How scarcity shapes short-term focus and decision-making

Contemporary life is replete with problems. A very salient example of such a problem is depression, which according to the World Health Organization, affected 5% of the global population in 2019. That is 280 million people – a very large number indeed. Another such problem is poverty and inequality. According to the World Bank, around 700 million people live in extreme poverty – an even larger number. Why are these problems on the rise? Are there features of contemporary societies that are exacerbating this problem? Moreover, how do these problems, namely rising inequality and depression, interact? How can an evolutionary and/or behavioral ecology perspective add novel insights to rethinking the source of these problems? Can such insights lead to effective social policies and change? Today’s guest is here to answer these questions, or at least some of them… Daniel Nettle is a behavioral scientist at the Institut Jean Nicod. He has trained both as a psychologist and an anthropologist. He has made many important contributions, spanning many topics across diverse disciplines like biology, psychology, anthropology and more. For example, he has worked on psycholinguistics, the demise of languages, the consequences of smoking, depression, anxiety, epistemological aspects of evolutionary psychology, personality, and the list goes on. He is the author of 9 academic books including Personality: What Makes You The Way You Are, 2007, and Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile, in 2005.  Credits: Interview: Tanay Katiyar and Jay Richardson Artwork: Ella Bergru Editing: Jay Richardson Music: Thelma Samuel and Robin Baradel Communication: Tanay Katiyar