Hidden Brain

Holding a grudge can feel like a form of justice, a way of punishing those who have wronged us. But psychologist Fred Luskin says that more often than not, grudges don't hurt the targets of our anger....

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." It's been 45 years since John Lennon sang that line, yet it's an idea that continues to speak to an uncomfortable truth. While we al...

It’s no exaggeration to say that the world in 2025 can be ... a lot. Sometimes it may seem that tuning it all out is our only option. This week on Hidden Brain, we talk with researcher Sarah Jaquette ...

We all have to make certain choices in life, such as where to live and how to earn a living. Parents and peers influence our major life choices, but they can also steer us in directions that leave us ...

From time to time, all of us are called upon to do hard or even seemingly impossible things. Do we rise to the occasion, or do we fall short? Today on the show, we examine the psychology of pushing th...

We’re often drawn to people who appear to be true to themselves. Yet showing our authentic selves to the world can be terrifying. This week, we kick off 2025 with a new series, “Wellness 2.0.” We’ll g...

It's happened to all of us: We're in the shower, or on a walk, and boom — a big idea or a brilliant solution appears out of nowhere. These sorts of insights often seem to arise without explanation. Bu...

Every day, we leave small traces of ourselves online. And we might not realize what these traces say about us. This week, computational social scientist Sandra Matz explores how understanding what we ...

With the holidays fast approaching, many of us are hunting for that special something for the special someones in our lives. It’s how we show we care about them. So why is it so hard to find the right...

What makes ordinary people do evil things? It was a question that long fascinated the psychologist Philip Zimbardo, who died in October. Zimbardo was best known for the controversial Stanford prison e...