News: Tradition!

At a time of year when turkeys are headed for millions of tables and Christmas trees are lighting up windows across the country, it's worth pausing to ask: What is the value of our traditions, both mainstream (fireworks on Independence Day) and niche (kooky touchdown dances)?

A recent paper in Psychological Bulletin identifies rituals as the outward signs of inner values—say, bowing to indicate respect for elders—and the glue that may have allowed early human societies to prosper before they had language. Whether pledges of allegiance or family outings, traditions stem from the needs of a hypersocial species. Humans outclass other animals in their ability to organize and associate, and shared practices forge the bonds that make that possible. "To build ever more cooperative and complex social groups, we use rituals," says Southeastern Louisiana University psychologist Matt J. Rossano, the study's author. They demonstrate "the cost people are willing to pay to be part of a group."

Traditions may vary from religious fasts to dressing up for Halloween, but they all have something in common: By uniting us with each other, even sometimes uncomfortably, rituals help us patch together a collective armor. "The strongest human communities," Rossano observes, "will always be those with the richest ritual lives." —Matt Huston

Hacking Hallmark

Do you roll your eyes at most holiday rituals? Give one of these unusual family traditions a try.

• Decompress classic holidays: One family has marshmallow fights on New Year's Eve, and another instituted Pajama Thanksgiving. "We decided that all of the fanfare, expectations, and preparation for many holidays left us with the opposite of what we wanted from them," says one mother.
• Flowers and chocolates are nice, but some couples forge more offbeat traditions—unique ways of being playful and expressing love. Melissa Kleckner and her husband have, for years, hidden a "creepy" magazine photo of Philip Seymour Hoffman for each other to find. Top hiding spot: inside a yogurt container.
• Just going through the motions? Create new rituals that add meaning to daily life. Every year, Nancy Patterson and her family write down a wish for the future and a farewell to something from the past. The latter pieces of paper are burned in a bowl; the wishes are buried with a potted plant.