A Secret Source of Connection
6/15/20261 hr 28 min
We all have moments in our lives when we see someone who could use a helping hand. It could be a friend who recently went through a breakup, or an older person trying to load groceries into their car. We tell ourselves we should help, but then something stops us. This week, psychologist Amit Kumar helps us understand what keeps us from taking a moment to be kind, and how to overcome these barriers to create stronger, happier connections. Then, on Your Questions Answered, psychologist Gordon Flett returns to respond to listener comments about the importance of feeling that we matter.
Have you ever heard someone describe themselves as "left-brained" or "right-brained?" Don't miss Shankar's video breaking down one of the most pervasive — and incorrect — ideas from pop psychology.
Hidden Brain is back on the road this summer! Go to hiddenbrain.org/tour to find out where we're headed next.
Episode illustration by Masantocreative for Unsplash+
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First 90 secondsShankar Vedantam· Host0:00
This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. [upbeat music] Early one morning in March 1964, a woman named Kitty Genovese was on her way home from the bar where she worked. She parked her car and was walking toward her apartment building when a man attacked and killed her. Over the years, Kitty Genovese's murder has been the focus of countless books, movies, and psychology research papers. It drew attention not only because it was a grisly crime, but because it supposedly explained a deep flaw in human nature. The New York Times published an article that said dozens of people saw the murder or heard Kitty Genovese screaming for help, but no one intervened. When someone did call the police, it was too late. [gentle music] In the decades that followed, the case came to symbolize a psychological phenomenon known as the bystander effect. When lots of people see something is wrong, the theory goes, each person wrongly assumes someone else will step up to help. The net effect is that as the number of potential helpers increases, the number of people who actually help decreases. In recent years, psychologists