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Link Feast

We trawled the web for this week’s 10 best psychology and neuroscience links.

01 August 2015

By Christian Jarrett

Why Do Babies Laugh Out Loud?
“Babies can’t possibly get a joke, so what causes their giggles? The answer might reveal a lot about the making of our minds,” says Tom Stafford at BBC Future.

Subliminal Learning and Conscious Thought Can Reduce and Enhance Pain
“New research shows that conscious and non-conscious thought processes can both alleviate and enhance the experience of pain,” reports Mo Costandi in The Guardian.

What Drives Trophy Hunters Like Walter Palmer?
Melissa Dahl at New York magazine looks to sociology and anthropology research for answers.

The Kinds of Friendships You Have in Your 20s and 30s Predicts Your Well-being Later in Life
Thu-Huong Ha at Quartz reports on a new study that suggests it’s the quantity, not quality, of your friendships that matters in your 20s, but the opposite applies in your 30s.

The Virtues of Cold Blood (audio)
Sam Harris interviews psychologist Paul Bloom about the limitations of empathy as a guide to moral reasoning.

Asexuals—The Unnoticed Sexual Minority
At the Talk Psych blog David Myers reports on the highlights from a recent review on the psychology of people who have no sexual attraction to others.

Memory loss: What Makes People Forget Who They Are?
“When amnesia strikes, people can forget everything about their life, including their name,” writes neurologist Jules Montague at The Guardian. “But what causes memory loss? And what happens to people who lose themselves for an hour, a few months – or even for ever?”

Making Friends in New Places
The first three weeks are crucial, says Nicholas A. Christakis at the New York Times.

’37’- A Forthcoming Film on the Kitty Genovese Case
The Advances in the History of Psychology blog brings news that a slice of psychological folklore – the tragedy that inspired research into the Bystander Effect – is to be made into a film.

A Gala for Mental Health
At this Summer’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival, August 6, “… a Gala For Mental Health will bring together a host of top Fringe performers who are exploring mental health issues in their work, while raising money for one of the country’s leading mental health charities.”