Jennifer Schmidt

This week on Hidden Brain, research about prejudices so deeply buried, we often doubt their existence. We'll begin with police shootings of unarmed Black men. We also look at how biases affect judges.

There's an event we were all invited to the day we were born. Attendance is mandatory. But we'd rather not think about it. On this week's radio show, the lengths we go to to avoid thoughts of death.

There is a long legacy of leaders exploiting the bodies of vulnerable people in the name of science. This week, the history of eugenics and medical experimentation on enslaved people in the U.S.

As a society, we talk about sex more openly today than ever before. But so much still goes unsaid. This week on the Hidden Brain radio show, complicated stories of intimacy and attraction.

We know our actions affect those around us. But how do we know whether our impact is positive? This week on Hidden Brain, what it means to do good in the world.

Envy is one of the most unpleasant of all human emotions. This week, we explore an emotion that can inspire us to become better people — or to commit unspeakable acts.

What happens when we connect with people whose view of the world is very different from our own? This week on Hidden Brain, we look at the links between diversity, conflict, and creativity.

The CDC estimated that 72,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2017. There are many reasons why the opioid crisis is so hard to confront. One of them is social stigma.

We all know the downsides of being poor. But what about the downsides of being rich? This week, we explore the psychology of scarcity...and excess.

Decades ago, a group of women accused a prominent playwright of sexual misconduct. For the most part, the complaints went nowhere. In 2017, more women came forward. This time, people listened.

The world is full of complex religious beliefs. This week, we'll explore how religions have evolved, almost like living organisms, to help human societies survive and flourish.

This week on Hidden Brain's radio show, we tackle a big topic: power. From our conflicted feelings toward the powerful, to the ways we gain and lose power ourselves, and how power can corrupt.

As many as 40 percent of students who intend to go to college don't show up in the fall. Education researchers call this phenomenon "summer melt," and it has long been a puzzling problem.

There can be a lot of psychological noise involved in learning. And mental chit chat can make learning hard. One solution, silence it with a click.

Olutosin Oduwole was a college student and aspiring rap star when he was charged with "attempting to make a terrorist threat." Did public perceptions of rap music play a role?

The parable of the fox and the hedgehog tells us that there are some who are guided by one big idea. That's the story of Don Laub, a surgeon whose single-mindedness led to both triumph and tragedy.

The eugenicists were utopians, convinced that they were doing hard but necessary things. And that included making decisions about who gets to have children.

Violent crimes committed by Muslims are much more likely to be reported as "terrorism." And that has disturbing consequences for the way Muslims are perceived.

Have you ever noticed that when something important is missing in your life, your brain can only seem to focus on that missing thing? Two researchers have dubbed this phenomenon "scarcity."

Finding a new job may be the solution to your woes at work. But there may also be other ways to get more out of your daily grind.