Fresh Air

John Turturro could pick your pocket (if he wanted to)

I think people are capable of growth. I don't think they change, but they're capable of growth.

Hidden Brain

The Story of Stories

We are, in some sense, living inside of stories. We have a story about who we are, a story about our relationship, a story about what the world is like. And these stories shape what we see and what we don't see, what we remember and what we forget.

Hidden Brain

The Story of Stories

Stories are so central to how we think that psychologists have found we don't just consume them passively — we use them to construct our own sense of self. The 'narrative identity' theory holds that we each build and constantly revise an internalized story of our own life that incorporates the past, present, and imagined future, and that this story is our identity.

Hidden Brain

The Story of Stories

Stories are so central to the human experience that researchers who study them have come to think they play a fundamental role in allowing us to understand the minds of others. Psychologists call this 'theory of mind' — the ability to recognize that other people have thoughts, feelings, and desires that are different from our own. Without stories, some researchers believe, this ability might never fully develop.

Hidden Brain

Do You Have Trouble Sleeping?

When we try harder and harder to sleep, we make it more difficult. Trying to force sleep is like trying to force yourself to feel relaxed or trying to force yourself to feel hungry — the act of trying itself is counterproductive.

The Prof G Pod

The 996 Grind Gets Time All Wrong — with Oliver Burkeman

I think that everyone who falls into this category of insecure overachievers is sort of doing that same that same thing trying to trying to get to the baseline, get up to the baseline on my best days. Now, it's something totally different. It's like, right, I feel good about myself. Things are fine. I don't have to do anything just to feel like I've earned my right to exist on the planet.

Fresh Air

David Treuer traces America's relationship with violence back to the frontier

And here's the thing about terror, although it may well be true of grief, too. It robs you of so much. It steals your soul. It takes your life. It robs you of so much. It steals your sense of yourself and your place in the world. And it murders time.

Throughline

Can the polygraph test really spot a lie? | Throughline

The machine itself is a bit of what magicians call the misdirect. You're all focused on the machine, but it's actually the questions and the rituals and the penumbra, all the things that are going on around it, which make the polygraph successful in quote marks.

Hidden Brain

Why Am I Unhappy?

We tend to think that if we're unhappy, it's because something bad has happened to us, or because we lack something we want. But research suggests that a lot of unhappiness comes from something we're doing to ourselves — constantly comparing our lives to the lives of others.

Hidden Brain

Why Am I Unhappy?

We tend to think that what we want will make us happy. But psychologists have found that we're remarkably bad at predicting what will actually bring us satisfaction. We imagine that major life events — a promotion, a new relationship, a bigger house — will transform our happiness, but their effects are often smaller and shorter-lived than we expect.

Hidden Brain

Why Am I Unhappy?

We want to get the thing we're comparing our life to, but when we get it, we start comparing ourselves to the next rung up the ladder. So there's this moving goalpost that keeps shifting higher and higher, and that's really the hedonic treadmill.

Hidden Brain

Why Am I Unhappy?

We think if we just get that next thing — the promotion, the relationship, the house — we'll finally be happy. But the research suggests that we're not very good at predicting what will make us happy, and we're especially bad at knowing how long that happiness will last.

TED

How the Wealth Gap Is Reshaping Politics | Xochitl Gonzalez | TED

Scientists have found that your social class of origin plays nearly as large a role in shaping your identity as your race, gender, or sexuality. And that children become aware of their own social class standing just a little later than they become aware of their race and gender. In fact, kids as young as seven can, with outrageous accuracy, correctly identify somebody else's social class just by looking at a photo.

Hidden Brain

Why Am I Unhappy?

We tend to think that if we just had a better job, a better house, a better partner, we'd finally be happy. But research suggests that we're not very good at predicting what will make us happy — and more importantly, we're not very good at understanding why we're unhappy in the first place.

Hidden Brain

Why Am I Unhappy?

We assume that if we just get that promotion, or find that perfect partner, or move to that new city, we'll finally be happy. But research suggests that we're wrong about what will make us happy, and we're also wrong about how long that happiness will last.

Hidden Brain

Why Am I Unhappy?

