A number of authors have suggested that depression is an evolutionary adaptation. A low
or depressed mood can increase an individual's ability to cope with situations in which
the effort to pursue a major goal could result in danger, loss, or wasted effort.[2] In
such situations, low motivation may give an advantage by inhibiting certain actions.
This theory helps to explain why depression is so prevalent, and why it so often strikes
people during their peak reproductive years. These characteristics would be difficult to
understand if depression were a dysfunction, as many psychiatrists assume.[2]
This disease is a predictable response to certain types of life occurrences, such as
loss of status, divorce, or death of a child or spouse. These are events that signal
a loss of reproductive ability or potential, or that did so in humans' ancestral
environment. Depression can be seen as an adaptive response, in the sense that it
causes an individual to turn away from the earlier (and reproductively unsuccessful)
modes of behavior.
A depressed mood is common during illnesses, such as influenza. It has been argued that
this is an evolved mechanism that assists the individual in recovering by limiting
his/her physical activity.[3] The occurrence of low-level symptoms during the winter
months, or seasonal affective disorder, may have been adaptive in the past, by limiting
physical activity at times when food was scarce.[3] It is argued that humans have
retained the instinct to experience low mood during the winter months, even if the
availability of food is no longer determined by the weather.[3]
Paul Gilbert notes, "Common to most evolutionary theories is the view that loss of
control over aversive events and/or major resources/rewards exert downward pressure
on positive affect. Social theories, however, suggest that it is loss of control
over the social environment that is particularly depressogenic."[4] Some hypotheses
compare depression to fatigue, pain, and other biological functions that can impair
performance but nonetheless have adaptive value. One postulate is that the
depressive state evolved in relation to social competition as an unconscious,
involuntary losing strategy, enabling the individual to accept defeat and to
accommodate what would otherwise be unacceptably low social rank. The depression may
signal "no threat" to rivals and "out of action" to kin or supporters might wish to
push the individual back into the arena to fight on their behalf. It is also
sometimes hypothesized that depression can serve to draw the attention of others to
a person in need of help with a difficult situation.
John Price points out, "It may or may not be desirable to share the yielding
hypothesis with the patient; for instance, the therapist might say: 'Your condition
is serving an important function in your marriage, it is enabling you to submit to
your husband's demands without rebellion, and is therefore saving your relationship
from probable rupture.'" The wife might then consider whether other strategies for
dealing with the situation might be preferable, or at least benefit from
understanding the true cause of the depression.[5] Studies show that males tend to
prefer submissive females; this makes submissiveness an adaptive trait, and
interpersonal conflict and oppressive or dominating male tactics may generate
depression in the submissive female, who uses said depression to cope and to avoid a
combative response that may result in harm to her.
It is also hypothesized that pre-menopausal major symptoms and bipolar illness are
often associated with superior mental intelligence and creative capacities .
attributes likely to increase one's attractiveness as a potential mate . due to a
pleiotropic gene, and that the gene survives for that reason.[6]
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