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Review
. 2000 Jan;57(1):14-20.
doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.57.1.14.

Is depression an adaptation?

R M Nesse  1
Affiliations
Review

Is depression an adaptation?

R M Nesse. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2000 Jan.

Abstract

Many functions have been suggested for low mood or depression, including communicating a need for help, signaling yielding in a hierarchy conflict, fostering disengagement from commitments to unreachable goals, and regulating patterns of investment. A more comprehensive evolutionary explanation may emerge from attempts to identify how the characteristics of low mood increase an organism's ability to cope with the adaptive challenges characteristic of unpropitious situations in which effort to pursue a major goal will likely result in danger, loss, bodily damage, or wasted effort. In such situations, pessimism and lack of motivation may give a fitness advantage by inhibiting certain actions, especially futile or dangerous challenges to dominant figures, actions in the absence of a crucial resource or a viable plan, efforts that would damage the body, and actions that would disrupt a currently unsatisfactory major life enterprise when it might recover or the alternative is likely to be even worse. These hypotheses are consistent with considerable evidence and suggest specific tests.

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Comment in

  • Depression is an adaptation.
    Longley AJ. Longley AJ. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2001 Nov;58(11):1083; author reply, 1085-6. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.58.11.1083. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2001. PMID: 11695956 No abstract available.
  • Sex hormones, Darwinism, and depression.
    Niculescu AB, Akiskal HS. Niculescu AB, et al. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2001 Nov;58(11):1083-4; author reply 1085-6. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.58.11.1083-a. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2001. PMID: 11695957 No abstract available.
  • Clinical depression is a disease state, not an adaptation.
    Feder R. Feder R. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2001 Nov;58(11):1084; author reply 1085-6. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.58.11.1084. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2001. PMID: 11695958 No abstract available.
  • Ethical dilemmas in prescribing antidepressants.
    Gregory RJ, Jindal RD. Gregory RJ, et al. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2001 Nov;58(11):1085; author reply 1085-6. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.58.11.1085. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2001. PMID: 11695959 No abstract available.
  • Is depression adaptive for the human species?
    Fawcett RG. Fawcett RG. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2001 Nov;58(11):1086; author reply 1085-6. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.58.11.1086. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2001. PMID: 11695961 No abstract available.
  • Depression is an adaptation.
    Wilson DR. Wilson DR. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2001 Nov;58(11):1086-7; author reply 1085-6. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.58.11.1086-a. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2001. PMID: 11695962 No abstract available.

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