In their essay, “Darwin in the Madhouse,” 1 Dominic Murphy and Stephen Stich make a case for taking the perspective of evolutionary psychology in order to improve the taxonomy, diagnosis, and treatment of mental disorders as currently laid out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, or DSM. 2 Murphy and Stitch are primarily interested in the effect the perspective of evolutionary psychology might have on the reclassification of the taxonomy mental disorders, but they also speculate about the effects taking such a perspective might also have on diagnosis and treatment.
What can evolutionary psychology teach us about mental illness?
Evolutionary approaches to psychiatry are still new and do not have all the answers, but this perspective can generate hypotheses and guide research, inform treatment strategies, and shed light on the etiology of mental illness and suffering. Acknowledgements We thank Dr. Skye Barbic and 3 anonymous reviewers for comments on the manuscript.
Is there an evolutionary explanation for psychology?
In this regard, an evolutionary explanation for our psychology does not preclude us from also accepting a biological explanation or a behaviorist explanation. And in fact, small deviations from the norm are required for evolution to work at all.
What is the evolutionary psychology of anxiety?
The Evolutionary Psychology of Anxiety 1 Anxiety and Fear. The pure form of anxiety is that it is the experience of some sort of fear. ... 2 Evolutionary Psychology. The basics of evolutionary psychology are that we all have two basic evolutionary tasks: survival and reproduction. 3 Evolution and Emotions. ... 4 Generalized Anxiety Disorder. ...
What can we learn from the evolutionary approach?
One lesson from the evolutionary approach is that some conditions currently classified as disorders (because they cause distress and impairment) may actually be caused by functioning adaptations operating “normally” (as designed by natural selection).
How do evolutionary psychologists treat people?
Evolutionary Psychology Approach Psychological abilities, such as reading others' intentions, making friends, and gaining trust, are known to help a person throughout life. Evolutionary psychologists believe that these skills are rooted in deeply complex neural circuits in the brain and that they are inherited.
How does evolutionary psychology treat depression?
It has been hypothesized that depression is an evolutionary adaptation because it helps prevent infection in both the affected individual and his/her kin. First, the associated symptoms of depression, such as inactivity and lethargy, encourage the affected individual to rest.
How does evolution apply to psychology?
Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach to psychology that attempts to explain useful mental and psychological traits—such as memory, perception, or language—as adaptations, i.e., as the functional products of natural selection.
What is an example of evolutionary perspective in psychology?
For example, humans naturally dislike and fear spiders and snakes. Using an evolutionary perspective, this is because our ancestors learned that these creatures are frequently poisonous and may be deadly. Likewise, humans have a natural fear of large carnivorous animals and know instinctively to stay away from them.
What is the evolutionary perspective?
The evolutionary perspective draws on Darwinian principles of evolution and natural selection to explain how gender differences evolve. Individuals who are fertile, live long enough to reproduce, and are able to raise their offspring will successfully pass on their characteristics to the next generation.
How is depression an evolutionary advantage?
Miller suggests that depressive symptoms like social withdrawal, lack of energy, and a loss of interest in once enjoyable activities were actually advantageous to our ancestors. For example, a loss of energy might ensure that the body can leverage all of its energy to fight an infection.
What is evolutionary psychology and how does it contribute to our understanding of human behavior?
evolutionary psychology, the study of behaviour, thought, and feeling as viewed through the lens of evolutionary biology. Evolutionary psychologists presume all human behaviours reflect the influence of physical and psychological predispositions that helped human ancestors survive and reproduce.
How does the evolutionary perspective explain human behavior?
According to evolutionary psychologists, patterns of behavior have evolved through natural selection, in the same way that physical characteristics have evolved. Because of natural selection, adaptive behaviors, or behaviors that increase reproductive success, are kept and passed on from one generation to the next.
What is evolutionary perspective in psychology quizlet?
evolutionary psychology. emphasizes adaptation, reproduction and survival of the fittest in shaping behavior. evolution can explain both human and physical features. some evolved mechanisms of adaptation not compatible with modern society.
What impact does evolutionary theory have on the science of psychology?
