Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.
507 episodes transcribedAn abundance of choices is a good thing, right? In the United States, where choice is often equated with freedom and control, the answer tends to be a...
Amidst the confusion and chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have sought out a long-trusted lifeline: the local newspaper. Though the value of...
Confined to our homes, many of us are experiencing a newfound appreciation for our social relationships. What we may not realize — and what physicians...
From stone statues to silicone works of art, we have long sought solace and sex from inanimate objects. Time and technology have perfected the artific...
We all know people who prefer to follow the rules, and others who prefer to flout them. Psychologist Michele Gelfand defines these two ways of being a...
A silver lining of social distancing: you may have more time and space to pursue the projects you've bookmarked on your web browser. Whether your goal...
It sounds like a movie plot: police discover the body of a young man who's been murdered. The body tests positive for a deadly infectious disease. Aut...
We know that we live in an ever-changing world, but one thing we often overlook is demographic change. Whether the world's population is growing or sh...
In 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...
