Before he became a popular voice on public radio and podcasts as the host of the social science and psychology show, "Hidden Brain," Shankar Vedantam was a newspaper reporter at The Washington Post, covering social science research.
As he embarks on a nationwide tour to talk about insights he has gained over the past decade of hosting "Hidden Brain," Vedantam talked with WUSF's Kerry Sheridan about what he has learned and how he's still figuring out how to connect the dots between the brain and behavior.
His tour comes to Clearwater's Bilheimer Capitol Theatre at 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 21. Click here for ticket information.
I'd love to know more about how your show evolved over time. What was your idea for it at the beginning?
Originally, I was just fascinated by the complexities and curiosities of social science research. And so the show really began as an exploration of interesting research, data, findings, drawn from journals and interviews with researchers. I think it has evolved quite a bit since then, but I think the original conception was just my own curiosity about this fascinating world of what I came to call the hidden brain, all the things that our minds do outside of our conscious awareness.
When you were in newspapers, I wonder, did you have space limits on the page that you could breach once you moved to the longer audio format? Maybe there were things you covered that you wanted to devote more space to?
I have to say that I actually credit The Washington Post with, in some ways, helping me come up with the original idea of what eventually became the "Hidden Brain." When I was working at the Post between the years 2007 and 2009, I wrote a weekly column called the Department of Human Behavior. And it was a play on the fact that Washington has all these departments — Department of Commerce and Department of Treasury, and this was the Department of Human Behavior. And the idea was that each week, we would take something that happened from the news, something that happened in politics or the economy or even sports sometimes, and we would try and link it to an interesting idea in social science research.
And it was a way of connecting, if you will, the ivory tower and the public square. And doing that column for about 18 months or two years was really a wonderful training, I think, in connecting these two different worlds that often stand separate from each other.
And tell me about how you come up with ideas for the show, now that it's going on 10 years. Do you ever come across something that makes you say, "Nah, we've already done that before?"
Oh, that happens a lot. Yes, quite often we come by ideas and we say we've done that before. But I also have to say that, increasingly, I'm of the opinion that journalists in some ways make a mistake when they say, "We've done that before," and then avoid a story. Especially for a show like "Hidden Brain," where we're talking about human nature, human behavior, it shouldn't be surprising that the same themes come up over and over again.
When I think about my own life and when I think about the things that I need to fix in my own life, it's not like all the things I need to fix in my own life today are different than they were a year ago, or different than they were 10 years ago. And I often need reminders for myself to say, "OK, I need to be more patient with myself." And those reminders are actually helpful if they keep coming on a regular basis.
We all know things that we can do that would make our lives better, and yet we don't do them. And one of the themes that I want to explore in when I come to Clearwater is why this gap exists between our insights and our actions, and how do we close the gap? How do we make our actions more aligned with our insights? Because if we did that, all of us would lead happier, healthier lives.Shankar Vedantam
And I think part of the reason people come to us is because they need those occasional reminders of saying, "Oh, yes, when I'm in an argument with someone, it actually isn't helpful for me to pile on all of the reasons why I'm right. It actually doesn't get me anywhere.'"
There's always something on "Hidden Brain" that's relatable on a whole range of different topics. Are you sitting around with your co-workers around a big table, pitching ideas?
Our co-workers are spread across the entire country, so sadly, we are not sitting across a big table pitching ideas. Really, I think ideas come in lots of different ways to the show. They sometimes come about in conversations that we're having with different people. I was talking with someone just recently about the fan experience. "What it's like to be a fan?" And I noticed this both at a couple of live shows that I've done for "Hidden Brain," where people show up and they're fans of the show, but I've also noticed this at occasions where I'm showing up to see a performance or a concert or a sports game, and I'm a fan of the performer or I'm a fan of the sports team. And I think the experience of being a fan is such an interesting psychological experience.
And that makes us think, "OK, maybe we should do an episode that looks at the psychology of what it's like to be a fan. What is fan culture about? What is fan psychology about?"
There are other times when we're reading widely in the academic literature, and we notice that there is a theme that surfaces repeatedly over many months or many years, and we say, "OK, this is a new vein of research, a new idea that that is being explored. Let's do an episode about it because there's enough material here that can fill out a whole episode." So really, ideas come to us in lots of different ways.
We do have a couple of very skilled researchers on "Hidden Brain" who are thinking about the ideas, thinking about how to craft the arc of a story. We spend a lot of time on "Hidden Brain" thinking about what the story should be before we do interviews with people. In some ways that makes us a little different, I think, than other shows.
So during your tour, you're talking about some insights that you've gained over the years. I was wondering if you could share one of those insights with us?
One of the insights reflects something that has come up in this conversation already, which is that when I think about my own life and I think about the things that I need to fix in my own life, I often know what they are. If you ask me, "Tell me three things in your own life that you can do that would make your life better?" I can come up with those things effortlessly, and yet I don't actually do them.
And that's a mystery, isn't it? We all know things that we can do that would make our lives better, and yet we don't do them. And one of the themes that I want to explore when I come to Clearwater is why this gap exists between our insights and our actions, and how do we close the gap? How do we make our actions more aligned with our insights? Because if we did that, all of us would lead happier, healthier lives.
Now I can't believe that you have things you need to fix in your life. I imagine you have it all together.
(Laughs) I think people sometimes make the mistake of assuming that, because I'm talking to researchers and I'm talking about these ideas, that I'm some sort of guru. Unfortunately, it's the reverse that's true. I feel like the fact we have produced 10 years' worth of episodes of "Hidden Brain" really reveals the vast number of neuroses that I have in my own head and the vast number of challenges that I still need to fix.
Would you be willing to share one of those with us?
One of the other themes that I'm going to talk about in Clearwater is the importance of being kind to ourselves, and I think that's something that I've often realized that I need to fix about myself. I am often harsher with myself than I am with anyone else. I will speak to myself and address myself in language that I would not dare to use with another human being, and it's a puzzle, isn't it? I expect that other people should treat me with kindness and with courtesy and respect my dignity. But I don't do that to myself.
I'm furious with myself when I think about something that I should have put into an episode and I forgot to put into an episode. I'm upset with myself when I forget something. I say, "You know, I used to have this perfect memory and I could remember a study that I had read 15 years ago, and now I can't remember who the author of that study was," and I get mad at my own memory.
And all of these, I think, are examples of how many of us are harsh with ourselves in ways that are actually very counterproductive. And this is the irony, which is, I think we often believe that by being harsh with ourselves, we can somehow make ourselves perform better or do better. But in fact, the reverse is true, and unsurprisingly, when we are cruel with ourselves, we're often don't bring out the best in ourselves, just as when we are cruel with other people, we don't bring out the best in them.
