Professor Daniel Nettle

I am Professor in Community Wellbeing in the Department of Social Work, Education and Community Wellbeing and a researcher in the Evolution and Social Cognition team at the Institut Jean Nicod, Paris. 

I study a number of different topics relating to behaviour, cognition, society and health. My current research projects are in one or more of the following areas:

• Economic and social inequality
• Trust, cooperation and antisocial behaviour
• Adversity and aging
• Hunger and food insecurity
• Moral and political cognition

My work spans the biological and social sciences. I am also interested more broadly in explanations in the behavioural sciences; in interdisciplinary synthesis; and in open science. Recently I have begun to explore how my work might apply to and support public policy.

In addition to my PURE record, you can download all of my research papers in some form via my website, even if it is not the publisher’s formatted version. You can also find information on the various books I have written and access an introductory R and statistics course I wrote.

I also write a blog on science, and society. 

• Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
• Behavioural public policy should take the psychology of poverty into account, Beuchot, T., Nettle, D., Chevallier, C. 3 Jan 2026, In: Communications Psychology
• Does Money Only Matter in Low-to-Middle Income Countries? Public Health Policymakers’ Assessments of Material Social Determinants in Different Development Contexts, Johnson, E., Cooper, C., Fearnley, H., Hart, C., Thew, A., Johnson, S., Croft, E., Chrisp, J., Mathur, V., Howard, N., Stark, G., Reed, H., Nettle, D., Johnson, M. 25 Feb 2026, In: Basic Income Studies
• Evidence for Transformative Policymaking: Statistics, Microsimulation and Public Opinion to Achieve Change, Johnson, E., Stark, G., Reed, H., Thew, A., Nettle, D., Johnson, M. 10 Aug 2026
• Explaining the paradoxical effects of poverty on decision making: The Desperation Threshold Model, de Courson, B., Frankenhuis, W., Nettle, D. 8 Jan 2026
• Explaining the paradoxical effects of poverty on risk taking: The Desperation Threshold Model, De Courson, B., Frankenhuis, W., Nettle, D. 23 Feb 2026, In: Behavioral and Brain Sciences
• Is the association between food insecurity and depression mediated by diet?, Bateson, M., Neal, C., Shannon, O., Nettle, D. 24 Jun 2026, In: Appetite
• Job loss and mental health: The role of anticipation and re-employment in recovery patterns, Bargain, O., Hérault, N., Nettle, D. 1 Jun 2026, In: Social Science and Medicine
• Language is a super-attractor: Does it evolve through subjective selection?, Heintz, C., Nettle, D. 10 Jul 2026, In: Behavioral and Brain Sciences
• Living on the Edge: Investigating Experiences of Poverty Through the Lens of the Desperation Threshold Model, Wolff, A., Carbuccia, L., Makine, Z., Nettle, D. 1 Jun 2026, In: Human Nature
• Low social support is a risk factor for food insecurity: Evidence from France, the UK and the USA, Nettle, D., Bateson, M. 2 Feb 2026

• Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
• Oral presentation: Act Now Book Launch 2024
• Invited talk: Modelling Public Acceptability of Tax and Benefit Changes 2024
• Invited talk: Universal Basic Income and public health crises: RSA North Report launch 2022

• Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
• Blog