Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.
479 episodes transcribedIn 2009, an old man died in a California nursing home. His obituary included not just his given name, but a long list of the pseudonyms he'd been know...
We all lie. But what separates the average person from the infamous cheaters we see on the news? Dan Ariely says we like to think it's character — but...
There can be a lot of psychological noise involved in teaching. But what if we replaced all that mental clutter...with a click? This week, we bring yo...
Where is the line between what is real and what is imaginary? It seems like an easy question to answer: if you can see it, hear it, or touch it, then...
After a disaster happens, we want to know whether something could have been done to avoid it. Did anyone see this coming? Many times, the answer is ye...
What's the point of money? The answer might seem obvious: we need it to get paid for our work, and to buy the things we need. But there's also a deepe...
What would drive someone to take another person's life? When researchers at the University of Chicago asked that question, the answer was a laundry li...
Why do we fall for surprise endings? It turns out that our capacity to be easily fooled in books and movies is made possible by a handful of predictab...
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...
There's a core belief embedded in the story of the United States — the American Dream. Today we look at the state of that dream as we revisit our 2018...
In a fit of anger or in the grip of fear, many of us make decisions that we never would have anticipated. This week, we look at situations that make u...
Envy is one of the most unpleasant of all human emotions. It also turns out to be one of the most difficult for researchers to study. And yet, there's...
Many of us believe we know how we'd choose to die. We have a sense of how we'd respond to a diagnosis of an incurable illness. This week, we have the...
Anyone who's tried (and failed) to follow a diet knows that food is more than fuel. This week, we revisit our 2018 episode about the psychology behind...
Can we affect the rise and fall of the economy? This week on Hidden Brain, we talk with Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller about the powerfu...
What makes the mind of a human different from that of other animals? Psychologist Laurie Santos says we can't know the answer to that question if we o...
Boys get the message at a young age: don't show your feelings. Don't rely on anyone. This week, we bring you a favorite 2018 episode about misguided n...
Turn on the news or look at Twitter, and it's likely you'll be bombarded by outrage. Many people have come to believe that the only way to spark chang...