In contrast to these unreliable and often unprincipled discovery heuristics, evolutionary theory provides psychology with a well-motivated and powerful method for discovering human psychological traits.
How does the evolutionary perspective explain the observation?
How does the evolutionary perspective explain the observation that many wild animals overeat when food is available? Overeating helps build energy reserves for times when food may be scarce or unavailable.
What is evolution psychology?
Evolutionary psychology is a new branch of psychology that seeks to discover people's mental adaptations in their changing environment. Its main foci are on thought, behavior, and brain structure. It's concerned with the ways memory, perception, and language evolve. This psychological approach came from the combination of cognitive psychology ...
What is evolutionary developmental psychology?
Evolutionary developmental psychology uses the tenets of evolutionary psycholog y and evolutionary biology. Also, this subfield of evolutionary psychology focuses on the interaction between the individual and their environment. Studies include topics related to ensuring the survival of the person, their culture, and their species.
What is the relationship between evolutionary psychology and cognitive psychology?
Just as evolutionary biology assumes that physiological adaptations came from natural selection, evolutionary psychology assumes that within the human brain lie cognitive mechanisms that have evolved through natural selection.
What are the principles of evolutionary psychology?
Evolutionary psychology relies on six core principles or basic tenets. These principles formed the basis of the evolutionary perspective psychology researchers used to study how certain behaviors and thought patterns emerged over time. They are: 1 The purpose of the human brain is to process information. As it does, it creates responses to stimuli. 2 The human brain has changed over time as it has adapted due to natural and sexual selection. 3 The human brain is made up of parts that became specialized in solving problems over time. 4 As problems occurred time and again, the human brain evolved to accommodate them. After going through this evolutionary process, the brain became what it is today. 5 The brain must solve problems, mostly at an unconscious level. An activity or response that seems simple may involve highly complex neural processes. 6 Human psychology is made up of a multitude of specialized mechanisms that come together to form human nature.
What is the purpose of the evolutionary perspective?
These principles formed the basis of the evolutionary perspective psychology researchers used to study how certain behaviors and thought patterns emerged over time. They are: The purpose of the human brain is to process information. As it does, it creates responses to stimuli. The human brain has changed over time as it has adapted due ...
What is human psychology made of?
Human psychology is made up of a multitude of specialized mechanisms that come together to form human nature.
Why did the brain evolve?
As problems occurred time and again, the human brain evolved to accommodate them. After going through this evolutionary process, the brain became what it is today.
How does evolutionary psychology explain mental health?
If you subscribe to an evolutionary description of human psychology, then you will believe that most of our behavioral traits are actually the result of our evolutionary history. We are afraid of snakes because they would have eaten us in the wild.
What is vestigial trait?
In evolution, a vestigial trait is anything that was once useful and no longer is. Our tail bone for instance can be considered vestigial – it once allowed us to use a tail that in turn helped us to balance in trees. Today we don’t need a tail, but we haven’t completely gotten rid of the tail bone.
How does evolution work?
Evolution relies on small genetic mutations occurring that result in the birth of specimens that are slightly different. Those small changes might prove to be adaptive and thus they might proliferate within the group. On the other hand, the change might result in a psychological disorder.
Why are small things with big eyes cute?
And we find small things with big eyes cute because this encourages us to look after our own young (and thus our own DNA). Thereby all of our psychological traits and all of our behaviors should have survival value and should have been selected for in order to be adaptable.
What is the directive of evolution?
In other words, the ‘directive’ of evolution is the survival of genes. Once you have successfully procreated, you have ensured the survival of your lineage and thus what happens to you after that point won’t have an impact on your ability to have passed on your DNA.
Is fear of spiders a psychological trait?
For instance, widespread fear of spiders is something that would have helped us to avoid getting poisoned in the wild, but is not at all useful today. This is a ‘vestigi al’ psychological trait. Likewise our ‘fight or flight’ response could be considered vestigial to an extent (or at least less adaptive to today’s surroundings than it was in our history). Seasonal affective disorder too is vestigial in as much as it would encourage less activity during the cold winter months ( 3 ).
Does dementia apply to evolution?
