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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At some point in our lives, many of us realize that the way we hear our own voice isn't the way others hear us. This gap has consequences. It shapes how we see ourselves and how others see us.
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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.
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Physicians believe placebos work only if patients think they're getting medicine. In other words, doctors have to deceive patients. But there might be a way to get placebos to work without deception.
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How many ads have you encountered today? On this week's radio show, we discuss the insidiousness of advertising in American media.
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We know our actions affect those around us. But how do we know whether our impact is positive? This week on Hidden Brain, what it means to do good in the world.
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Envy is one of the most unpleasant of all human emotions. This week, we explore an emotion that can inspire us to become better people — or to commit unspeakable acts.
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Annie Duke was about to win $2 million. It was 2004, and she was at the final hand of the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions. But as a woman at a table full of men, she wasn't sure she deserved to be there. In this week's Radio Replay, we tell the stories of two people who grappled with gender stereotypes on the job. Annie Duke shares her experiencing at the World Series of Poker, and then we hear the story of Robert Vaughan, a former Navy sailor who decided to pursue a new career as a nurse.
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Investigations of Russian influence on the 2016 election have tended to focus on the role of social media. Researchers are also exploring the psychological vulnerability that hackers exploited.
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A study shows that rating systems for online marketplaces are prone to inflation, because raters feel pressured to leave high scores.
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Maya Shankar was well on her way to an extraordinary career as a violinist when an injury closed that door. This week, we revisit our December 2015 conversation with Maya, in which she shares how she found a new path forward after losing an identity she loved.