This is Hidden Brain.

I'm Shankar Vedanto.

Some months ago, I brought seven key insights from the first decade of Hidden Brain

to live stage performances in San Francisco and Seattle.

The evenings were electric.

We got so much positive feedback from those two sold-out shows that we've decided to launch a tour to more than a dozen cities in the coming months.

I'll be coming to Portland, Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago, Austin, Dallas, Boston,

Toronto, Clearwater, Fort Lauderdale, Phoenix, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.

To snap up your tickets, please go to hiddenbrain.org slash tour.

You can also sign up to say hello and get a photo with me.

In some places, you can sign up for an intimate chat with me and a handful of other fans.

I'd love to see you there.

Again, go to hiddenbrain.org slash tour. Okay, on to today's show.

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. The 19th century naturalist and biologist Charles Darwin

is best known for developing the theory of evolution

by natural selection. He described the theory in his book on the origin of species, one of the

most important publications in the history of science. Less well known, but also scientifically

important, was the biologist's research on emotions.

Charles Darwin's view, which has since been adopted by contemporary scientists of emotion,

is that our feelings are adaptations that help us survive and thrive in a complex world.

Fear guides us to avoid things that can do us harm. Anger girds us for battle and conflict. Love pulls us toward mates, family and friends.

But if emotions are so useful, why do they so often seem to get us in trouble?

...