Title: The Same Flavor Gum

General Information about Item:

• Customary Folklore: American Superstition (Good luck)
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: America
• Informant: Austen Michel
• Date Collected: October 22, 2018

Informant Data:

• Austen Michel is a junior at Dartmouth College. He grew up in South Hamilton, Massachusetts with one younger sister. Austen spends his time playing baseball and hanging out with his friends. He studies Economics at Dartmouth and is a member of the Dartmouth College Varsity Baseball Team.

Contextual Data:

• Social Context: The informant conducted an in person interview about his superstition. During his sophomore year of high school, Austen would chew gum while studying.       Once, he did not have gum for his test, and ended up doing extremely poorly on the test. After that day, he always made sure to chew gum of the same flavor on test day as well.
• Cultural Context: Some psychological studies have suggested that chewing the same flavor of gum when you take the test as when you study actually helps a person retain more information. While there may be some scientific aspect to this superstition, the informant does not practice the superstition for this reason. He does it because he truly believes he will have bad luck on the test if he does not do it.

Item:

• When Austen has a big test or quiz, he always chews the same flavor gum (Original Double Bubble) when he studies as when he takes the test, or else he will do poorly on the test.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript of Associated File:

• Oliver: “Austen, I understand you have a superstition?”

Austen: “Yes. So when I’m studying and also when I’m taking a quiz, test, exam, whatever it may be, I like to chew the same flavor of double bubble gum. The original flavor with the blue, yellow, and pink wrapper, uh, that is the stuff that gets me going for a quiz. Uh, the superstition actually started back in high school, um, I think it was sophomore year (my first sophomore year) in which I was chewing the gum for studying and then didn’t have it for the exam, and failed the exam. So then I decided I would start using it for studying and for the test/quiz/exam and I actually did very well throughout—whenever I did that, and it stuck with me ever since.”

Informants Comments:

• “I have an Economics test later this week, and I already have my Double Bubble ready to go.”

Collector’s Comments:

• More than one informant we talked to had some form a studying or test-taking superstition.

Collector’s Name: Oliver Campbell

Tags/Keywords:

• American. Superstition. The Same Flavor Gum. Conversion Superstition.