Why does Jonathan Rottenberg say shared hardship can make depression easier to bear?

Jonathan Rottenberg says he does not believe the Great Depression or World War II produced the spike in depression one might expect, because people saw the hardship as collective and bonded through it. He contrasts 25% unemployment, where you are in good company, with 6%, where joblessness feels personal. He argues that treating depression only as a chemical problem in one brain can ignore causes such as war, a weak economy or environmental damage.

• Rottenberg calls his view compatible with a sociologist listener's argument that distress is often structurally produced.

▸In their words

“If 25% of people don't have a job, you're in such good company” Jonathan Rottenberg · at 1:28:50 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on Hidden Brain (2026-10-26). Read the whole episode summary →

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