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Hidden Brain

Latest episodes

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Mar 29, 2016 • 20min

Episode 25: Dream Jobs

Why do you work? Are you just in it for the money, or do you do it for a greater purpose? Popular wisdom says your answer depends on what your job is. But psychologist Amy Wrzesniewski at Yale University finds it may have more to do with how we think about our work. Across secretaries and custodians and computer programmers, she finds we're about equally split in whether we say we have a job, a career, or a calling. This week on Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam talks with Amy about how we find meaning and purpose at work.
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Mar 22, 2016 • 28min

Episode 24: Tribes and Traitors

This week on Hidden Brain, two remarkable stories of empathy... And why showing empathy for another group can feel so threatening to our own tribes.
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Mar 15, 2016 • 20min

Episode 23: Boredom

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.
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Mar 8, 2016 • 26min

Encore of Episode 9: Aziz Ansari on Modern Love

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.
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Mar 1, 2016 • 20min

Episode 22: Originals

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.
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Feb 23, 2016 • 25min

Episode 21: Stroke of Genius

Derek Amato wasn't born a musical savant. He became one—almost instantly—after hitting his head on the bottom of a swimming pool.
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Feb 16, 2016 • 25min

Episode 20: Remembering Anarcha

J. Marion Sims is remembered as the father of modern gynecology. Forgotten are the mothers—the enslaved women whose bodies were sacrificed for the advancement of his research.
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Feb 9, 2016 • 22min

Episode 19: Dating and Mating

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.
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Feb 2, 2016 • 22min

Encore of Episode 2: Near Victories

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.
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Jan 26, 2016 • 19min

Episode 18: The Paradox of Forgiveness

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.

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