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.
-
In Liberia, a team of epidemiologists have to delay a criminal investigation, look the other way on illegal drug use and build trust to stop an outbreak of Ebola. -
Being able to recognize faces is a crucial part of life. But why are some of us so good or bad at it, and how skilled at it are we on average? The answers might surprise you. -
As the mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani was a proponent of a controversial policing philosophy that calls for police to go after small crimes in hopes of preventing bigger problems. -
Pollsters across the ideological spectrum predicted Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 presidential election. They got it wrong. But one man did not: historian Allan Lichtman. -
Most scientists agree, climate change is perhaps the most serious issue facing our planet today. And yet, it's uniquely difficult for us to wrap our heads around. Hidden Brain explores why. -
Decades ago, researchers introduced a new theory of policing. It's called "broken windows" and is seen by many as a cure-all for crime. But the idea is often used in ways its creators never intended. -
U.S. politics have long been marked by disagreement and even rancor. But 2016 feels worse than usual. NPR's Hidden Brain podcast offers one explanation why, from deep in our psychological frameworks. -
Many immigrant groups faced prejudice and suspicion when they first arrived in the U.S. quickly turn around and exhibit the same kinds of prejudice and suspicions toward those who come after them. -
A century after women won the vote in the U.S., we still see very few of them in leadership roles. Researchers say women are trapped in a catch-22 known as "the double bind." -
Economic disruption has been a big part of the political conversation. Free trade might be a net benefit to the U.S., but there are large areas of the country that bear the brunt of negative effects. -
Research collaborations often involve scientists from all over the world. A new study looks at plane ticket prices, and how they relate to the direction of science. -
Researchers found by telling people the risk of HIV is lower than they thought, they get people to act in safer ways. But when people think the risk is very high, they sometimes act less responsibly.
