Alix Spiegel
Alix Spiegel has worked on NPR's Science Desk for 10 years covering psychology and human behavior, and has reported on everything from what it's like to kill another person, to the psychology behind our use of function words like "and", "I", and "so." She began her career in 1995 as one of the founding producers of the public radio program This American Life. While there, Spiegel produced her first psychology story, which ultimately led to her focus on human behavior. It was a piece called 81 Words, and it examined the history behind the removal of homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
In January 2015, Spiegel joined forces with journalist Lulu Miller to co-host Invisibilia, a series from NPR about the unseen forces that control human behavior — our ideas, beliefs, assumptions, and thoughts. Invisibilia interweaves personal stories with fascinating psychological and brain science, in a way that ultimately makes you see your own life differently. Excerpts of the show are featured on the NPR News programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered. The program is also available as a podcast.
Over the course of her career in public radio, Spiegel has won many awards including a George Foster Peabody Award, a Livingston Award, an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, a Scripps Howard National Journalism Award, and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.
Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, Spiegel graduated from Oberlin College. Her work on human behavior has also appeared in The New Yorker magazine and The New York Times.
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To understand how social rules affect the interactions between humans and machines, scientists re-created a famous psychology experiment using robots. What they found is that if robots are nice to us, we're nice to them. If they're not, we "punish" them.
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The probability that an individual will experience a school shooting may be low. But when the improbable happens to you, where do you find comfort?
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A vote this weekend by a small group of academics could result in changes to several entries in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Doctors may no longer be advised to avoid diagnoses of depression after the death of a loved one, and Asperger's syndrome may be folded into the spectrum of autism.
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Scientists say that whether tipping waiters or trading Christmas cards, we're programmed to reciprocate when we receive a gift. But the rule of reciprocity can also complicate politics and medicine.
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For the most part in American culture, intellectual struggle in school children is seen as an indicator of weakness, while in Eastern cultures it is not only tolerated, it is often used to measure emotional strength.
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Some 100 evacuees from towns like Seaside Heights are now staying at a Red Cross shelter on the New Jersey mainland. They don't know where they will live, or what they will do, or what tomorrow will bring.
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Early on in American history, before radio and television, charisma wasn't particularly useful, one scholar says, since most decisions were made behind closed doors. Not so today. But how much difference do personality characteristics and charisma make?
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In political debates, candidates frequently avoid uncomfortable topics by diverting the conversation to an unrelated strength. Many politicians hire debate coaches who have perfected this technique, called "the pivot." So why do these dodges usually evade our cognitive radar? A psychologist explains.
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Teachers' expectations about their students' abilities affect classroom interactions in myriad ways that can impact student performance. Students expected to succeed, for example, get more time to answer questions and more specific feedback. But training aimed at changing teaching behavior can also help change expectations.
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Every Top 40 hit in 1965 was in a major key and had a fast tempo. In 2009, more than half of the Top 40 songs were in a minor key. Has there been a shift in the emotional content of music in the past five decades, and why are we drawn to sadness and ambiguity in music?
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Our capacity to forget is as important, and certainly as interesting, as our ability to remember. But can we train ourselves to suppress certain memories, or the meaning we attach to life events?
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A new study suggests using the term psychopath adds an average of five years to criminal sentences. But once a biological explanation was included, the length of the sentence dropped. In other words, our sympathy for the idea that biology might be responsible for criminal behavior is powerful.