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In case you missed them – 10 of the best psychology links from the past week.

25 January 2013

By Christian Jarrett

1. Rituals as social glue – In a fascinating piece for Nature, Dan Jones wrote about the role of different kinds of ritual in binding together small and large social groups.

2. Is TV better for babies than a book? Leading developmental psychologist (and former student of Piaget) Annette Karmiloff-Smith appeared on this week’s The Life Scientific on BBC Radio 4.

3. The BBC published a wonderful short history of the ground-breaking Shenley (mental health) Hospital in Hertfordshire.

4. New Scientist reviewed The Face of Emotion: How botox affects our mood and relationships by Eric Finzi: “The scientific debate about the regulation of the emotions is as lively as ever, and this is a provocative and insightful contribution.”

5. As usual lots of psychologists have answered the Edge annual question, which this year is: “What should we be worried about?”.

6. Action for Happiness has published a new report: “Increasing Happiness by Understanding What People Want”

7. A recent Wellcome Collection event on pain is now available to watch on YouTube.

8. Fundamentally speaking, are humans good or bad? asks Tom Stafford in his latest column for BBC Future.

9. Stop everything else you are doing and concentrate on reading this: People who think they’re great at multi-tasking are often unusually bad at it. 

10. The Guardian published an edited extract from January First: A Child’s Descent Into Madness And Her Father’s Struggle To Save Her, by Michael Schofield.