NPR invisibility Explores the invisible forces that shape human behavior. In the best episodes of the podcast, hosts Lulu Miller, Hannah Rosin, and Alix Spiegel weave intuitive connections between social and behavioral scientific research and the stories of real people.
Through its countless seasons, invisibility He casts his keen eye on a variety of topics, from defining empathy to understanding fear, to treating people’s most vulnerable stories with the respect they deserve. Here are the eleven best episodes invisibility.
Ed. Note: NPR relaunched invisibility with a new focus and format in 2021 with entirely new hosts – Yowei Shou and Kia Miyakka Natsei. These episode recommendations are prior to this change.
1. fearless
If you are new invisibility“Fearless” is one of the best episodes to start with and provides a perfect example of the show’s tone and tenor. The episode tells the story of a woman who can’t feel fear, then without fail examines our more common conceptions of fear. This second part of the episode examines our fear of snakes, why someone sweats while riding a roller coaster, and the question of how executive function helped humans transform from prey to hunter.
2. secret history of ideas
invisibilityIts first episode features the story of a California surfer’s violent thoughts of hurting his loved ones in conversation with the social sciences on cognitive behavioral therapy. Lot’s of invisibilityThe best episodes of tell about an extreme experience and use it as a catalyst to interrogate the common ways that people approach similar questions in their lives. This episode explores how negative thoughts can disrupt our lives and explains how we can better control these thoughts to make room for our “real” selves.
3. end of sympathy
“The End of Empathy” breaks the traditional format of podcasts, telling the story of an incel named Jack through two different lenses. invisibility The team gave their raw interviews with Jack to producer Lena Misitzis while she was interviewing for a job on the show and asked her to adapt them into a story.
The story he recorded was so different from the one created by Hanna Rosin from the same material that he decided to broadcast both versions back to back. The episode provides a meta-commentary on how two journalists can interpret the same subject in different ways, while exploring the dark journey of how one man views the world and his place in it.
4. power of categories
“The Power of Categories” is the story of Page, who identifies as both male and female. We hear Paige occasionally switch between gender identities when answering a question, and then we hear how life changed for her when she stopped living across the gender divide altogether. The second part of this episode is about a man who built a hugely successful condo development in Florida that welcomed Indian-Americans to live together in the same community. Weaved into both stories is the social science of why humans need categories, and the hosts’ empathetic curiosity tells stories of gender and cultural identity that are not their own.
5. pattern problem
On “The Pattern Problem”, Hanna Rosin and Alix Spiegel follow a woman named Tara who completes law school after being abused, using drugs, and going to jail. Tara presents the case for why she should be allowed to sit for the bar exam and why she’s unlikely to repeat the patterns of her past, and we wait with her while she waits to hear the decision. This episode makes waiting for the algorithm’s outcome exciting and the decisions we make for our children a little less risky. There are a lot of people to cheer for in this episode, and a lot of questions left unanswered whether we have any idea what the humans will do based on what they’ve done before.
6. post, shoot
“Post, Shoot” asks who we are when we are online, and what the consequences are of pretending to be someone we are not. The episode tells the story of a teenager named Brandon in Wilmington, Delaware, who was killed because of a Facebook post. Brandon’s murder was explained in the news as a gang-related crime, but invisibility Presents a far more complex narrative. The episode asks a lot of questions about how what happens in the comments section of a social media post can lead to a murder without arriving at any one definitive answer, but it’s all the better for it.
7. new norm
The first part of “The New Norm” follows oil rig workers in the Gulf of Mexico as they change the way they interact with each other from their lifelong suspicion of machismo to something radically more open and vulnerable. The consequences of this emotional change on their safety outcomes are shocking. These men and their stories are very unique, but this episode raises big questions about our culture’s ideal of masculinity and how alienating and dangerous it can be.
8. everything good
“Everything Good” is about Ellie Ann Steve, who, like Paige from “The Power of Categories”, identifies as both male and female. In fact, Ellie and Steve heard Paige’s story. invisibility And wanted to take the conversation forward. But gender identity is only part of the story. The episode also explores the sudden tragedy, the physical and emotional devastation that follows, and the voices of Ellie and Steve’s brave and honest daughters. This is an episode that you think would be about one topic but ends up covering a dozen other topics.
9. how to become batman
“How to Become Batman” tells the story of a blind man who “sees” the world through echolocation. it’s a classic invisibility Story, but what sets this episode apart is the story it tells about scientists and rats. It’s always a pleasure when interviewing experts you never quite believe what happens next, and that’s what comes across in abundance in this story.
10 and 11. Entanglement and frame of reference
“Entanglement” and “Frame of Reference” follow women who experience the world in two extremes. In “Entanglement” we meet Amanda, who has mirror synesthesia, meaning she senses the physical sensations and emotions of everyone around her. When she describes what it’s like for her to go grocery shopping or attend parties, you can feel the chaos and emotional weight that she absorbs wherever she goes.
In “Frame of Reference”, we meet Kim, who is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder late in life, and who is given a temporary window into what it would be like to live without it. The stories of how these two women travel around the world thematically speak to and challenge each other. Both women open up about the hardest parts of their lives with such incredible patience, humor and vulnerability that it’s not easy to forget.
