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
• 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
• Basic Income for Greater Manchester: Plans for a feasible, affordable and popular pilot, Hawdale, A., Strappazzon, L., Douglas, J., Johnson, E., Duffy, S., Mermelstein, D., Stark, G., Reed, H., Nettle, D., Johnson, M. 10 Feb 2025
• Basic Income: The Policy That Changes Everything, Johnson, M., Pickett, K., Nettle, D., Reed, H., Johnson, E., Robson, I. 27 May 2025
• Causal beliefs about social determinants of depression, poverty, and mortality, Bridger, E., Maltby, J., Fried, E., Nettle, D. 1 Aug 2025, In: Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy
• Count the Costs: A Common Sense Update for the 2025 Spring Statement, Reed, H., Thew, A., Stark, G., Nettle, D., Johnson, M., Johnson, E. 27 Mar 2025
• Creatures of habit(us): A commentary on Baumard and André's ‘The ecological approach to culture’, Nettle, D. 1 Sep 2025, In: Evolution and Human Behavior
• Does food insecurity cause anxiety and depression? Evidence from the Changing Cost of Living Study, Bateson, M., Chevallier, C., Johnson, E., Johnson, M., Pickett, K., Nettle, D. 14 Feb 2025

• 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