Hidden Brain

How to Make a Difference: Part 1

Why do some people act on the possibilities before them, while others come to believe that nothing they do will make a difference? Psychologist Martin Seligman describes

Why Conversations Go Wrong

Do you ever struggle to communicate with your mom? Or feel like you and your spouse sometimes speak different languages? This week, we revisit a favorite conversation wit

Blowing Up Your Life

Have you ever had a flash of insight that hit you when you least expected it? How did it change your life? Psychologist Anthony Klotz studies the "jolts" that shake us ou

The Things We Don't Say

From childhood, we're taught that honesty is the best policy. Yet in everyday life, we hedge, soften our words, and leave things unsaid. This week, we talk with psycholog

What Art Does For Your Brain

Think about the last time a piece of music stopped you in your tracks, or a novel kept you up late at night. Why do these experiences feel so powerful? Psychobiologist Da

How to Be A Better Partner

When we look at the people we love, how clearly do we really see them? This week, we talk with psychologist Edward Lemay about how our fears, desires, and insecurities ca

How Feelings Make Us Smarter

Some people are remarkably good at reading the emotional temperature of a situation. They can pick up on what others are feeling, manage their own emotions, and respond s

Making the Most of Your Mistakes

When you're learning, or trying new things, you're going to make mistakes. The trick is to try to fail in a way that gives you useful information. This week, we revisit a

You Are Not Ordinary

Stories about unlikely heroes have captivated people for thousands of years. This week, social scientist Ben Rogers explores why the "hero's journey" resonates so deeply,

How to Combat Pain

Pain feels like a simple message from the body. If your elbow hurts, there must be something wrong with your elbow. If your back is painfully stiff, you need some work do

Changing Our Mental Maps

As we move through the world, it's easy to imagine we're processing everything that happens around us and then deciding how to respond. But psychologist and neuroscientis

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 2

Last week, we talked with psychologist Lisa Miller about the science of spirituality. Today, we explore what those ideas can look like in everyday life. Miller explains w

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1

Food, safety, and strong relationships are essential to our survival. Psychologist Lisa Miller says our brains also crave something else: transcendence. She suggests that

Stepping Out of the Shadows

Why does one bad experience have the power to overshadow an otherwise good day? Psychologist Alison Ledgerwood explores the negativity bias, the deeply human tendency to

A Secret Source of Connection

We all have moments in our lives when we see someone who could use a helping hand. It could be a friend who recently went through a breakup, or an older person trying to

Who Are You, Really?

You’re not the same person with your friends as you are with your co-workers or your kids. So who are you, really? This week, political scientist Eric Oliver explores why

Unleashing Your Creativity

For centuries, people have described creativity as something mysterious: a flash of insight, a whisper from the muse, a sudden idea that seems to arrive out of nowhere. P

The Past is Never Dead

How does the culture in which you live shape the life that you lead? We all know that culture affects the languages we speak and the foods we eat. But anthropologist Jose

The Empathy Gym

Some people are good at putting themselves in another person's shoes. Others may struggle to relate. But psychologist Jamil Zaki argues that empathy isn't a fixed trait.

The Cowboy Philosopher

In 2009, an old man died in a California nursing home. His obituary included not just his given name, but a long list of the pseudonyms he’d been known to use. In this cl