Hidden Brain

Many of us have heard that we should think positive… Visualize ourselves achieving our goals. But researcher Gabriele Oettingen finds, this isn’t actually the best advice. Instead, we should use her strategy — which she calls WOOP.

Traffic. You hate it, we hate it, the rest of the world hates it, and unfortunately, our best efforts to curb it usually only make it worse. This week on Hidden Brain, we visit a few of the world’s most congested cities, and investigate a few options to make driving safer and less maddening.

The sharing economy is great. It gives us opportunities to connect with strangers… to pool resources… to get a cheap ride, or a weekend away. But this week on Hidden Brain, we’ll look at how these new platforms can amplify some old biases.

Grit is a quality that parents strive to teach to their children, and teachers strive to teach their students. This week on Hidden Brain, we explore grit, and ask, does it also have a downside?

We’ve all been there: bored in class, bored at work, bored in standstill traffic. But why do we find boredom so unbearable? And, if we hate being bored so much, why do we still take boring jobs? This week on Hidden Brain, we try to answer these questions and more — hopefully, without boring you.

Hidden Brain host Shankar Vedantam talks to comedian Aziz Ansari — star of Master of None and coauthor of Modern Romance — about Tinder, texting and how dating is a bit like… buying jam.

Adam Grant, author of Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, tells us what makes an original, how parents can nuture originality in their children, and its potential downside.

It’s almost Valentine’s Day, but this week we’re not talking about love. Instead, we explore the other forces that drive our romantic relationships.

Shankar Vedantam explores “almosts” and “not quites” on this episode of the Hidden Brain podcast, with the help of Monica Wadhwa, Dan Pink, and country music singer Kacey Musgraves.

After more than a decade of brutal civil war, perpetrators and victims attempted to find peace around bonfires across Sierra Leone. This week on Hidden Brain, a story about forgiving the unforgivable, and the cost of reconciliation.