Friday, March 07, 2025

What would you have done? (NPR Hidden Brain podcast, February 2025)

Thought provoking questions for our time.   

We see a woman wearing a bright red dress from behind. She's facing two rows of military tanks.

Marching to Your Own Drummer

What would you have done? It’s one of the most enduring questions in psychology. We all like to think that in a moment of crisis, we’d rise to the occasion and show courage. And yet many of us have had experiences where we followed orders and did what we were told to do. This week, we talk with psychologist Sunita Sah about the reasons why many of us silence ourselves and follow orders, and how we can align our words and actions with our values.

In today’s conversation, Shankar mentioned our episode with Timur Kuran, in which we talk about self-censorship and a concept called “preference falsification.” You can find that episode here. And if you’d like to try Hidden Brain+ and hear our bonus conversation with Sunita Sah, you can sign up for a free trial at apple.co/hiddenbrain or support.hiddenbrain.org. Thanks for listening! 


1 comment:

Thomas said...

Hopefully the answer to "what would you have done" is soothing to the ears of the pseudo intellectual...or otherwise their phoney baloney philosophy might kick in and ruin the relationship