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.

Hidden Brain

The Things We Don't Say

Most people, when they think about the failure to express our feelings, imagine that it's the recipient of that expression who benefits. But Epley's research suggests that the person who loses out most from our silence is ourselves. We are the ones left wondering whether the people in our lives know how much we care about them.

Hidden Brain

The Things We Don't Say

We don't just fail to say things because we're afraid of rejection or conflict. We also stay silent because we don't realize how much our words matter to other people. We consistently underestimate the power of our own voices.

Hidden Brain

How to Be A Better Partner

Most of us think we know what our partners want, but research shows we're often wrong. We assume our partners' needs mirror our own, a bias psychologists call 'egocentric projection.' The result is that we give our partners what we would want, rather than what they actually need.

Hidden Brain

What Art Does For Your Brain

Psychobiologist Daisy Fancourt says engagement with the arts can help to regulate our emotions, build resilience, and support long-term well-being.

Hidden Brain

What Art Does For Your Brain

engagement with the arts can help to regulate our emotions, build resilience, and support long-term well-being.

Hidden Brain

How to Be A Better Partner

Most of us think the key to a better relationship is finding the right partner. But Eli Finkel says the more important question is how to be the right partner — how to bring more of yourself to your relationship, and to cultivate the conditions that allow love to flourish.

Hidden Brain

How to Be A Better Partner

Most of us think that being a good partner means being loving and kind and attentive. And those things matter. But researcher Shelly Gable has found that how you respond to your partner's good news may matter just as much as how you respond to their bad news — maybe even more.

Hidden Brain

How to Be A Better Partner

Most people think the key to a good relationship is finding the right person. But research suggests that what matters more is being the right person — that the skills and habits we bring to our relationships matter enormously.

Hidden Brain

How to Be A Better Partner

Most people think the key to a better relationship is finding the right partner. But research suggests that who you are in a relationship matters more than who your partner is — that the same person can experience very different relationships depending on the skills and outlook they bring to them.

Hidden Brain

How to Be A Better Partner

Most people think the key to a better relationship is finding the right partner. But research suggests the more important question is whether you are the right partner — whether you have developed the skills and habits that help relationships thrive.

Hidden Brain

How to Be A Better Partner

Most of us think about fairness in terms of outputs — who did more chores, who earned more money, who sacrificed more for the relationship. But researchers have found that what really matters to people is not the division of labor itself, but whether they feel seen and appreciated for what they contribute.

Hidden Brain

How to Be A Better Partner

Most people think that being a good partner means being loving, supportive, and kind. But researcher Shelly Gable has found that how we respond to our partner's good news may matter even more than how we respond to their bad news.

Hidden Brain

How to Be A Better Partner

When we feel hurt by a partner, we often assume they meant to hurt us. But John Gottman's research finds that in the vast majority of conflicts, partners are not trying to wound each other — they're trying to meet their own needs. The problem is that the strategies we use to meet those needs can inadvertently hurt the other person.

Hidden Brain

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 can shape our perceptions of our partners — sometimes creating the very reality we expect.

Hidden Brain

How Feelings Make Us Smarter

Most people think of emotions as the opposite of rational thinking. But the truth is that our feelings are deeply intertwined with our ability to reason — and people who lose access to their emotions due to brain damage often become incapable of making even simple decisions.

Hidden Brain

How Feelings Make Us Smarter

Emotions, he came to realize, aren't the enemy of rational thought. They are part of rational thought. Emotions are an evolved system of wisdom — a shorthand that allows us to make quick decisions based on a wealth of past experience.

Hidden Brain

How Feelings Make Us Smarter

People assume that emotions get in the way of good thinking. But the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio found that patients with damage to the emotional centers of the brain didn't become more rational — they became worse at making decisions. Without feelings to guide them, they got lost in endless deliberation, unable to choose between options.

Hidden Brain

How Feelings Make Us Smarter

Emotions are not just feelings — they're a form of information. When you have a feeling, you're actually getting a signal about what's relevant, what's important, and what you might be missing. Suppressing that information comes at a cognitive cost.

Hidden Brain

How Feelings Make Us Smarter

We often think of emotions as the enemy of rational thought. But the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio found that people who had damage to the emotional centers of their brains didn't become better decision-makers — they became worse ones, unable to make even simple choices about what to eat for lunch or when to schedule an appointment.

Hidden Brain

How Feelings Make Us Smarter

Emotions are not the enemy of rational thinking. They are, in fact, essential to it. People who lose the ability to feel emotions due to brain damage often become terrible decision-makers, even when their logical reasoning remains intact.

Hidden Brain

How Feelings Make Us Smarter

Emotional intelligence is one of the most popular ideas in psychology. It's also a term that's widely misused and misunderstood.

Hidden Brain

How to Combat Pain

Pain is not just a physical sensation — it's also an experience shaped by our expectations, beliefs, and emotions. When people expect to feel pain, they often feel more of it. And when they believe they're being helped, even a sugar pill can ease their suffering.

Hidden Brain

You Are Not Ordinary

Most of us go through life thinking of ourselves as ordinary. We assume that our experiences, our feelings, our struggles are common — that what happens to us happens to everyone. But this assumption, however comforting, may be costing us dearly.