Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.
535 episodes transcribedWhen should you stay the course in life, and when should you shift with changing tides? This week, we bring you case studies from the world of busines...
Have you ever downplayed some aspect of your identity? Maybe you don’t hide it, but you don’t bring it up with certain people, either. It turns out t...
What would you have done? It's one of the most enduring questions in psychology. We all like to think that in a moment of crisis, we'd rise to the occ...
Last week on the show, we looked at the science of conversation, and how even ordinary chats can involve a delicate dance of coordination. This week,...
Just because we’ve been doing something for a long time doesn’t mean we’re doing it right. One part of our lives where this may be particularly true i...
Holding a grudge can feel like a form of justice, a way of punishing those who have wronged us. But psychologist Fred Luskin says that more often than...
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." It's been 45 years since John Lennon sang that line, yet it's an idea that continu...
It’s no exaggeration to say that the world in 2025 can be ... a lot. Sometimes it may seem that tuning it all out is our only option. This week on Hid...
We all have to make certain choices in life, such as where to live and how to earn a living. Parents and peers influence our major life choices, but t...
From time to time, all of us are called upon to do hard or even seemingly impossible things. Do we rise to the occasion, or do we fall short? Today on...
We’re often drawn to people who appear to be true to themselves. Yet showing our authentic selves to the world can be terrifying. This week, we kick o...
It's happened to all of us: We're in the shower, or on a walk, and boom — a big idea or a brilliant solution appears out of nowhere. These sorts of in...
Every day, we leave small traces of ourselves online. And we might not realize what these traces say about us. This week, computational social scienti...
With the holidays fast approaching, many of us are hunting for that special something for the special someones in our lives. It’s how we show we care...
What makes ordinary people do evil things? It was a question that long fascinated the psychologist Philip Zimbardo, who died in October. Zimbardo was...
There's a tradition around many Thanksgiving dinner tables that's as consistent as stuffing and pumpkin pie: the family stories that get told year aft...
Neuroscientist Doug Fields was on a trip to Europe when a pickpocket stole his wallet. Doug, normally mild-mannered, became enraged — and his fury tur...
Many of us go to great lengths to be happy. But is our singular focus on feeling good actually making us miserable? This week, psychologist Jordi Quoi...
Sometimes we feel just one single feeling with overwhelming force. We're joyously happy. We're crushingly sad. But sometimes it's more complicated tha...
For centuries, philosophers and theologians have warned about the dangers of pride and hubris. It’s an emotion that can make us arrogant, egotistical,...