But it may be that a condition like Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia doesn ’t really apply when it comes to the ‘normal’ rules of evolution.
How much heritability does schizophrenia have?
Schizophrenia is estimated to have a heritability of around 80 percent. Same is true for autism. So if these disorders are very heavily influenced by genes, but the people who have the disorders are less likely to pass on their genes, why aren't the disorders becoming less common in the population?
Can schizophrenia make you infertile?
It's often referred to as reduced fertility but, strictly speaking, people with schizophrenia aren't infertile.
Do siblings with schizophrenia have the same children?
The data came from a medical database of more than 2 million Swedes. The researchers found that the siblings of people who suffer from schizophrenia, autism and anorexia had on average the same or fewer children than the general public, which would seem to confirm the first theory.
Can genetic mutations cause a disorder in one person?
Another theory is that the genetic mutations that cause a disorder in one person somehow make that person's sibling more likely to have children. In a situation like that, the mutation offers a net benefit to a person's family.
Do schizophrenics have more kids?
The question is, do their relatives actually make up for this by having more kids because they're advantaged in some way? And the answer is no in the case of schizophrenia, but yes in the case of depression.
Does evolution predict evolution?
Evolutionary theory wouldn't predict that. Scientists have a few theories that attempt to explain this paradox. One is that the genetic mutations that cause these disorders occurred relatively recently, so not enough generations have passed to allow the evolutionary process to weed them out.
Who is Peter McGuffin?
We talked with Dr. Peter McGuffin, a professor at King's College London who worked on the study, which was published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry. Here are highlights from the interview, edited for length and clarity. Enlarge this image.
What is a GAD?
Generalized Anxiety Disorder. People with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) could have a predisposition to experience greater levels of anxiety that in previous times of human history were advantageous. 3 . Essentially, GAD can be seen as an over-reaction of a basic evolutionary fear response in modern society. 4 .
What is GAD in modern society?
Essentially, GAD can be seen as an over-reaction of a basic evolutionary fear response in modern society. 4 . As modern society has created a place for more people to be evolutionarily successful, there are less acute threats, and more chronic and uncertain ones.
What is the evolutionary advantage of anxiety?
Additionally, the evolutionary advantage of anxiety specifically could be that worrying about danger forces people to take fewer risks, seek safety, and focus on doing things well. 2 Clearly, this could potentially help the basic evolutionary tasks.
What is the difference between fear and anxiety?
Fear is the complex reaction to a clear and present danger whereas anxiety is a response to an unknown or anticipated threat. If you think about how your body feels when you are anxious compared to when you would consider yourself fearful, you may notice a lot of similarities.
How do emotions affect our environment?
One of the major theories on the function of emotions is that they evolved to quickly organize aspects of our environmental responses. 1 For example, if we encounter an angry tiger, we become fearful. The experience of fear sharpens our senses, quickens our thinking, activates our fight-or-flight response, and does a variety of other things.
What is evolution psychology?
Evolutionary psychology is a growing field that is attempting to better understand the adaptive function of specific psychological traits. Some of this work is in understanding emotions and the development of our emotional processes.
What is the meaning of evolutionary advantage?
Over thousands of years, most of our experience can now be understood as having some sort of “evolutionary advantage,” meaning that having these traits (even higher anxiety) helped us survive and/or reproduce successfully.
How does disadaptation affect depressive symptoms?
In cases of depressive disorders, disadaptation methods of regulating emotions are a prognostic factor for the occurrence of symptoms, have an influence on disease duration, on intensification of symptoms, as well as may increase susceptibility to subsequent episodes [64]. Difficulties in identification, naming, and analyzing the emotional states experienced subjectively and observed in others are observed in patients suffering from depression relapse [65]. According to Levens and Gotlib [66], increased concentration on stimuli characterized by an emotional charge is typical also in the period of disease remission, whereas intensification of deficits in the scope of social cognition is negatively associated with the severity of the disease. It seems that deficits in the scope of “cold” (attention, memory, executive functions) and “hot” (emotional bias) cognitive impairments, as well as those of social cognition domains (empathy, theory of mind), are observed in the course of depressive disorders.
How many people have depression?
