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.
-
The latest polls indicate 58 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage. In 1977, that number was 13 percent. One researcher says that jump in support isn't the result of a generational gap 鈥� it's that many who once opposed gay marriage have changed their minds or softened their opposition. -
Despite current trends, most parents assume their own kids won't grow up to be overweight adults. That 'optimism bias' has neurological roots, brain scientists say. -
Why do we reach for that handful of M&Ms and other high-calorie treats under stress? In prehistoric times, such gluttony was probably a useful response to scarcity. That "feast before famine" instinct is less helpful in modern times, when obesity is a bigger health risk than starvation 鈥� but evolution hasn't had a chance to catch up.
-
Research from an Ohio sociologist has found that inmates "earn" illegal money in greater amounts after they serve time. Prison may serve as a classroom where inexperienced delinquents learn from hardened criminals 鈥� and become more dangerous criminals themselves. -
Top schools often offer scholarships that not only include free tuition, but also free room and board for top students from poor families. Each year, however, colleges are confronted with a paradox: No matter how many incentives they provide, enrollment of highly talented, low-income student barely seems to budge. -
A controversial self-defense statute appears to produce more killings, according to a new study. Advocates for the law say it's working as designed. But researchers have different explanations about what might be happening. -
Many people turn to superfit models for weight-loss inspiration. There's growing evidence that this is a mistake. New research from the Netherlands explores whether repeated exposure to images of skinny models helps or hinders dieters. -
A massive analysis of some 350,000 students in 53 countries has uncovered a paradox: Students in many countries that are mediocre at science have an inflated sense of good they are.
-
A study in Newark, N.J., found that homicides committed over a quarter century spread out very much like an infectious disease epidemic. Using this information, cities might be able to predict when and where murders will occur.
-
A computer science study shows that when an orchestra's musicians closely follow the lead of the conductor, rather than one another, they produce better music.
