Hidden Brain

By Hidden Brain Media

What's Hidden Brain about?

Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.

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LAST EPISODE

The Halo Effect

10.18.2021

In 1978, Judy, Lyn and Donna Ulrich were driving to a volleyball game when their Ford Pinto was hit from behind by a van. The Pinto caught fire, and the three teenagers died. This week, we revisit a 2020 episode ...

Hidden Brain episodes:

10.18.2021 The Halo Effect In 1978, Judy, Lyn and Donna Ulrich were driving to a volleyball game when their Ford Pinto was hit from behind by a van. The Pinto caught fire, and the three teenagers died. This week, we revisit a 2020 episode ...
10.11.2021 Being Kind to Yourself Self-criticism is often seen as a virtue. But psychologist Kristin Neff says there’s a better path to self-improvement — self-compassion. She says people who practice self-compassion are more conscientious and more likely to take responsibility for their mistakes. If you ...
10.08.2021 My Unsung Hero: Jackie Briggs' Story My Unsung Hero is here! We're excited to share one of the first episodes of our new podcast. Episode one features listener Jackie Briggs from Portland, Oregon. In 2006, a stranger noticed an unusual mark on Jackie's arm, and realized ...
10.04.2021 When You Need It To Be True When we want something very badly, it can be hard to see warning signs that might be obvious to other people. This week, we bring you two stories about how easy it can be to believe in a false reality ...
09.27.2021 Passion Isn't Enough Many Americans feel an obligation to keep up with political news. But maybe we should be focusing our energies elsewhere. In this episode from 2020, political scientist Eitan Hersh says there's been a rise in "political hobbyism" in the United ...
09.24.2021 Introducing My Unsung Hero Longtime Hidden Brain listeners know that for years, we've thanked an unsung hero at the end of every episode. Now, we're launching a new show inspired by that tradition. Each week, we'll share a short story about a moment when ...
09.20.2021 Group Think How do the groups you identify with shape your sense of self? Do they influence the beer you buy? The way you vote? Psychologist Jay Van Bavel says our group loyalties affect us more than we realize, and can even ...
09.13.2021 Just Sex Casual sex typically isn't about love. But what if it's not even about lust? Sociologist Lisa Wade studies "hookup culture," and believes the rules and expectations around sex and relationships are different for college students today than they were for ...
09.06.2021 Where Happiness Hides We all think we know what will make us happy: more money. A better job. Love. But psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky says happiness doesn't necessarily work like that. This week, we explore why happiness often slips through our fingers, and how ...
08.30.2021 You 2.0: Regrets, I Have a Few... We all have regrets. By some estimates, regret is one of the most common emotions we experience in our daily lives. In the final episode of our You 2.0 series, we bring you a favorite interview with Amy Summerville, the ...
08.23.2021 You 2.0: Did That Really Happen? Our memories are easily contaminated. We can be made to believe we rode in a hot air balloon or kissed a magnifying glass — even if those things never happened. So how do we know which of our memories are ...
08.16.2021 You 2.0: When Did Marriage Become So Hard? Marriage is hard — and there are signs it's becoming even harder. In the third episode of our You 2.0 summer series, we examine how long-term relationships have changed over time, and whether we might be able to improve marriage ...
08.09.2021 You 2.0: In the Heat of the Moment In a fit of anger or in the grip of fear, many of us make decisions that we never would have anticipated. As part of our You 2.0 summer series, we look at situations that make us strangers to ourselves ...
08.02.2021 You 2.0: Cultivating Your Purpose Having a sense of purpose can be a buffer against the challenges we all face at various stages of life. Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. In the kick-off to our annual You 2.0 series, Cornell University psychologist ...
07.26.2021 Losing Alaska As floods, wildfires, and heatwaves hit many parts of the world, signs of climate change seem to be all around us. Scientists have been warning us for years about the looming threat of a warming planet. And yet it’s really ...
07.19.2021 Stage Fright The pressure. The expectations. The anxiety. If there's one thing that connects the athletes gathering for the Olympic games with the rest of us, it's the stress that can come from performing in front of others. In this week’s episode, ...
07.12.2021 Playing the Gender Card What is it like to be the only woman at the (poker) table? Or a rare man in a supposedly "feminine" career? In this favorite episode from 2019, we tell the stories of two people who grappled with gender stereotypes ...
07.05.2021 You, But Better Think about the resolutions you made this year: to quit smoking, eat better, or get more exercise. If you're like most people, you probably abandoned those resolutions within a few weeks. That's because change is hard. Behavioral scientist Katy Milkman ...
06.28.2021 The Influence You Have Think about the last time you asked someone for something. Maybe you were nervous or worried about what the person would think of you. Chances are that you didn't stop to think about the pressure you were exerting on that ...
06.24.2021 What Twins Tell Us In December 1988, two sets of identical twins became test subjects in a study for which they had never volunteered. It was an experiment that could never be performed in a lab, and had never before been documented. This week, ...
06.21.2021 The Power of Apologies Why is it so hard to say 'I'm sorry?' In part two of our series on forgiveness and apologies, we talk with psychologist Tyler Okimoto about the mental barriers that keep us from admitting when we've done something wrong, as ...
06.14.2021 The Power of Mercy Granting forgiveness for the wrongs done to us can be one of the hardest things we face in life. But forgiveness can also be transformative. In the first of a two-part series on apologies and mercy, we talk with psychologist ...
06.11.2021 What are the Odds? Coincidences can feel like magic. When we realize that a co-worker shares our birthday or run into a college roommate while on vacation, it can give us a surge of delight. Today, we revisit a favorite episode about these moments ...
06.07.2021 This is Your Brain on Ads Have you ever opened your computer with the intention of sending one email — only to spend an hour scrolling through social media? Maybe two hours? In this favorite episode from our archives, we look at how media, tech, and ...
