Hacking Your Mind Podcast By Oregon Public Broadcasting cover art

Hacking Your Mind

Hacking Your Mind

By: Oregon Public Broadcasting
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You are not quite who you think you are — and neither is anyone else. We all like to imagine that we know why we make the decisions we do, like what to buy, where to eat and who to vote for. But scientists have discovered we make most of our decisions so fast, we’re not even aware of it. Most of the time, we’re operating on autopilot.

Oregon Public Broadcasting produced “Hacking Your Mind”, a four-part PBS television series delving into these new scientific discoveries.

This companion podcast explores some of the documentaries’ key concepts. In the five podcast episodes, we’ll address police bias, how we form habits and why we are so drawn to polarization in politics. We’ll also learn where our personal biases come from, and how we are influenced by our social circles.

CREDITS:

Producer/Writer: Tess Novotny
Script Consultants and Editors: Allison Frost, David Davis, Sage Van Wing, Dave Miller
Engineer: Steven Kray
Music: Christopher Hedge
Funded by the National Science FoundationOregon Public Broadcasting Science
Episodes
  • Hacking Your Mind Ep: 5 - Why we divide ourselves into polarized groups

    Hacking Your Mind Ep: 5 - Why we divide ourselves into polarized groups
    Sep 9 2020
    If you are looking for evidence about how divided our country is, you just have to scroll through your social media feed. Why does it seem so hard for people to talk and understand others outside their political groups? Scientists say that our tendency toward an “us vs. them” mindset is actually an evolutionary trait meant to keep us safe. Yale psychologist Laurie Santos studied monkeys to understand how and why they make fast judgments about each other. And University of Chicago psychologist Sendhil Mullainaithan looked into how humans make similar snap judgments.
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    5 mins
  • Hacking Your Mind Ep: 4 - How social networks affect our decisions

    Hacking Your Mind Ep: 4 - How social networks affect our decisions
    Sep 9 2020
    You might think your behaviors and opinions are totally unique to you. But you might be surprised to learn how much influence social networks exert. Scientists say our friends and our friends’ friends are often much more powerful than we think. Yale psychologist Laurie Santos has looked into why animals trust and follow information from others. And University of Pennsylvania psychologist Coren Apicella spent six months living with the Hadza, a hunter-gatherer community in east Africa. She studied how and why people choose the friends they do in the environment where our brains originally evolved.
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    6 mins
  • Hacking Your Mind Ep: 3 - How bias takes root in children's brains

    Hacking Your Mind Ep: 3 - How bias takes root in children's brains
    Sep 9 2020
    It’s all too apparent that people of different genders and races are often treated differently. But how and when do those biases start? Harvard Psychologist Mahzarin Banaji and Yale psychologist Yarrow Dunham have studied bias in young children. Their findings suggest that bias is ingrained much deeper in our minds than we may realize.
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    5 mins
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