Evolutionary Psychology and Mental Health

Abstract

Evolutionary biology is the recognized foundation for understanding animal behavior, but only now is it being recognized as essential for understanding abnormal behavior. The range of applications is wide, from recognizing the origins, functions, and regulation of emotions, to evolutionary explanations for the persistence of alleles that predisposed to mental disorders. Like other medical disorders, every mental disorder requires not only a description of the responsible mechanisms, but also an explanation for why those mechanisms are vulnerable to failure. The six reasons for vulnerability from evolutionary medicine help to structure research questions and answers. Some disorders are more common in modern environments, but many are products of the limits of natural selection, or trade-offs. The principle that natural selection shaped organisms to maximize reproductive success instead of health is crucial for psychiatry. Also essential is recognition of negative emotions as evolved defenses whose apparently faulty regulation can be explained by the smoke detector principle. While some aspects of some mental disorders reflect adaptive traits, many are better interpreted as flaws that exist for good reasons. Keywords: evolutionary medicine; EvMed; emotions; mental disorders; psychiatry