05.31.2021 Why We Hold on to Things What do the things you own say about who you are? Psychologist Bruce Hood studies our relationship with our possessions – from beloved childhood objects to the everyday items we leave behind. If you like our work, please consider supporting ...
05.24.2021 Loss and Renewal No matter how hard we work, we won’t always achieve the goals we set for ourselves. When cognitive scientist Maya Shankar was a girl, she wanted to be a concert violinist. Then an injury forced her to imagine her life ...
05.21.2021 Tribes and Traitors In the past weeks, headlines around the world have focused on the violent conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. In this favorite episode from our archive, we hear from a former Israeli soldier and a Palestinian man who asked a radical ...
05.17.2021 Our Noisy Minds Psychologist Daniel Kahneman says there are invisible factors that distort our judgment. He calls these factors “noise.” The consequences can be found in everything from marriage proposals to medical diagnoses and prison sentences. This week on Hidden Brain, we consider ...
05.10.2021 The Fake Bride Have you ever felt as if someone else was writing your personal narrative? Controlling what you do, shaping how you act? This week on Hidden Brain, we bring you a surreal tale about a woman who became a reluctant character ...
05.07.2021 Josh Gitelson: My Unsung Hero At the end of every episode, we take a moment to thank an Unsung Hero: someone who’s not on the staff of the show, but who went above and beyond in helping us out. In recent weeks, we've been asking ...
05.03.2021 One Head, Two Brains Your brain is divided in two: a left hemisphere and a right hemisphere. In this 2019 episode of Hidden Brain, we dive into Iain McGilchrist's research on how the left and right hemispheres shape our perceptions. Iain argues that differences ...
04.30.2021 Deb Pierce: My Unsung Hero In every episode of Hidden Brain, we thank an Unsung Hero — a colleague, a friend or a family member who has helped make our work possible from behind the scenes. Recently, we asked you to tell us about your ...
04.26.2021 Why Conversations Go Wrong Do you ever struggle to communicate with your mom? Or feel like you and your spouse sometimes speak different languages? We talk with linguist Deborah Tannen about how our conversational styles can cause unintended conflicts, and what we can do ...
04.23.2021 Unsung Hero: A Cold Nevada Night In every episode of Hidden Brain, we thank an Unsung Hero. Many listeners have written to say they love this segment, even sharing their own Unsung Heroes. Today, we're sharing one of those stories with you.
04.19.2021 Humor Us Hahaha! The average four-year-old child laughs 300 times a day. By contrast, it takes more than two months for the average 40-year-old adult to laugh that many times. This week, we talk with behavioral scientist Jennifer Aaker of Stanford University ...
04.12.2021 An Unfinished Lesson More than a century ago, millions of people around the world died in a massive influenza pandemic. The so-called "Spanish flu" outbreak of 1918 revealed a truth about viruses: they don't just infect us biologically. They also detect fissures in ...
04.05.2021 Useful Delusions Podcast hosts are used to being the ones asking the questions. This week, though, we’re going to flip that script, and put Shankar in the guest seat. We’ll hear a recent interview he did with Krys Boyd of the public ...
03.29.2021 Made of Honor Stories help us make sense of the world, and can even help us to heal from trauma. They also shape our cultural narratives, for better and for worse. This week on Hidden Brain, we conclude our three-part series on storytelling ...
03.22.2021 The Story of Your Life We can’t go back and change the past. We can’t erase trauma and hardship. But what if there was a way to regain control of our personal narratives? In the second part of our series on storytelling, we look at ...
03.15.2021 The Story of Stories Why is my friend late? How does nuclear fission work? What occurs when I sneeze? We all need to understand why certain things happen. Some researchers think the drive to explain the world is a basic human impulse, similar to ...
03.09.2021 Radically Normal For generations, it was difficult, even dangerous, to express a sexual orientation other than heterosexuality in the United States. But in recent years, much has changed. This week, we revisit our 2019 episode about one of the most striking transformations ...
03.01.2021 The Snowball Effect Why do some companies become household names, while others flame out? How do certain memes go viral? And why do some social movements take off and spread, while others fizzle? Today on the show, we talk with sociologist Damon Centola ...
02.26.2021 The Match We get messages all the time from listeners who say Hidden Brain has helped them to think differently about the world, and about themselves. As producers, nothing is more rewarding or gratifying. Today, we bring you a listener story that ...
02.22.2021 Creating God If you've taken part in a religious service, have you ever stopped to think about how people become believers? Where do the rituals come from? And what purpose does it all serve? This week, we bring you a 2018 episode ...
02.16.2021 Is It Better to Know? Being able to see what’s happening around us can help us make smart decisions. But knowledge — especially knowledge of how others perceive us — can also hold us back, mire us in needless worry, and keep us from achieving ...
02.13.2021 Love is Blind Why do some relationships last, while others falter? In this bonus episode, Shankar looks at one thing successful couples do well.
02.08.2021 How They See Us Stereotypes are all around us, shaping how we see the world – and how the world sees us. On the surface, the stereotypes that other people hold shouldn’t affect the way we think or act. But our concerns about other ...
02.01.2021 The Easiest Person to Fool Physicist Richard Feynman once said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.” One way we fool ourselves is by imagining we know more than we do; we think we ...
01.25.2021 Afraid of the Wrong Things Around the world, people are grappling with the risks posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. How do our minds process that risk, and why do some of us process it so differently? This week, we talk with psychologist Paul Slovic about ...
01.18.2021 Our Brands, Our Selves All of us are surrounded by brands. Designer brands. Bargain-shopper brands. Brands for seemingly every demographic slice among us. But have you ever stopped to ask yourself how brands influence you? This week, we bring you our 2019 conversation with ...

