Depression is a clinical condition associated with a myriad of issues, including physical and mental disabilities. The condition burdens the patients with various complications in their mental states. The dysfunctional perspectives of clinical depression involve a brain's pathological disorder that increases with age. Evolutionary psychologists hypothesize the depressive tendencies are a way that the human brain helps to deal with certain external stress factors by ensuring that the victim gain fundamental insight and mental fortitude. From this point of view, the human species were able to adapt to these conditions effectively. From an evolutionary psychology point of view, depression is a form of adaption that, despite its adverse implications on the individual, accord individuals multiple benefits that help them, in the long run, to deal with stress factors in their life. Subsequently, it has been beneficial to the human species over the years by offering insights and enabling cognitive processes that enhance their ability to survive and overcome environmental conditions.
Evolutionary psychologists who support this school of thought, suggest that depression is an evolutionary norm that is a part of the natural default responses that help the human species' adaption process. Precise fact that clinical depression theories perceive it as a form of the clinical condition undermines the theory of evolution that explains that the success of the Homo sapiens relies on the body posture and, most importantly, the progressive development of the frontal lobe sections of the brain (Bartoskova et al., 2018). Undeniably, depression may be perceived as a response to the exposure to stressful environmental conditions that trigger the cognitive development of the Broca area of the brain in the frontal lobes that helps to cover for the survival of the human species.
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The contrary views that oppose this viewpoint and perceive depression as a pathological process argue that it only brings pain and suffering to the patient firmly, thereby suggesting that it does not have any actual benefits. Some of the theories that help to support this point of view include the psychic pain theory. Under this theory, depression is perceived as a condition that subject the patient to certain circumstances that undermine the quality of their health and life (Wrosch& Miller, 2009). The paradigm focuses on various symptoms such as poor appetite, insomnia, and psychomotor impairment that affect an individual's normal body functions. However, as Keller &Nesse, (2006) asserts, this theory's paradigm is countered by the Behavioral shutdown theory that argues that individuals' responses to emotional pain through the development of fear, anxiety, and guilt are all forms of an adaptive strategy. In retrospect, these changes in the brain's cognitive emotions help prevent any further pain or loss, thereby preserving the individual's energy to handle similar occurrences in the future. While the clinical depression perspectives that support the view that depression is more a pathological condition that only brings pains and inherent health costs to the patient are correct, they fall short of understandings its role in the larger process of human evolution.
According Bartoskova et al. (2018) the analytical rumination theory hypothesizes that depression is an evolutionary adaption because it helps to shift an individual's focus towards strategies to find solutions to these problems. The emotions of regret, fear, and anxiety, while they may be considered harmful, also fundamentally triggers thought processes that reflect on these events in a manner that one consciously remains aware of the problems ( Bartoskova et al., 2018). Therefore, through isolation and minimal physical activity, the human mind becomes overly focused on the issue at hand and finds solutions that potentially help address the stress factor in the long term.
Multiple psychological studies of depression avow that depressed individuals possess better cognitive abilities to overcome social dilemmas in their life. Wetherall et al., (2019) notes the social risk theory alludes that social isolation associated with significant depression tendencies is an adaptive feature of the brain to avoid scenarios where the patient becomes more aware of risk-aversive relationships threatening their survival. This theory's perspectives suggest that through averting from social contact, the human species developed the ability to cut ties with their environment, making them vulnerable to social risks. More importantly, this ensures that the individual only maintains meaningful relationships that add value to their lives.
A research study by Raison & Miller(2016concluded that individuals who exhibit social exclusion behavior respond to situations that may put them at more significant harm rather than improve their chances for survival. It is accurate to hypothesize that exclusion is a defensive that the brain adapts to avoid any other distress forms. The theory affirms that these adverse mood disorders help to advance the call for help from the existing support mechanisms to help individuals find solutions to deal with the negative external stimulus in their lives.
However,Keller (2018) notes the social cognitive perspectives are juxtaposed by the honest signaling theory that those depressive tendencies are pathological and inherently expose the individual to harm. Raison & Miller(2016) notes that the constructs of such behavioral patterns, such as suicidal behavior and loss of interest in economic activities, signal an honest need for immediate intervention to help heal the patient. However, the inherent cost of these outcomes may affect the patient’s ability to survive and meet their needs. This perspective is supported by the bargaining theory's views that hypothesize those depressive symptoms act as incentives to the immediate social support mechanisms in their life. To illustrate, when a spouse experiences depression, they develop these traits to compel their existing life partners to motivate them to address the depressive tendencies. While these behavioral patterns may bring about pain to the patient, they act as signals for the provision of social support that helps ensure the immediate family provides proper care and intervention strategies to improve the patient's health.
