Pepper & Nettle (P&N) suggest that the poor present a “contextually appropriate response” to a perceived limited control and to a short life expectancy. We argue that differences in health, behavior, or impaired economic decisions are better explained by self-control. We discuss the implications of the differences between these perspectives and present supporting findings from two intervention studies with marginalized populations.

When designing public policies, decision makers often rely on their own behavioral preferences. Pepper & Nettle's (P&N's) theory suggests that these preferences are unlikely to be appropriate when applied to a different environment (e.g., a low-income environment with fewer career opportunities). This theory has profound implications for the design and ethics of public policies.

Pepper & Nettle's (P&N's) argument is compelling, but apparently contradictory data are easily found. Associations between socioeconomic status (SES) and substance abuse are sometimes positive, the poor are sometimes eager to educate their children, and perceptions of local mortality risk can be so distorted as to constitute an implausible basis for contextually appropriate responding. These anomalies highlight the need for more psychological work.

We agree with Pepper & Nettle that personal control is important in understanding people's willingness to engage in future-oriented behavior. However, this does not imply that self-control abilities play no role, for self-control abilities do influence whether individuals engage in future-oriented behavior. Personal control may also shape the development of self-control abilities, so contrasting the two may be a false dichotomy.

Pepper & Nettle's paper exemplifies an emerging resistance against an exclusive focus on deficits in people who come from harsh environments. We extend their model by arguing for a perspective that includes not only contextually appropriate responses but also strengths – that is, enhanced mental skills and abilities. Such a well-rounded approach can be leveraged in education, jobs, and interventions.

Many short-sighted behaviors are more common among poorer people. These behaviors are neither evolutionarily nor historically unusual and have strong contemporary encouragement. The bigger puzzle is their lower frequency among the affluent. The behaviors also have clear cultural and normative aspects that limit the usefulness of strictly individualist theories.

Physiology and behavior are best thought of as two aspects of the same biological process, shaped simultaneously by natural selection. Like behavioral strategies, ecological conditions may affect physiological strategies, leading to changes in immunity and hormonal regulation. These alternate strategies help explain the health correlations of deprivation and provide additional pathways for feedback from early-life experiences.

Pepper & Nettle's theory of the behavioral constellation of deprivation (BCD) would benefit from teasing apart the conceptually distinct – although related – constructs of predictability and control. Our commentary draws from prior research conducted in the learning domain to demonstrate that predictability moderates the effects of control and independently exerts a powerful influence on outcomes relevant to the BCD.

Many behavioral and psychological effects of socioeconomic status (SES), beyond those presented by Pepper & Nettle cannot be adequately explained by life-history theory. We review such effects and reflect on the corresponding ecological affordances and constraints of low- versus high-SES environments, suggesting that several ecology-specific adaptations, apart from life-history strategies, are responsible for the behavioral and psychological effects of SES.

Uncertainty (i.e., variable payoffs with unknown probabilities) brings together a number of features of the authors' argument. It leads to present bias, even for completely rational agents with time-consistent preferences. As an evolutionary product of Pleistocene climate instability, humans possess broad adaptations to environmental uncertainty, giving rise to key features of the behavioral constellation of deprivation (BCD).

Early learning experiences shape the development of the behavioral constellation of deprivation (BCD) proposed by Pepper & Nettle (P&N). There is considerable variability in early learning experiences across diverse socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds, particularly when it comes to language. Here, we discuss how early learning experiences are beyond the control of the individual and subsequently contribute to behaviors in P&N's constellation.

Pepper & Nettle use an evolutionary framework to argue that “temporal discounting” is an appropriate response to low socioeconomic status (SES), or deprivation. We suggest some conceptual refinements to their “appropriate-response” perspective, with the hope that it usefully informs future research on and public policy responses to the relationship between deprivation and temporal discounting.

Pepper & Nettle explain the behavioral constellation of deprivation (BCD) in terms of differences in collection risk (i.e., the probability of collecting a reward after some delay) between high- and low-socioeconomic-status (SES) populations. We argue that a proper explanation should also include the costs of waiting per se, which are paid even when the benefits are guaranteed.

In this commentary, we address three questions: (1) How might outcomes be affected by the variation in the level of deprivation, rather than the average level of deprivation? (2) Could there be differences in the subjective perception of the same risk as either intrinsic or extrinsic, depending on people's socioeconomic status (SES)? (3) What other psychological mechanisms might play a role in influencing the psychology and behavior of people from deprived backgrounds?

Pepper & Nettle compellingly synthesize evidence indicating that temporal discounting is a functional, adaptive response to deprivation. In this commentary, we underscore the importance of the psychology of relative state, which is an index of relative competitive (dis)advantage. We then highlight two proximate emotional social comparison reactions linked with relative state – personal relative deprivation and envy – that may play an important role in the deprivation-discounting link.

Pepper & Nettle overstate cross-domain evidence of present-oriented thinking among lower-socioeconomic-status (SES) groups and overlook key social and contextual drivers of temporal decision making. We consider psychological research on climate change – a quintessential intertemporal problem that implicates inequities and extrinsic mortality risk – documenting more future-oriented thinking among low- compared to high-SES groups.

Cultural consonance is a measure of culturally encoded goals relevant to psychological, behavioral, and health responses to deprivation. Similar to extrinsic mortality, low cultural consonance and an associated inability to predict adaptive outcomes may activate impulsivity, delay discounting, and reward seeking. Low cultural consonance could promote “fast life history” in low-quality environments and motivate cultural niche construction for local adaptation.

Pepper & Nettle argue that the more present-oriented behavior associated with a low socioeconomic status is an adaptive response to having relatively little control over the future. However, a study of fasters during Ramadan shows that self-imposed deprivation, which carries no implications regarding the ability to realize deferred rewards, is associated with loss and risk aversion.

Human fitness dynamics are uniquely and profoundly governed by the flow of capital to subsequent generations. Low socioeconomic status individuals may possess limited capacity to direct capital to descendants and may respond to such constraints adaptively or maladaptively. Mitigation of capital constraints may provide practicable routes to alleviation of the behavioural constellation of deprivation.

Pepper & Nettle make an ambitious and compelling attempt to isolate a common cause of what they call the behavioral constellation of deprivation. We agree with the authors that limited control can indeed help explain part of the difference in observed present-oriented behavior between the poor and the rich. However, we suggest that mortality risk is not the primary mechanism leading to this apparent impatience.