Older episodes

Hidden Brain

What's Hidden Brain about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Hidden Brain episodes:

The Halo Effect

Being Kind to Yourself

My Unsung Hero: Jackie Briggs' Story

When You Need It To Be True

Passion Isn't Enough

Introducing My Unsung Hero

Group Think

Just Sex

Where Happiness Hides

You 2.0: Regrets, I Have a Few...

You 2.0: Did That Really Happen?

You 2.0: When Did Marriage Become So Hard?

You 2.0: In the Heat of the Moment

You 2.0: Cultivating Your Purpose

Losing Alaska

Stage Fright

Playing the Gender Card

You, But Better

The Influence You Have

What Twins Tell Us

The Power of Apologies

The Power of Mercy

What are the Odds?

This is Your Brain on Ads

Why We Hold on to Things

Loss and Renewal

Tribes and Traitors

Our Noisy Minds

The Fake Bride

Josh Gitelson: My Unsung Hero

One Head, Two Brains

Deb Pierce: My Unsung Hero

Why Conversations Go Wrong

Unsung Hero: A Cold Nevada Night

Humor Us

An Unfinished Lesson

Useful Delusions

Made of Honor

The Story of Your Life

The Story of Stories

Radically Normal

The Snowball Effect

The Match

Creating God

Is It Better to Know?

Love is Blind

How They See Us

The Easiest Person to Fool

Afraid of the Wrong Things

Our Brands, Our Selves

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