According to estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO), 350 million people around the world present with symptoms of depression [3], while depressive disorders constitute nearly 4.3% of the global burden of all diseases [4]. More than half of the people who have undergone an episode of depression will be affected by at least one relapse. After two episodes of the disease, the probability of another episode is as high as 80%. Episodes of depression last more than 24 months in 20% of patients [5]. Another depressive episode will appear within the next two years of discharging from the hospital in almost half of hospitalized patients. It is estimated that some 20% of those affected with diagnosed recurrent depressive disorders experience two depressive stages during their life, and 60% have three or more such episodes (average number: 3 to 4). Every successive episode is associated with a less positive prognosis and, often, a poorer response to pharmacological treatment [6].
What is the role of the cerebral cortex in human speech?
In humans, the cerebral cortex plays a key role in the development and regulation of the functions and capabilities of human speech , mentation, decision-making, and control of emotions and behavior [8].
What is the most primitive part of the brain?
The oldest and the most primitive structure responsible for instinctual behavior and drive is the reptilian brain (the mesencephalon and brainstem). The mammalian brain, with a limbic system (also referred to as the paleomammalian brain), i.e., a structure regulating primary emotions (including aggressive and sexual behavior), is located above the reptilian brain. The uppermost structure of the human brain is the neocortex where mentation takes places. All these structures, closely linked to one another, guarantee effective operation of our brain [7].
Why did the frontal lobes expand?
How this spectacular development in the volume of the frontal lobes evolved continues to be discussed. The relative widening of the frontal lobes during hominid phylogeny was likely a consequence of a discrete morphological change rather than a passive reflection of increasing brain size. The expansion has been associated with an underlying reorganization of the neuronal cytoarchitecture or at least with a geometric reallocation of frontal cortical volumes [10].
What are the cognitive functions of depression?
Deficits may be selective and mild or generalized and significantly intensified [55]. Typical symptoms include: psychomotor retardation, reduced effectiveness of memory processes, and the ability to learn new information, weakening of attention, deterioration of spatial visualization abilities , and visual-motor coordination, verbal fluency, as well as the so-called executive functions (among others problems with inhibiting reactions, planning and solving problems) [56]. Due to limitations of the space in this article, we only briefly mention this issue. This subject matter was described in detail in another article published by us in 2015 [57].
What are the brain systems involved in emotion regulation?
They include: frontoparietal network (FN), default mode network (DMN), dorsal attention network (DAN), and medial temporal lobe network (MTLN) [36,37]. The first of the mentioned systems, FN, is associated with the superior regulation of emotions and attention processes. DMN manages the mental processes directed at the internal world, autobiographical memory, planning of the future, and being aware of the thought perspective of other people. DAN is in charge of directing our attention to the outer world. Meanwhile, MTLN is linked with knowledge acquisition regarding our experiences from the past [36,38]. Other systems include: affective network and ventral attention network (VAN) involved in the processing of emotions and monitoring of salient events [38]. Abnormal communication within FN may underline deficits in cognitive control, which are commonly observed in depression [39]. Certainly, the two structures are engaged in the regulation of mental processes typical for a human being, i.e., thinking, making decisions, mental representation of ourselves, our emotions, and observations regarding ourselves and others [14].
What Is Evolution?
What Is It?
- Evolutionary psychology is a new branch of psychology that seeks to discover people's mental adaptations in their changing environment. Its main foci are on thought, behavior, and brain structure. It's concerned with the ways memory, perception, and language evolve. This psychological approach came from the combination of cognitive psychology and evolutionary bi…
6 Basic Tenets
- Evolutionary psychology relies on six core principles or basic tenets. These principles formed the basis of the evolutionary perspective psychology researchers used to study how certain behaviors and thought patterns emerged over time. They are: 1. The purpose of the human brain is to process information. As it does, it creates responses to stimuli...
Evolutionary Developmental Psychology
- Evolutionary developmental psychology uses the tenets of evolutionary psychology and evolutionary biology. Also, this subfield of evolutionary psychology focuses on the interaction between the individual and their environment. Studies include topics related to ensuring the survival of the person, their culture, and their species. It takes into account education, peer grou…