MentalHealthDaily

Scarcity Mindset Study Reanalyzed: Game Rules, Not Tunnel Vision, Explained the Results

by GLOOM

MHD card with receding teal tunnel rings and a narrow spotlight falling on three gold coins beside a small target, illustrating a reanalysis finding that the scarcity tunneling effect came from game rules.

A new study reanalyzed a widely cited target-shooting experiment used to support the scarcity mindset theory. That theory says money shortages focus attention on immediate needs and make future costs easier to overlook.1 Giving players fewer or more shots changed their opportunities to score and borrow, explaining results previously attributed to narrowed attention. The findings …

Economic Factors Explain 70% of Poor Mental Health Variation

by GLOOM

Stylized illustration of a US county-level map shaded by mental health prevalence with overlays representing income, education, and safety-net program markers, illustrating the structural economic drivers of population mental health.

The structural determinants of mental health get less air time than individual treatments, but a 2025 CDC analysis of 3,121 US counties from Bolduc et al. shows just how much county-level economics moves population mental health: a model built from 11 economic variables explains roughly 70% of the variation in adult poor-mental-health prevalence across the …