ASCAP, April 1999, 18-19
Response to Dylan Evans
I was both pleased and chastened to read Dylan
Evans thoughtful article. The reason I
felt chastened was that we do not seem to have stated the hypothesis
clearly. Dylan Evans says, for instance,
"By signalling the intention to look for another niche, the submission
cues indicate that the depressed individual does not pose a threat to the
established dominance hierarchy in the current niche." What we have actually been saying is that
depression helps the individual to accept a low rank in the "established
dominance hierarchy of the current niche" and one of the obligations of
low rank is to do what one is told by higher ranking people. If higher ranking people want the depressed
person to go off and look for another niche, all very well. But if the "powers that be" want
the depressed person to stay, the depressed person stays. To "signal the intention to look for
another niche" is a signal of social initiative, and the depressive is (or
should be) signalling not initiative but incapacity. I will try to elaborate this point, at the
risk of some repetition. The reader is also referred to other sources
(1,2,3).
Finding a new niche?
Some theorists have suggested that the function
of depression is to get the person out of their existing niche into a new niche
in which they will function better and have more success (4,5,6). This is not our view. Our reasons are partly the nature of
depression itself, and partly the nature of the task it has to perform.
One of
the main features of depression is its pervasiveness. It affects all goals and incentives. It takes away the power of logical thought
and the capacity to make decisions.
Everything seems black and hopeless to the depressed person. This is not the state of mind in which to
choose a new niche. Possibly
emotional/limbic de-escalation might serve this function - in this case there
is an object for the depressed emotion, the person is depressed about
something, and may be able to formulate a strategy which will avoid the painful
emotion. But depression as we see it in
the clinic - what we have called instinctive/reptilian de-escalation (or the
yielding subroutine, or the involuntary subordinate strategy) - this is either
unfocused on an object, or self-focused, and it is globally incapacitating, and
it appears to be the sort of state in which the depressed person will be unable
to get out of the existing niche, however bad.
And
this is exactly the role we have postulated for depression. It is not to change one's niche, but to
accept one's niche however bad. In a
hierarchical society, the bad niche is associated with low rank. Depression inhibits rebellion, and it also
inhibits the desire to find a new niche.
How many wives have we all treated who were too depressed to leave their
husbands? The depressed wife may allow
herself to be swept off her feet by a knight in shining armour, but she is not
well equipped to find new accommodation for herself and her children, and to
support herself and be independent. Nor
is she likely to be sufficiently assertive to chuck her unsatisfactory husband
out. Nor indeed is she likely to be
attractive to a "knight in shining armour", nor to be found in those
social arenas in which knights in shining armour are likely to congregate. Depressed wives are able to carry out the
day-to-day household drudgery, but they are too depressed to take any
initiative or change their situation.
And, as a matter of interest, they are too depressed to mirror their
children's "grandiose selves" and so are unable to inculcate a
life-long high self-esteem strategy in their children.
In
summary, the depressed person accepts the definition offered by the other. If this definition is to stay in the existing
niche, then the role of the depressed person is to stay. If the other wants the depressed person to
go, they go (responding to some such command as, "Get off my
patch!"). This is what
"yielding" is all about.
The cue which triggers depression
I
would like to take up Dylan Evans point about the cues which trigger
depression, or rather, the cues which trigger the module which causes the
behaviours which we call the Involuntary Subordinate Strategy (ISS) which we
sometimes recognise as "major depression". We all presumably have some sort of module
which monitors whether we are getting what is due to us, or what we deserve, or
what we want, or whether we are getting our own way, or, more technically,
whether our definitions of relationships and situations are being accepted by
people around us. Or, conversely,
whether we are being thwarted and unsuccessful, and having unacceptable
definitions forced on us. Are our
escalating strategies being successful?
If not, there may be advantage in a change of strategy. It seems likely that the final common path of
this module is loss of self-esteem (RHP and/or SAHP; or mate value; or, simply, R).
Our
module also needs to predict whether we are likely not to get our own way in
the future. Some events are good predictors
of loss of rank. Loss of an ally, for
instance, must be a good predictor of loss of rank, in view of the fact that
most human rank depends on a balance of alliances. Also childbirth is a good predictor of the
possibility that one's own desires may have to give way to the desires of
others. Not every baby born is wanted by
the group, and infanticide is common in most cultures. To kill one's own baby,
or to permit others to kill it (rather than fighting like a tigress for her
cub) is an experience which a significant proportion of post-partum women have
to undergo, and because of the strength of the maternal instinct, may require a
strong incentive to submit to group pressures.
This may be provided by depression, and we know that depressed post-partum
women not infrequently kill their own babies.
It seems likely that, for a certain period after childbirth, the module
that triggers depression has a lowered threshold.
Rates of depression
We have suggested that depression is a failsafe
way of getting people to accept low rank.
There are other, more effective, ways of accepting low rank - using the
rational/neocortical brain, or Birtchnell's outer brain. For instance, one can be humble, and take the
view that one does not deserve any higher rank than one has. If everyone was humble (de-escalating at the
rational/neocortical level), we would predict that rates of depression would be
much reduced. If you get as much as you
expect, or more than you expect, you tend to be happy. If you get less than you expect, you are
angry or unhappy (the emotional/limbic agonistic strategy set is
accessed). This may be a reason why
everyone is not depressed.
The
sort of upbringing which is likely to predispose to depression is one in which
the child is told he (or she) could become President of the
This
marital problem is exaggerated in marriages of couples from different
longitudes. We know there is a high
correlation between eastern longitude and the cultural expectation of female
subordination. Therefore, if men marry
to the east, the wives get more equality than they expect, and are happy. If men marry to the west, the wives are
forced into a cultural role of subordination they were not prepared for, and
are likely to get depressed. This
prediction is borne out by clinical experience, but I know of no
epidemiological work which has addressed the problem.
Voluntary submission
In summary, according to the social competition
hypothesis of depression, the goals of the depressed person are given up (or,
at least, not effectively pursued) but they are not replaced by new personal
goals, but rather by the goals of other more powerful group members. Then, ideally, the depressed person adopts
these new goals, so that their goals become identical with the goals of the
group (or of its powerful members). Then
there can be acceptance and reconciliation.
True submission (at the rational/neocortical level) means identifying
oneself with the goals (and beliefs) of the person one is submitting to. Then the seeds of rebellion are no longer
present, and depression is no longer required.
1. Price
JS, Sloman L, Gardner R, Gilbert P & Rohde P. (1994) The
social competition hypothesis of depression.
British Journal of Psychiatry 1994;164:309-135. Reprinted in S. Baron-Cohen (editor), The
Maladapted Mind: Classic Readings in
Evolutionary Psychopathology,
2.
Stevens A & Price J: Evolutionary Psychiatry: A New Beginning.
3. Price
JS: The adaptive function of mood change.
British Journal of Medical Psychology 1998;71:465-477.
4.
Hamburg DA, Hamburg BA & Barchas JD: Anger and depression in
perspective of behavioral biology. In L Levi (editor,) Emotions: Their Paramaters and Measurement,
5.
Klinger E: Consequences of commitment to and
disengagement from incentives. Psychological
Review 1975;82:1-25.
6.
Champion LA & Power MJ: Social and cognitive approaches to
depression. British Journal of
Clinical Psychology 1995;34:485-503.