes essential for survival, and System 2 analyzes and may correct what System 1 proposes. While an otherwise rational person’s embrace of superstition might seem like a failure of System 2, Risen suggests in her work that people like Pardys “recognize that their belief is irrational, but choose to acquiesce to a powerful intuition.” To put it another way, System 2 does its job and points out that wearing a certain sweatshirt cannot possibly affect the play on the field, and the fan simply rejects it.

The length of the Cubs’ ordeal—more than a century—and the number of people who have shared the pain are also factors in fans’ propensity for superstitious rituals. “The intuitive properties of a long-held superstition are likely to be much stronger,” Risen says. “And the fact that other people believe it means that it’s entertained as a possibility. With the Cubs, you pay attention to this lore because everybody else is paying attention to it.”

And because, well, there has to be a reason the Cubs have not won the World Series since 1908—doesn’t there?