We assume that other people who are happy are in a fundamentally different situation than we are — that they have things we don't have, or they don't have problems that we do. But the research suggests that happy people have essentially found ways to make peace with the same kinds of problems and shortcomings that unhappy people struggle with.

Hidden Brain

Why Am I Unhappy?

We often imagine that feelings of unhappiness come from outside us — in our circumstances or the difficult people in our lives. But what if the forces that erode our happiness come from within?

Hidden Brain

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Most of us believe that bad things shouldn't happen to good people, and when they do, we struggle to make sense of it. But psychologists have found that this belief — sometimes called the 'just world hypothesis' — can lead us to blame victims for their own misfortune, because it's more comforting to think that people get what they deserve than to accept that life is fundamentally unpredictable.

Hidden Brain

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

We tend to think that bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people. And when a good person suffers, we're forced to confront the uncomfortable reality that the world doesn't work the way we'd like it to.

Hidden Brain

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Most of us think that bad things happen to bad people, and good things happen to good people. When something terrible happens to someone, it's natural to wonder what they did to deserve it. But this way of thinking can lead us to blame victims for their misfortune, and to feel a false sense of security that we ourselves are safe from harm.

Hidden Brain

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

We tend to think of justice as something that exists in the world — that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. When we see someone suffering, it's natural to assume they must have done something to deserve it. But this belief, psychologists have found, can cause us to blame the victims of misfortune rather than help them.

Hidden Brain

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Most of us believe that good things should happen to good people and bad things should happen to bad people. When bad things happen to us, we expect others to rush to our side and help us cope. But psychologists have found that this is often not what happens. When bad things happen to good people, we often find that others don't come to help — and may in fact make things worse.

Hidden Brain

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Most of us are quick to help others in distress, but we also, at some level, blame them for their misfortune. If victims could have avoided their fate, then we can avoid it too. But if they did nothing to bring it on themselves, then we are just as vulnerable as they were — and that's a terrifying thought.

Hidden Brain

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

When bad things happen to good people, we tend to assume that victims must have done something to deserve their fate. This belief in a just world—the idea that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get—can be deeply comforting. But it comes at a cost: it leads us to blame the innocent and ignore the role of chance in human life.

Hidden Brain

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

We tend to assume that bad things happen to bad people, and good things happen to good people. When we encounter someone who has suffered a terrible fate through no fault of their own, it can shatter this comfortable illusion — and rather than update our beliefs, we often unconsciously blame the victim instead.

Hidden Brain

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

We're supposed to be able to predict and control what happens to us. And when bad things happen to good people, it's a violation of that assumption. It threatens our belief in a just world — the sense that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get.

It's Been a Minute

Loving your mother is torture. Do it anyways | It's Been a Minute

I am so enamored of my mother that it prevents me from being a mother. Like my mother was so large and all-consuming that I was like I am not going to even like replicate this. It's like any sort of like carpet weaver putting like a little error in it so as not to like test the authority of like Allah.

Hidden Brain

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

We have a deep commitment to the idea that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. So when tragedy strikes someone who doesn't deserve it, it's a challenge to our sense of a just and orderly world. And that's deeply uncomfortable.

Hidden Brain

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

We often think of justice as something that should be distributed according to merit — good things should happen to good people, and bad things should happen to bad people. But the world doesn't work this way, and when we refuse to accept this, we can end up blaming the victims of misfortune for their own suffering.

It's Been a Minute

When did it become OK to blast TikToks in public?

Now you are filled with the annoyance and agitation of someone forcing you into the disgusting murky depths of their personal algorithm.

Book of the Day

In 'Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel,' Lucy Foley continues Agatha Christie's legacy

You can't be in a state of full-blown panic at all times. Normality, humanity, even boredom creep back in at the most fraugh of times.

TED Radio Hour

Life can be so awkward. Here's how to embrace the embarrassing

Awkward people have social skill deficits. They have a hard time knowing what's expected in the social situation and also have a hard time executing the right social skill. They have trouble communicating, which can be understanding what someone's trying to tell them, but also communicating what they intend to other people. And the third thing is obsessive interests. And I actually kind of love this. People who are awkward really love what they love, but sometimes to their detriment.

