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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If you live in a big city, you may have noticed new buildings popping up — a high-rise here, a skyscraper there. The concrete jungles that we've built over the past century have allowed millions of us to live in close proximity, and modern economies to flourish. But what have we given up by moving away from the forest environments in which humans first evolved? This week, we revisit our 2018 conversation about the healing power of nature with psychologist Ming Kuo. -
This week on the Hidden Brain radio show, decision-making. We learn why we often stumble when trying to make ourselves happy, and why certain decisions leave us wondering "what if?" -
For years scientists have said that there is no link between vaccines and autism. There are still many people who are reluctant to vaccinate. But, one woman has changed her mind about vaccines.
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There is a long legacy of leaders exploiting the bodies of vulnerable people in the name of science. This week, the history of eugenics and medical experimentation on enslaved people in the U.S. -
Robert Mueller will testify soon before Congress about the Russia probe. New research finds that Americans have partisan reactions to foreign interference in elections.
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In many states, convicted criminals are being housed in private prisons. New research finds that when a private prison opens, the length of criminal sentences modestly increases.
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Does living with animals really make us healthier? Why do we eat some animals and keep others as pets? This week on Hidden Brain, we talk with psychology professor Hal Herzog about the contradictions embedded in our relationships with animals. -
As a society, we talk about sex more openly today than ever before. But so much still goes unsaid. This week on the Hidden Brain radio show, complicated stories of intimacy and attraction. -
Black men have the lowest life expectancy of any major demographic group in the U.S. Researchers say the solution appears to be pairing black men with black physicians.
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Self-driving cars may be great for those who don't want to own a car or get behind the wheel, but they promise to be a nightmare for parking enforcement.
