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Link Feast

Our pick of this week’s best psychology and neuroscience links.

21 March 2015

By Christian Jarrett

The Revolution That Could Change the Way Your Child is Taught
Little is more important for your child’s education than the effectiveness of their teacher, writes Ian Leslie in The Guardian.

The Psychology of the Executioner
A look inside the minds of those who have participated in firing squads and lethal injections.

A Point of View: The Upside of Losing One’s Memory
Tom Shakespeare worries about his mental decline, but ends his reflections on a positive note (he should read this too).

The Troubling Psychology Behind How We Decide Who’s a Scientific “Expert” — And Who Isn’t
We self-select and validate the experts who agree with us, says Chris Mooney in the Washington Post.

Let’s Not Make a Trauma Out of a Crisis
“The official definition of ‘trauma’ keeps changing,” says Vaughan Bell at the Observer New Review, “So what does that slippery word really mean?”

Is Science Broken?
Ella Rhodes at The Psychologist reports on a debate held at UCL.

Does Sport Make Us Happy?
It can do, if you keep your expectations in check, says the BBC’s chief sportswriter Tom Fordyce.

By Reason of Insanity (BBC Documentary via iPlayer)

Louis Theroux immerses himself in the world of Ohio’s state psychiatric hospitals, meeting patients who have committed crimes – at times horrifically violent – while in the grip of severe mental illness. 

We Live in an Age of Irrational Parenting

Children (in the US) have never been safer, nor parents more anxious.

How Teenage Brains Are Different

Useful summary of the science and its legal implications, from The Economist