When Bad Things Happen to Good People
When historian Kate Bowler was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, she became fascinated by the ways people try to impose order on events they c...
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Hidden Brain
Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.
Episodes
20 of 629 episodesHow to Make a Difference: Part 2
Think about the last time you had a discouraging thought. Maybe you told yourself, "This won't work. I'm not cut out for this." Did you take...
How to Make a Difference: Part 1
Why do some people act on the possibilities before them, while others come to believe that nothing they do will make a difference? Psycholog...
Why Conversations Go Wrong
Do you ever struggle to communicate with your mom? Or feel like you and your spouse sometimes speak different languages? This week, we revis...
Blowing Up Your Life
Have you ever had a flash of insight that hit you when you least expected it? How did it change your life? Psychologist Anthony Klotz studie...
The Things We Don't Say
From childhood, we're taught that honesty is the best policy. Yet in everyday life, we hedge, soften our words, and leave things unsaid. Thi...
What Art Does For Your Brain
Think about the last time a piece of music stopped you in your tracks, or a novel kept you up late at night. Why do these experiences feel s...
How to Be A Better Partner
Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct ou...
How Feelings Make Us Smarter
Some people are remarkably good at reading the emotional temperature of a situation. They can pick up on what others are feeling, manage the...
Making the Most of Your Mistakes
When you're learning, or trying new things, you're going to make mistakes. The trick is to try to fail in a way that gives you useful inform...
You Are Not Ordinary
Stories about unlikely heroes have captivated people for thousands of years. This week, social scientist Ben Rogers explores why the "hero's...
How to Combat Pain
Pain feels like a simple message from the body. If your elbow hurts, there must be something wrong with your elbow. If your back is painfull...
Changing Our Mental Maps
As we move through the world, it's easy to imagine we're processing everything that happens around us and then deciding how to respond. But...
Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 2
Last week, we talked with psychologist Lisa Miller about the science of spirituality. Today, we explore what those ideas can look like in ev...
Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1
Food, safety, and strong relationships are essential to our survival. Psychologist Lisa Miller says our brains also crave something else: tr...
Stepping Out of the Shadows
Why does one bad experience have the power to overshadow an otherwise good day? Psychologist Alison Ledgerwood explores the negativity bias,...
A Secret Source of Connection
We all have moments in our lives when we see someone who could use a helping hand. It could be a friend who recently went through a breakup,...
Who Are You, Really?
You’re not the same person with your friends as you are with your co-workers or your kids. So who are you, really? This week, political scie...
Unleashing Your Creativity
For centuries, people have described creativity as something mysterious: a flash of insight, a whisper from the muse, a sudden idea that see...
The Past is Never Dead
How does the culture in which you live shape the life that you lead? We all know that culture affects the languages we speak and the foods w...