Hidden Brain Staff

People in every country and culture mark important milestones, such as births, marriages and deaths with intricately choreographed scripts. We even appeal to supernatural forces when to give our favorite sports teams an extra advantage. This week on the show, anthropologist Dimitris Xygalatas explains the psychological power behind the sacred and secular rituals that structure our lives.

When it comes to conflict, most of us just want to shut it down. But researchers are increasingly finding there’s a better way to handle disputes. This week, we kick off our new Relationships 2.0 series by asking: what if we stop trying to eliminate conflict and instead ask how can we do conflict better?

Anxiety is an uncomfortable emotion, which is why most of us try to avoid it. But psychologist Tracy Dennis-Tiwary says our anxiety is also trying to tell us something. This week, we explore how we can interpret those messages and manage the intense discomfort these feelings can generate.

We all face tough decisions in life, whether we’re juggling the demands of work and family or deciding whether to take a new job. These situations often feel like either/or choices. But psychologist Wendy Smith says this binary way of confronting dilemmas contains a trap. She offers a different way to think about difficult choices, one that opens up unexpected possibilities.

So often, we think we know what other people are thinking. Psychologist Tessa West says our confidence is often misplaced. But she says there are some simple steps we can take to read people more accurately.

All of us want to feel safe in our daily lives. Yet when we think about crime, our first response is often a blanket approach: find the bad guys, and punish them. But what if there were another way? This week on the show, researchers Sara Heller and Chris Blattman explore how technology and psychology can be used to radically transform our approach to crime.

In the United States, we often praise people with strong convictions, and look down on those who express doubt or hesitation.  In this favorite 2021 episode, psychologist Adam Grant pushes back against the benefits of certainty, and describes the magic that unfolds when we challenge our own deeply-held beliefs.

The pressure. The expectations. The anxiety. If there’s one thing that connects the athletes gathering for the Olympic games with the rest of us, it’s the stress that can come from performing in front of others. In this week’s episode, we talk with cognitive scientist Sian Beilock about why so many of us crumble under