![]() The Hidden Brain had a wonderful run at NPR. And then in 2015, partly because those short stories, those short segments proved to be very popular with listeners, we decided to try and launch a longer form version of those short stories, and that became the Hidden Brain podcast. So in some ways, the story of Hidden Brain really begins from before I joined NPR.įor many years, while I was working at NPR, I would do short stories usually on Morning Edition, often in conversation with Steve Inskeep or David Greene, talking about interesting pieces of social science research, often psychology, but sometimes economics and political science and sociology. ![]() And so in some ways NPR had seen the book that I had written about the hidden brain and they were interested in my coming to NPR to explore those issues. I wrote the Hidden Brain book in 2009, 2010. Why did you decide to go out on your own and what can you do now as the boss and an entrepreneur that you couldn’t do in your prior jobs? Mills: So you started Hidden Brain at NPR, but a few years ago, you decided to open your own production company, Hidden Brain Media. And I would say subsequent to that, largely as a result of a column that I started writing in The Washington Post called Department of Human Behavior, I became increasingly interested in the world of the social psychology world, the worlds in which psychology speaks, not just to disorder or illness, but the way in which psychology can address everyday problems that everyday people are having throughout their lives. For about 10 years when I was working at The Washington Post, I focused a lot on mental health issues and psychiatry and covered the questions related to mental disorders and the treatment of mental disorders. And I realized over as I was working at the Inquirer that some of the most fascinating questions in science had to do with the brain and the mind and human behavior.Īnd so really over a period of years, my interest gradually narrowed from covering all of science journalism to focusing predominantly on the mind and mental health. I was actually working at The Philadelphia Inquirer, at the time, my first newspaper job. I found myself a little less so, and so I gravitated to science journalism almost from the start of my career. Many journalists are highly phobic of anything to do with mathematics. It allowed me the ability to understand how scientific papers were being written. Vedantam: My background as an engineer helped me in some ways enter science journalism, Kim. How did you find your way to reporting on behavioral science and what has made you stick with it all these years? ![]() ![]() One item from your CV that I didn’t mention a moment ago is that you have an undergraduate degree in electronics engineering and a master’s degree in journalism. Mills: Let’s start with a little bit more about your story. And in the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you, APA has worked with Shankar over the years, occasionally referring him to expert psychologists as part of his reporting. He has also written plays and a collection of short stories. He is the author of two nonfiction books, Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain, published in 2021 and The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives, published in 2010. Before that he spent 10 years as a reporter and columnist at The Washington Post. He was National Public Radio’s social science correspondent from 2011 until 2020. Shankar Vedantam has been reporting on human behavior and social science research for more than 25 years. Recent episodes have covered the psychology of money, the rise of rudeness, and resilience and coping with grief, to name just a few topics. Its mission is to explore the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior. Hidden Brain is also broadcast on more than 400 public radio stations across the country. I’m talking about Shankar Vedantam, the host and executive editor of Hidden Brain, one of the most popular science podcasts in the US, which receives millions of downloads every week. Many of you probably know his work, especially if you subscribe to other science podcasts and if you listen regularly to National Public Radio. Today, I will be talking with a journalist and podcast host who has spent more than two decades bringing psychological and behavioral research to the public. This week, we’re doing something a little bit different from our usual conversation with a psychologist about his or her thought-provoking research. Kim Mills: Hello, and welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life.
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