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The Hidden Brain
How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives
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4.2 • 34 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
The hidden brain is the voice in our ear when we make the most important decisions in our lives—but we’re never aware of it. The hidden brain decides whom we fall in love with and whom we hate. It tells us to vote for the white candidate and convict the dark-skinned defendant, to hire the thin woman but pay her less than the man doing the same job. It can direct us to safety when disaster strikes and move us to extraordinary acts of altruism. But it can also be manipulated to turn an ordinary person into a suicide terrorist or a group of bystanders into a mob.
In a series of compulsively readable narratives, Shankar Vedantam journeys through the latest discoveries in neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science to uncover the darkest corner of our minds and its decisive impact on the choices we make as individuals and as a society. Filled with fascinating characters, dramatic storytelling, and cutting-edge science, this is an engrossing exploration of the secrets our brains keep from us—and how they are revealed.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Washington Post science journalist Vedantam theorizes that there's a hidden world in our heads filled with unconscious biases, often small, hidden errors in thinking that manipulate our attitudes and actions without our knowing it. Autonomy is a myth, he says, because knowledge and rational intention are not responsible for our choices. This thesis is not news since Freud, psychologists have taken the unconscious into account but Vedanta argues that if we are influenced sometimes, then why not all the time, whether we're launching a romance or a genocide. This is a frightening leap in logic. In anecdotal, journalistic prose, we learn that, through bias, rape victims can misidentify their attacker; people are more honest even with just a subtle indication that they are being watched; polite behavior has to do with the frontotemporal lobes rather than with how one was raised; and that we can be unconsciously racist and sexist. Though drawing on the latest psychological research, Vedantam's conclusions are either trite or unconvincing.
Customer Reviews
See AllEmma, Carrie, Vivian
I enjoy the Hidden Brain podcast and was moved to write a review after listening to this episode. The issues of law and policy surrounding eugenics are so relevant to today and undoubtedly the future. I wonder if the producers have ever thought about addressing the hidden brain issues of law and policy in federal Indian law. I raise this as the episode highlights that Native peoples were among those targeted for sterilization as a result of the eugenics movement. A December 2018 Ted Talk Tysons by Mark Charles succinctly summarizes some challenges of federal Indian Law.
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What a jam!
Your show is super fun to listen to. I listen to it on my way to school and work every morning! :) Thanks for making such an engaging and informative show!