Hidden Brain
Shankar Vedantam
Social science research applied to everyday life, with storytelling and expert interviews.
Why we picked this
We picked Hidden Brain for the distance Shankar Vedantam keeps from easy sentiment. Where most psychology shows settle for the counterintuitive takeaway, this one stays with the uncomfortable follow-up—how empathy hardens tribal loyalties, how acceptance requires abandoning the life you imagined first. Vedantam presses his guests past the study and into the trade-off. The result is a feed that treats human behavior as a system of constraints, not a self-improvement project.
Recent episodes
You Are Not Ordinary
Jul 27, 20261h 35m
How to Combat Pain
Jul 20, 202650 min
Changing Our Mental Maps
Jul 13, 20261h 34m
Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 2
Jul 6, 20261h 33m
Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1
Jun 29, 202650 min
Stepping Out of the Shadows
Jun 22, 20261h 28m
A Secret Source of Connection
Jun 15, 20261h 27m
Who Are You, Really?
Jun 8, 20261h 37m
Unleashing Your Creativity
Jun 1, 202652 min
The Past is Never Dead
May 25, 202651 min
The Empathy Gym
May 18, 20261h 28m
The Cowboy Philosopher
May 11, 20261h 29m
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