What is the evolutionary purpose of depression?

Question

What purpose does depression serve in terms of aiding our survial and well being? Surely it hinders it?

I think what Im asking is, physical pain serves an obvious point-(you put your hand in a fire, it hurts, you take it out) it protects and keeps us safe.
But depression is a source of mental pain often without obvious relief.
Physical pain can help us, mental pain can hinder us.

Answer 1

Depression may be an indicator of our modern lifestyle placing us under too much stress. It is true that cases of depression have rocketed in recent decades, perhaps due to changes in our way of living (e.g. breakdown of family groups, 24 hour culture, working through hours of darkness, unhealthy diets etc).
In this way depression is a benefit as it warns the sufferer that they may be approaching breaking point and to slow down for a while. As it has been shown that a healthy diet and exercise can alleviate symptoms of depression, it is possible it serves as an alarm before other problems develop.

Answer 2

Interesting question. Since severe clinical depression is a disease or disorder, it may not necessarily "aid in survival." A dysfunctional thyroid gland is not going to aid in survival anymore than a dysfunctional gland of another sort.
Mild depression may be helpful insofar as reducing wasteful, societal interactions. A large segment of the population may fritter away their lives gossiping, carousing, etc. A mildly depressed person may spend more time reflecting, and this may be beneficial to their long-term survival.
I can't believe the ignorance being posted here. Mentally depressed people are not weak, quite the opposite

Answer 3

To the extent that depression is frequently caused by low serotonin levels, I think you'd have to look at how brain chemistry affects moods and how that system confers fitness on an animal. Drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac are often used to treat depression. The fact that some people's systems don't provide them with enough serotonin in circulation naturally doesn't mean that the system itself is maladaptive. Depression, in and of itself, is not a characteristic of the organism.

Answer 4

Not everything serves a point to be beneficial. There are some things that are just bad.

If you're looking for something, I can tell you that my personal experiences with depression have helped me help others through being there for them and talking to them, and it's helped me appreciate what I have. If most people who have overcome depression are able to reach out to those suffering from it, that would benefit the well-being of others.

Answer 5

Think of it the other way around: is the trait of depression going to eliminate itself from the population by killing off everyone who inherits it? Sure, some people kill themselves, but many of them produce offspring before they do. And a lot of depressed people don't kill themselves.

Depression isn't a trait that serves our survival, it's a defect. There are plenty of defects that continue to be passed on, and many of them result in much more serious conditions than depression. I can't even imagine what it's like to live with something like cerebral palsy.

Answer 6

during historic past human society has continuously ganged up on the "runt". The runt is then continuously positioned down and turns into depressed. They kill them self so as that the others won't. you may additionally say that with the aid of fact melancholy is a damaging version evolution kills people who've it with the aid of suicide itself. yet another answer is that nature continuously makes a organism have one good version and yet another animal that could counter the difference. considering the fact that we people have each and all of the products and no animal that could outdo our differences, melancholy and suicide is natures way of attempting to cut back us. It additionally ought to be a latent style of flight or combat survival tactic. If we are continuously unhappy and scared that around the subsequent corner ought to be a predator we are able to be careful and proceed to exist. even however with the aid of fact the predator is long previous we swap it with different individuals and so we are depressed. unhappy reality is nature and evolution are 2 advise grotesque @#$&%'s.

Answer 7

There is not any. Depression occurs as a malfunction. We are biological machines so we breakdown. Sometimes, when we go wrong it has an unexpected advantage and becomes an evolutionary advantage. I cannot see depression being an advantage, so your question is a bit like asking what is the advantage of a blunt knife. Bit more difficult for the religious guys to answer, after all, in there deluded world God is perfect - so how did he b*lls this one up?

Answer 8

Humans just like birds, dogs, cows should be able to sense when something is wrong even if we don't know what it is. Depression and anxiety gives us the overwhelming feeling of impending doom. So maybe we are closer to our animal friends than we thought eg...the whales for instance...beaching themselves for no obvious reason.
Only time will tell but maybe there is some impending doom we are not aware of like a comet hitting the earth or something.

Answer 9

Not all traits that are present in a species were necessarily selected for in the evolutionary process; they basically just can't be such a problem that they were completely eliminated from the gene pool, assuming the trait has a purely genetic cause.

Answer 10

From my perspective it fills the void where your happiness is supposed to be. Not the best solution but otherwise there would be a vacuum. LOL