Listen to Shankar Vedantam on NPR Unexpected insights into the news from psychology and the social sciences ...
Follow Shankar on Twitter @HiddenBrain
Read the "Hidden Brain" column in Slate
Most
of us would agree that there’s an obvious connection between the
things we believe and the way we behave. But what if our actions are driven
not by our conscious values and beliefs but by hidden motivations we’re
not even aware of?
The “hidden brain” is Shankar Vedantam’s shorthand for
a host of cognitive processes that happen outside our conscious awareness
but that have a decisive effect on how we behave. The hidden brain has
its finger on the scale when we make all our most complex and important
decisions: It decides whom we fall in love with, whether we should convict
someone of murder, and which way to run when someone yells “Fire!”
It explains why we can become riveted by the story of a single puppy adrift
on the ocean but are quickly bored by a story of genocide. The hidden
brain can also be deliberately manipulated to convince people to vote
against their own interests, or to even become suicide terrorists. But
the most disturbing thing is that it does all this without our knowing
...
"An entertaining romp through covert influences on human behavior ... vivid reportage ... skilfully spun." -- The New York Times Book Review
"Compulsively readable ... Vedantam is a gifted storyteller." -- The Boston Globe
"An absorbing journey into the ways mass psychology and inner bias undermine our conceit of autonomy and rational initiative" -- The Philadelphia Inqurier
NEW: The Hidden Brain makes The New York Times Bestseller List's Paperback Row!!
