Why do I feel stuck? How can I become more creative? What can I do to improve my relationships? If you’ve ever asked yourself these questions, you’re not alone. On Hidden Brain, we help you understand your own mind — and the minds of the people around you. (We're routinely rated the #1 science podcast in the United States.) Hosted by veteran science journalist Shankar Vedantam.
The podcast explores the science of courage, examining how individuals can cultivate bravery in the face of fear and uncertainty. Behavioral scientist Ranjay Gulati provides insights, distinguishing between risk and uncertainty, and arguing that courage is a choice cultivated through narratives, moral quests, and faith...
In this episode of Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam interviews psychologist Greg Walton about the psychology of downward spirals and how our minds can set us up for failure or success. Walton shares a personal story about a canoeing trip to illustrate self-fulfilling prophecies and discusses how worries can become self-f...
In this episode of Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam interviews psychologist Dacher Keltner about the science of awe, exploring its origins, effects, and potential to transform lives. Keltner shares personal anecdotes and research findings, discussing how awe can reduce anxiety, promote social connection, and shift perspe...
In this episode of Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam interviews psychiatrist Anna Lembke about the paradoxical effects of pleasure and how to live a balanced life. Lembke explains the brain's seesaw mechanism for balancing pain and pleasure, where excessive indulgence leads to a dopamine deficit, causing anxiety and depre...
In this episode of Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam interviews psychiatrist Anna Lembke about the science of addiction and how our modern environment, with its abundance of readily available pleasures, affects our brains. Lembke explains how the brain's pleasure-pain balance works, using the analogy of a seesaw, and how ...
In this episode of Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam interviews Colton Scrivner, a psychologist, about why humans are drawn to stories of violence, gore, and danger, despite often finding such content aversive. They discuss research showing increased interest in scary entertainment after real-life frightening events, such...
In this episode of Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam interviews psychologist Peter Gray about the importance of unstructured play in children's development. Gray discusses how modern society's over-supervision and focus on safety and achievement have curtailed children's freedom to explore, play, and learn independently, ...
The Hidden Brain podcast episode explores the profound impact of family stories on our psychological well-being. Shankar Vedantam interviews psychologist Robyn Fivush, who shares her personal experiences with family tragedy and how it led her to study the effects of family narratives. Fivush's research reveals that fam...
This episode of Hidden Brain explores the concept of balancing vision with practicality, or "poetry" with "plumbing," using examples like the Fyre Festival and the Ryugyong Hotel to illustrate how grand ideas can fail without attention to detail and execution. The episode features Huggy Rao, who discusses how organizat...
In this episode of Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam interviews psychologist Marc Berman about the science behind nature's positive effects on our minds. Berman discusses historical examples, such as Jackson Pollock's move to Long Island and the Naval Health Research Center's surf therapy program for veterans, to illustra...
In this episode of Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam interviews psychologist Stuart Ablon about why people struggle to change their behavior and how to help them. Ablon shares personal anecdotes and research insights, emphasizing that behavior is often driven by a lack of skills rather than a lack of will. He introduces t...
This episode of Hidden Brain explores the psychology of breakups, featuring psychologist Antonio Pascual-Leone, who discusses common mistakes people make when ending relationships and techniques for moving on. Pascual-Leone shares personal anecdotes and insights from his research, emphasizing the importance of understa...
This episode of Hidden Brain explores the evolution of marriage, from economic partnerships to unions based on romantic love and personal fulfillment, featuring insights from historian Stephanie Coontz and social psychologist Eli Finkel. Finkel introduces the concept of "suffocation of marriage," where modern marriages...
This episode of Hidden Brain explores the dynamics of blame in relationships and how it hinders change, featuring psychologist James Cordova, who introduces the concept of "eating the blame" as a practice for fostering intimacy and acceptance. Cordova suggests that by taking responsibility and understanding a partner's...
This podcast episode of Hidden Brain features Shankar Vedanta interviewing psychologist James Cordova about the art and science of mending troubled relationships by focusing on acceptance rather than change. Cordova shares personal anecdotes and case studies from his clinical practice to illustrate how couples often ge...
In this episode of Hidden Brain, host Shankar Vedantam interviews Jennifer Tosti-Kharas about the concept of "callings" and their impact on our lives. The episode explores the historical context of callings, from religious vocations to secular professions, and examines the psychological effects of pursuing a calling, i...
This episode of Hidden Brain explores the concept of defensiveness and how it prevents personal growth. Shankar Vedantam interviews psychologist Emily Falk, who shares a personal anecdote about her grandmother's feedback to illustrate how defensiveness arises from the brain's tendency to conflate self-image with value....
In this episode of Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedanta interviews psychologist and neuroscientist Emily Falk about why people often fail to follow through on their resolutions and goals. Falk explains that our brains have a "value system" that prioritizes short-term rewards over long-term benefits, often leading us to make c...
In this episode of Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedanta interviews psychologist Thomas Curran about his research on perfectionism. Curran shares personal experiences that led him to study the psychological consequences of living in a culture obsessed with appearance and achievement. He discusses the increasing levels of perfe...
In this episode of Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam interviews psychologist George Bonanno about the science of resilience and how people respond to tragedy, grief, and trauma. Bonanno shares personal anecdotes and research findings that challenge conventional wisdom about grief, including the debunking of the widely acc...
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