Alix Spiegel

Alix Spiegel

Host, Invisibilia

Alix Spiegel has worked on NPR's Science Desk for ten 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.

Spiegel joinss NPR Science Reporter Lulu Miller to co-host Invisibilia, a new 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 will be featured on the NPR News programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered. The program will also be 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.

Alix Spiegel on KCRW

When you take on the trappings of something – just step into a role – can it change you more deeply, from the Outside In?

Outside In

When you take on the trappings of something – just step into a role – can it change you more deeply, from the Outside In?

from Invisibilia

Usually when someone is hostile to us, we are hostile right back. The psychological term is "complementarity."

Flip the Script

Usually when someone is hostile to us, we are hostile right back. The psychological term is "complementarity."

from Invisibilia

Are you rich? Well married? Successful? You may think the answer has to do with your objective situation.

Frame of Reference

Are you rich? Well married? Successful? You may think the answer has to do with your objective situation.

from Invisibilia

More from KCRW

A decade and-a-half ago, a relatively obscure tech entrepreneur with a passion for education reform was rejected for a second term as head of the California School Board over his…

from Zócalo's Connecting California

"Judging California’s climate change policies by greenhouse gas emissions is backwards.

from Zócalo's Connecting California

California is allowing indoor entertainment events to resume this week at reduced capacity.

from Press Play with Madeleine Brand

David Lynch Theater Presents: Weather Report for April 5, 2021.

from David Lynch Theater Presents: Weather Report

Awards columnist Scott Feinberg explains why this is such a strange year for the Oscars, and how the event’s producers are attempting to keep the glitz and glamour for this year’s…

from The Business

Jonathan Taplin joins Robert Scheer to discuss his new memoir about the time he spent among rock-and-roll royalty like Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin.

from Scheer Intelligence

The City of LA fenced off Echo Park Lake more than a week ago, forcing roughly 200 unhoused people living there to leave.

from Greater LA

For years there has been a symbiotic relationship between these two giants but its time for increased transparency and some guiderails governing appropriate behaviors.

from Second Opinion

California's Wonder Valley is arid and sparsely populated, where property values have jumped close to 20% in the last year, according to an estimate by Zillow .

from Greater LA