Mental Illness as Evolutionary Advantage

[fringekitty]

goodbrains sent me this article regarding the possible evolutionary advantages related to mental conditions:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26410186/

Now I just need a bumper-sticker that reads: I'm not mental. I'm evolved!  ;-)

x-posted to neuroscience and trnsprsnl_psych

Comments

[jryson]

Not a surprise. Diversity improves the chance that somebody can deal with a new problem.

[fringekitty]

This makes me think of monocultures in agriculture/ecology--they tend to get wiped out pretty easily; however more natural, mixed plantings not only survive better in general, they spring back from seed much more quickly even if the plants themselves are destroyed. Apologies if this is too much of a tangent. :)

[jryson]

I guess the mods can decide if it's OT. Meanwhile, I don't think it is, because I think it's the same principle. Diversity of challenges requires diversity of responses.

Now, about fringekitty's bumper stickers:

http://www.makestickers.com/

[ladyelaine]

Seasonal depression makes you hibernate, Asperger's makes you able to focus intensely, ADHD gives you heightened energy, and on and on. Sometimes I wonder if the modern idea of mental illness is because society is set up exclusively for round pegs, where different people would have probably once been productive in different ways.

[fringekitty]

Wouldn't it be wonderful if society could discover the advantages each condition confers rather than focusing exclusively on the perceived disadvantages? Sure, we need to understand our vulnerabilities and need to work to strengthen perceived weaknesses where possible, but I think that there are significant advantages that are completely unrecognized and neglected, such as the ones you listed above.

=^.^=

[peacedance]

I'm trying to remember a statement I heard that stuck with me (but I don't remember who said it) that most mental illnesses don't bother the person nearly as much as it bothers the people around them. So society in many ways was punishing non-conformity rather than an illness. I'm paraphrasing, but that was the general drift.

[fringekitty]

Will do! :)

[jryson]

Let me know when you come out with that bumper sticker..I want one. :P

SRSLY??

http://www.makestickers.com/

[that]

Seems to me like any trait that persists probably has evolutionary value. I think one reason we see so many personality schemas as pathologies is because the social environment, which has mostly replaced the natural environment as the field of competition, is undergoing an accelerating evolution itself. The world we're living in now rewards very specific skills which were probably of limited utility even 50 years ago, as is evidenced by the rise of the nerd in the economic and social hierarchy.

[tormod]

Evolution takes hundreds of generations usually, so a persistent trait is not necessarily valuable... more often than not mutations are deleterious, at least according to genetics 101.

What I can't figure out is why people keep making statements like "humans are the only species to worry about the future". Proving statements of that sort would require detailed study of every species on the planet, and probably telepathy. How an "expert" on evolution could make such an anthropocentric statement is beyond me.

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[sergeykrk]

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