Depression reduces capacity to learn to actively avoid aversive events

Post by OgsyedIE » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 6:35 PM UTC

mothballed wrote: post #7

andoando wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing about evolutionary theory that posits that all current biological structures/functions must have a evolutionary purpose. Only the system as a whole must carry superior fitness, not each of its individual components. Given a sufficiently complex system, its rather expected that there will be negative, or even outright destructive functions that arise. You can certainly try to find a positive reason fo…

I've often wondered if depression is exactly that, a system level optimization. Sometimes depression just happens, but sometimes it is triggered by low social status, realizing you've hurt someone in an unjustified or accidental way, having other mental illness, being seriously injured, or some other way that threatens the fitness of the overall group. Depression might be a (albeit flawed) system level way of reducin…

Post by munificent » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 6:36 PM UTC

OgsyedIE wrote: post #2

This is exactly what you'd expect if the hypothesis that depression is an evolved adaptation for surviving no-win scenarios that can only be waited out holds. In a scenario where a disaster has negatively affected the primary productivity of the local food web (e.g. volcano, forest fire, bolide, plague or tsunami), the groups of social species that exist in an environment are likely to engage in internal strife until…

Post by Consultant32452 » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 6:56 PM UTC

andoando wrote: post #5

OgsyedIE wrote: post #2

This is exactly what you'd expect if the hypothesis that depression is an evolved adaptation for surviving no-win scenarios that can only be waited out holds. In a scenario where a disaster has negatively affected the primary productivity of the local food web (e.g. volcano, forest fire, bolide, plague or tsunami), the groups of social species that exist in an environment are likely to engage in internal strife until…

There is nothing about evolutionary theory that posits that all current biological structures/functions must have a evolutionary purpose. Only the system as a whole must carry superior fitness, not each of its individual components. Given a sufficiently complex system, its rather expected that there will be negative, or even outright destructive functions that arise. You can certainly try to find a positive reason fo…

Post by floatrock » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 7:01 PM UTC

Wurdan wrote: post #3

"These findings suggest that in young adults, depressive symptoms are associated with difficulty in overriding prepotent responses to actively avoid aversive outcomes in the absence of reward." My word... Could they have phrased that any less clearly? As I understand it: the more depressive symptoms the subjects showed, the less likely they were to actively avoid bad outcomes (unless there was some other associated r…

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 7:19 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #13

OgsyedIE wrote: post #2

This is exactly what you'd expect if the hypothesis that depression is an evolved adaptation for surviving no-win scenarios that can only be waited out holds. In a scenario where a disaster has negatively affected the primary productivity of the local food web (e.g. volcano, forest fire, bolide, plague or tsunami), the groups of social species that exist in an environment are likely to engage in internal strife until…

I do like evolutionary explanations for a lot of human behavior, but this one feels a little too pat to me. Patience, "biding our time", "hunkering down", etc. are actual emotional states we can experience and recognize, and depression doesn't feel even remotely like for most people as far as I'm aware. Also, this explanation would only really work if the entire group entered a dormant depressed state together. Other…