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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• Living on the Edge: Investigating Experiences of Poverty Through the Lens of the Desperation Threshold Model, Wolff, A., Carbuccia, L., Makine, Z., Nettle, D. 2 May 2026, In: Human Nature
• Low socioeconomic status amplifies the perceived rarity of large rewards, Ciranka, S., Chevallier, C., Nettle, D. 1 May 2026, In: Cognition
• Material insecurity drives support for progressive policy despite also reducing faith in government: Evidence from UK voters in 2024, Johnson, E., Stark, G., Thew, A., Hart, C., McEwan, K., Reed, H., Johnson, M., Nettle, D. 18 Jun 2026, In: Journal of Poverty and Social Justice
• Nice idea that people would vote for: why Basic Income is more popular than policymakers assume, Johnson, M., Nettle, D., Johnson, E. 8 Jan 2026, The Politics of Basic Income in the Public and Private Sector, New York, United States, Palgrave Macmillan
• Why is greater income inequality associated with lower life satisfaction and poorer health? Evidence from the European Quality of Life Survey, 2012, Nettle, D., Dickins, T. 2 Jan 2026, In: The Social Science Journal
• Anxiety, insecurity and redistribution in the UK ‘red wall’: have policy preferences changed since the COVID-19 pandemic?, Stark, G., Johnson, E., Ahmed, Z., Kamalakannan, S., Reed, H., Flinders, M., Nettle, D., Johnson, M., Degerman, D. 1 May 2025, In: International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society
• Associations amongst poverty, loneliness, and a defensive symptom cluster characterised by pain, fatigue, and low mood, Davis, A., Cohen, E., Nettle, D. 1 May 2025, In: Public Health

• 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