Based on these theories, it is accurate to postulate that depression emerges as a last resort behavioral response to sti8mulus that negatively impacts the individual's life. Thus, the survival of the human species has mainly been influenced by the depressive conditions present in the individual's life. As the social risk theory, the ramification theory, and honest signal theory postulates (Wetherall et al., 2019; Bartoskova et al., 2018). At the same time, depression may expose an individual to painful and discomforting experiences; it helps the patients bargain for help from the existing frameworks in their social circles that are instrumental in guaranteeing their survival. The niche change theory condenses each of the above theories' perspectives in a way that helps to ascertain the paper's argument that depression helps to support the survival mechanisms of the human species through adaptive responses.
The depressive tendencies design is designed to help the depression patients proactively adapt to the external environmental factors that cause depression by combining the social risk aversion theory, the analytical rumination theory, and bargaining theory. In retrospect, the paradigm avows that the symptoms are social signals that help individuals acquire the pre-requisite help by certifying the honest need for immediate interventions ( Bartoskova et al., 2018). These in the cognitive state of the depressed persons help to inspire a holistic and immediate intervention by one’s close relatives, thereby helping receive the necessary care interventions that provide new environmental changes that offer fitness in their life.(Keller, 2018)The new matrix of a depressed individual, therefore, from an evolutionary psychologists perspective, is fundamental to the necessitating such changes that play a very central role in the improvement of the socio-environmental conditions in the life of the patient that helps to stimulate a state of relaxation of the existing stressors that create the favorable conditions that allow depression to grow and advance.
The last theoretical framework that supports the arguments that depression is more of an adaptive fundamental to the evolution of the human species is the prevention of new disease from increased exposure to adverse environmental conditions. The paradigm of this argument is explored from various perspectives. First, Wrosch& Miller, (2009) notes that reduced physical activity helps to preserve the energy of the patient. Subsequently, it allows the body to distribute energy to the body's immune system, helping the body fight off new infections. Among the patients with chronic illnesses, depression helps regulate the hyperactivity of the immune system caused by the increased production of cytokines that induces depression (Wrosch& Miller, 2009). In depressive states, the body achieves a more efficient system of energy consumption and reservation. Consequentially, these new states of the body become a part of the body's response to achieve optimum energy consumption.
From the findings of the above arguments and theoretical frameworks, it is accurate to observe that evolutionary psychologists, despite excluded from the mainstream clinical studies of depression, offer new paradigms that understand the problem of depression from a new point of view. Arguably, these responses in the body that alter the body's normal functioning are part of a more extensive series of body reactions to external stimuli that threaten the survival of the human species (Wrosch& Miller, 2009). The clinical depression perspective inadequately frames the disorder by preventing a multi-perspective understanding of why the behavioral changes in the patient's body are not just a cost burden on the patient but rather are an evolutionary adaptation that advances human survival.
To conclude, despite the evolutionary psychology of depression still being a relatively unexplored field of study, it offers a new spectrum of understanding that introduces new and plausible arguments about depression. As the above discussions, depression is considered a functional response to different stressors, and suppressing it without understanding its role in the evolution of the human species may cause interferences to the disorder's adaptive responses. Mental health research and medical practice stand to gain fundamentally from the new information perspectives that result from the future study of evolutionary psychology of depression. Undeniably, depression is a last resort body response to particular stress factors present in an individual's environment as a credible call for help and a bold social exclusion that protects an individual from intimate interaction that may further increase the risk factors. Incorporating the lessons from evolutional theorists will also play an essential role in the isolation of healthy depressive responses that are crucial to the survival of the human species from the pathological reactions that are inherently costly to one’s health.
References
Bartoskova, M., Sevcikova, M., Durisko, Z., Maslej, M. M., Barbic, S. P., Preiss, M., & Andrews, P. W. (2018). The form and function of depressive rumination. Evolution and Human Behavior , 39 (3), 277-289. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.01.005
Keller, M. C. (2018). Evolutionary perspectives on genetic and environmental risk factors for psychiatric disorders. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology , 14 (1), 471-493. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-050817-084854
Keller, M. C., &Nesse, R. M. (2006). The evolutionary significance of depressive symptoms: Different adverse situations lead to different depressive symptom patterns. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 91 (2), 316-330. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.2.316
Raison, C. L., & Miller, A. H. (2016). Pathogen–host defense in the evolution of depression: Insights into epidemiology, genetics, Bioregional differences and female preponderance. Neuropsychopharmacology , 42 (1), 5-27. https://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2016.194
Wetherall, K., Robb, K. A., & O'Connor, R. C. (2019). Social rank theory of depression: A systematic review of self-perceptions of social rank and their relationship with depressive symptoms and suicide risk. Journal of Affective Disorders , 246 , 300-319. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2018.12.045
Wrosch, C., & Miller, G. E. (2009). Depressive symptoms can be useful: Self-regulatory and emotional benefits of dysphoric mood in adolescence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 96 (6), 1181-1190. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015172
