Shankar Vedantam
Shankar Vedantam is the host and creator of Hidden Brain. The Hidden Brain podcast receives more than three million downloads per week. The Hidden Brain radio show is distributed by NPR and featured on nearly 400 public radio stations around the United States.
Vedantam was NPR's social science correspondent between 2011 and 2020, and spent 10 years as a reporter at The Washington Post. From 2007 to 2009, he was also a columnist, and wrote the Department of Human Behavior column for the Post.
Vedantam and Hidden Brain have been recognized with the Edward R Murrow Award, and honors from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the International Society of Political Psychology, the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Association of Black Journalists, the Austen Riggs Center, the American Psychoanalytic Association, the Webby Awards, the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors, the South Asian Journalists Association, the Asian American Journalists Association, the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, the American Public Health Association, the Templeton-Cambridge Fellowship on Science and Religion, and the Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellowship.
In 2009-2010, Vedantam served as a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Vedantam is the author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Brain: How our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars and Save Our Lives. The book, published in 2010, described how unconscious biases influence people. He is also co-author, with Bill Mesler, of the 2021 book Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain.
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People tend to hate to lose stuff they already own. This trait, known as the endowment effect, is likely handed down to us by evolution, since it is visible cross-culturally as well as in non-human primates. However, new research suggests certain cultures place a brake on this evolutionary trait, whereas capitalistic societies put it on steroids.
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Researchers think an increase in commuting may be partly to blame for widespread political disengagement among many Americans. As stressed-out commuters disengage, they leave the political arena to the most partisan voters.
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It takes more than a decisive vision to solve intractable world problems, says Harvard leadership expert Ronald Heifetz. Instead, he advises his students — including budding heads-of-state — to think less like surgeons and more like psychiatrists. -
Over the weekend, most areas of the U.S. observed Daylight Saving Time. The clocks were turned back one hour, and an hour of daylight was moved from the evening to the morning. New research indicates the time change has a big downside: an apparent increase in crimes.
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In a psychology study using Halloween candy, kids who got a candy bar and a piece of bubble gum were less satisfied than kids who got just a candy bar. The study shows that when we think about experiences, we are significantly biased by how the experience ends.
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People care more about losing a dollar than gaining a dollar. This ideal, known as loss aversion, has national consequences, too, according to new research. David Greene discusses the phenomenon with NPR's Shankar Vedantam.
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Psychologist Greg Walton has found that a simple intervention can help many students get the most out of college. The trick is in helping students see that setbacks are temporary, and often don't have larger implications.
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Some sports fans' lives depend on how well their teams are doing. In one theory, sports allow us to deeply identify with the athletes so it feels like we are playing the game.
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It used to be that neuroscientists thought smart people were all alike. But now they think that some very smart people retain the ability to learn rapidly, like a child, well into adolescence. -
Researchers find that winning and losing NFL games not only causes fan to feel differently the day after the game but to eat differently as well. Fans of losing teams eat significantly more saturated fat after suffering defeats, while fans of winning teams eat lighter fare after victories.
