“Imitation without understanding”, “imitating but misconstruing”, “mindless imitation”, “superficial emulation”, &c.
I think “cargo culting” in the popular sense means little more than that (whereas actual cargo culting is much more complex, as the featured article describes).
something happened but you’re not sure why, so you guess it’s because of something you did, and you decide to ritualistically repeat what you did in the hopes that thing that happened before happens again.
It’s a misunderstanding of cause and effect - so when you repeat the cause, looking to repeat the effect, you’re puzzled that it doesn’t work this time.
I think “cargo culting” in the popular sense means little more than that (whereas actual cargo culting is much more complex, as the featured article describes).