Month: December 2024

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Short Wave - Why Your Brain Loves Sales

This Cyber Monday, a meditation on holiday sales. A quick trip to pick up presents can turn into an hours-long shopping spree thanks to all the ways stores use research from fields like consumer neuroscience and neuromarketing to entice you. Retailers create urgency and scarcity to push you to give into the emotional part of your brain, motivated by the release of dopamine.

But with the help of NPR business correspondent Alina Selyukh, we get into the psychology of sales and discounts: Why it's SO hard to resist the tricks stores use — and some tips to outsmart them.

Read Alina's full story here.

Questions about the science driving the world around you? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.

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The Indicator from Planet Money - How Trump’s tariffs plan might work

President-elect Donald Trump made a lot of economic promises on the campaign trail, but none as sweeping as his plan to enact tariffs. Trump believes taxing imports from other countries will help reduce the U.S. trade deficit and raise money for things like tax cuts. Today on the show, how might these tariffs work and will they work? Or is everything about to get more expensive?

Find more of Kyla Scanlon's work on YouTube and TikTok.

Related episodes:
What are Trump's economic plans (Apple / Spotify)
Why tariffs are SO back (Apple / Spotify)
Trade wars and talent shortages (Apple / Spotify)
A brief history of tariffs

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

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NPR's Book of the Day - In comedian Youngmi Mayer’s new memoir, laughter is a lifeline

Comedian, writer and podcast host Youngmi Mayer was raised in Korea and Saipan with a Korean mom and a white American father. Their relationship was strained at times as Mayer navigated her family's generational trauma and often took on a parental role. She pushed through these struggles, and others, through humor–and that strategy frames her new memoir, I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying. Mayer speaks with NPR's Juana Summers about her family story in today's episode. They also discuss Mayer's original pitch for the book's title, relatability in Asian American storytelling and how she became a standup comedian.

To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday

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The Economics of Everyday Things - Greeting Cards (Replay)

The tradition of sending cards to loved ones was in decline — until it was rescued by a new generation. But millennials have their own ideas about what sentiments they want to convey. Zachary Crockett is thinking of you on your special day.

 

  • SOURCES:
    • Mia Mercado, writer and former editor at Hallmark.
    • George White, president of Up With Paper and former president of the American Greeting Card Association.