Rhaina Cohen
Rhaina Cohen is a producer and editor for NPR's Enterprise Storytelling unit, working across Embedded, Invisibilia, and Rough Translation.
Previously, she was a producer for Hidden Brain, where she brought together narrative journalism and social science research. Some of the most rewarding stories she worked on include those about why the #MeToo movement took off when it did, how American masculinity makes it harder for men to build close friendships and why we sometimes make decisions that baffle us. Cohen joined NPR as an intern for Planet Money.
She periodically writes for outlets such as The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and The New Republic. Her article about people who make a friend their life partner was selected by Longreads as one of the best articles of 2020. She received some of her earliest journalism training as a research assistant for authors. She worked on the New York Times bestselling book All The Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation and the biography Michelle Obama: A Life.
Cohen was a Marshall Scholar at Oxford, where she earned a master's in comparative social policy (and while there, competed in a dance style that hasn't yet taken off in the United States: acrobatic rock 'n' roll). She holds a bachelor's degree in American Studies from Northwestern University. As a 2018 FASPE fellow, she studied journalism ethics in Germany and Poland.
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Turn on the news or look at Twitter, and it's likely you'll be bombarded by outrage. Many people have come to believe that the only way to spark change is to incite anger. This week on Hidden Brain, how outrage is hijacking our conversations, our communities, and our minds.
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Do you ever catch yourself yelling at your Alexa? Or typing questions into Google that you would never ask aloud? This week, we explore our changing relationship with technology.
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Death may be inescapable, but we do our best to avoid thinking about it. Psychologist Sheldon Solomon says we're not very successful though. This week on Hidden Brain, we confront how death anxiety courses through our actions, even when we don't realize it.
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Social media sites offer quick and easy ways to share ideas, crack jokes, find old friends. But the things we post don't go away. We explore how one teenager's social media posts destroyed an opportunity he'd worked for all his life.
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Should reporters think of their readers and listeners as consumers, or as citizens? This week on Hidden Brain, we explore this tension at the heart of journalism.
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When your phone buzzes or a notification pops up your screen, do you stop what you're doing to look and respond? That's what many of us are doing. Even though we think we should be less distracted by technology, we haven't admitted the true cost of these interruptions. This week, we revisit our 2017 conversation with computer scientist Cal Newport, and consider ways we can all immerse ourselves in more meaningful work.
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This week on the Hidden Brain radio show, decision-making. We learn why we often stumble when trying to make ourselves happy, and why certain decisions leave us wondering "what if?"
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At some point in our lives, many of us realize that the way we hear our own voice isn't the way others hear us. This week on Hidden Brain, we look at the relationship between our voices and our identities. Plus, we hear how advances in technology might help people with vocal impairments, and consider the ethical quandaries that arise when we can create personalized, customized voices.
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All of us are surrounded by brands. Designer brands. Bargain-shopper brands. Brands for seemingly every demographic slice among us. But have you ever stopped to ask yourself how brands influence you? This week, we look at how companies create a worldview around the products they sell, and then get us to make those products a part of who we are.
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Does living with animals really make us healthier? Why do we eat some animals and keep others as pets? This week on Hidden Brain, we talk with psychology professor Hal Herzog about the contradictions embedded in our relationships with animals.