TED Radio Hour

Life can be so awkward. Here's how to embrace the embarrassing

Awkward people, they actually think about the world and take in the world differently than people who aren't awkward. And it really falls into three characteristics. So awkward people have social skill deficits. They have a hard time knowing what's expected in a social situation and also have a hard time executing the right social skill.

TED Radio Hour

Life can be so awkward. Here's how to embrace the embarrassing

Awkward people, they actually think about the world and take in the world differently than people who aren't awkward. And it really falls into three characteristics. So awkward people have social skill deficits. They have a hard time knowing what's expected in the social situation and also have a hard time executing the right social skill.

It's Been a Minute

'Anxious attachment' is popular. But is it real? | It's Been a Minute

A child with avoidant tendencies will pretend to not notice that their mother is gone. So they continue to play with the toys, but when they document things like heart rate or stress, the child is panicking internally. They're just choosing not to show it externally.

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?

Hidden Brain

Why Conversations Go Wrong

Most people think that communication problems arise because we don't say what we mean. But research suggests the opposite is often true: we say exactly what we mean, but we fail to consider how our words will land on the other person. We're so focused on our own intentions that we forget the listener is constructing their own interpretation of what we say.

Hidden Brain

Blowing Up Your Life

Most of us, most of the time, make decisions incrementally. We don't blow up our lives — we make small adjustments, trying to improve our circumstances bit by bit. But some people, at some point, feel the urge to do something dramatic: quit a job without another one lined up, leave a relationship, move to a new city where they know no one.

Hidden Brain

Blowing Up Your Life

When we blow up our lives, we often tell ourselves we're seeking freedom or authenticity. But research suggests we may simply be running from discomfort — and that the new life we're chasing will eventually produce the same discomfort we were trying to escape.

EconTalk

Are We Alone? Cosmic Loneliness and the Longing to Believe (with Adam Kirsch)

the belief that we are not alone has become more common among both scientists and everyday people...the urge to believe that there are sentient beings elsewhere in the universe and that these aliens want to connect with human beings.

Hidden Brain

Blowing Up Your Life

We sometimes blow up our lives not because things are going badly, but because they're going too well — because we're afraid of what success might demand of us, or because we can't tolerate the tension of being so close to what we want.

Hidden Brain

Blowing Up Your Life

Most people, when they feel the itch to blow up their lives, assume the discomfort is a signal that something is deeply wrong — that they need radical change. But sometimes the urge to flee is not a sign that your life needs to change; it's a sign that you need to change how you're living your life.

Hidden Brain

Blowing Up Your Life

We think that making a big change will make us happy, but what we're really doing is escaping the discomfort of our current situation. And the new situation will eventually have its own discomforts, which we'll want to escape from as well.

Hidden Brain

Blowing Up Your Life

People who blow up their lives often aren't doing something irrational — they're responding to a deep psychological need that their current life isn't meeting. The problem is that blowing up your life is a very blunt instrument for addressing that need.

TED Radio Hour

Less guilt, more joy: A new chapter for climate action

I think, you know, I would call the 2010s maybe the doom and gloom era of climate change communication. And the thing is that it got people's attention. So I think the focus on kind of scaring people and talking about how, you know, awful everything was made people sit up and listen for a period of time. But the problem is doom and gloom messaging doesn't necessarily motivate action.

TED Radio Hour

Less guilt, more joy: A new chapter for climate action

I was biking to work. It was a sunny autumn day. I was enjoying my bike ride, but I was also thinking about climate change, as you do. And I was thinking how it's kind of a bummer that my life's work on happiness had no bearing whatsoever on what I believe is the most important existential challenge of our time.

Hidden Brain

Blowing Up Your Life

People who blow up their lives often don't realize that the discomfort they feel isn't a sign that something is wrong with their life — it's a sign that something is wrong with them. And if you blow up your life without addressing that underlying problem, you're going to find yourself in the same situation a few years later.

Hidden Brain

The Things We Don't Say

We often assume that people who don't speak up are simply withholding information. But research suggests something more surprising: many people who stay silent genuinely believe they have communicated — they think their feelings, intentions, or objections were obvious, even when they said nothing at all.