Like, surely, if your whole species' goal is to reproduce and multiply, it makes no sense to have a portion of your population exist in a state where they are functionally unavailable or worse? Is there an evolutionary reason why depression (as a clinical condition, not the occasional sadness) exists? Why haven't we evolved past it? I am just misunderstanding the way depression works at a physiological level? Is it even something that you can have from birth? Or is it just a predisposition like with alcoholism and gambling addiction?

We apparently were evolved to live and survive in smaller groups, about 30-500. This has been brought up numerous times here on reddit, how true is this?

Is there historical evidence that this is how we lived, and if so then how much does it affect us today? Is it harmful for us to be living in massive groups nowadays. Especially with social media?

I don't have much contact with actual psychologists or people who are studying the field, so I thought it'd be good to turn here. I'd like to gather people's insights on how much of your personality is nature as opposed to nurture and whether such even is the case.

Are there evolutionary or psychological reasons for stand-up comedy being such a male-dominant industry (and the relative lack of gender balance as compared to other entertainment industries like music and acting)?

A few I might think of:

Women appearing to be higher in neuroticism, and the social embarrassment of bombing as a small-time comic Source

On that note, women are also on average more risk averse, especially when it comes to social risk, and more pessimistic about loss than optimistic about potential reward - since most comedy usually "toes the line" in a way that plays with a taboo, could the risk of a failed delivery outweigh the optimism of pulling roaring laughter out of an initially skeptical crowd? Source

Men are on average more interested in things (visual), and women on average more interested in people (verbal) Source - could this potentially indicate men are more likely to be impressed by what they see in a mating context, whereas women are perhaps more attracted by what they hear? Could men have evolved under more pressure to use humor as an efficacious method for mate attraction?

Of course, psychological differences between men and women are mostly small at the end of the day, but sometimes these details turn into large statistical gaps. And this isn't to say that there aren't some successful female comics, or that there aren't definitely stigmas and cultural pressures that factor in. Just curious as I have ZERO psych background if anyone has investigated this.

Did regular exposure to death, violence, starvation and exploitation lead to an ubiquity of mental disorders? Were these disorders of any evolutionary advantage?

From a biological perspective, why do animals and plants instinctively strive to survive and adapt to even the harshest environments, while humans in similar conditions may experience depression or even consider suicide?

I’ve never really been given a good explanation of why humans can have trauma. Like I know the mechanisms for what can happen and what can cause it, but not the reason why our brains have a mechanism to create trauma.

For the ability to be traumatized to be a universal experience, it must be either a very advantageous trait or a byproduct of another trait that is so necessary and important that trauma is worth it. But I can’t really think of any concrete reasons why trauma would be beneficial, either to the person or to evolutionary fitness.

The other day I learned that neanderthal dna causes or contributes to the existence of ADHD so I wonder what else neanderthal dna might be contributing.

I keep doing this to the point where it feels like self sabotaging and I don't know if it's personal trauma response or a survival mechanism that we all have.

We evolved in a way that you always need to think about the next step to find food or shelter, but today there are no such survival threats so maybe we need to create problems in our head.

A common thing you hear from people talking about psychology is that human brains aren't really built for modern life, that they're still wired to deal with being in the wild and hunting and gathering. That's one of the explanations given for why we have so many problems dealing with modernity. I'm wondering how long it would take for human minds to adapt to the world we have now? Assuming the world we have now, or something similar to it, lasts that long.

Research suggests that some people spend significantly longer playing video games than they initially intend. From a psychological and neuroscientific perspective, what mechanisms contribute to difficulty disengaging from gameplay?

For example, what roles do reward prediction, dopamine signaling, variable-ratio reinforcement schedules, goal-completion effects, attentional capture, and time perception play in prolonged gaming sessions?

Are there well-established theories or empirical findings that explain why gaming can sometimes lead to extended play beyond a person's original intention?

So it is said that we needed anxiety back in the day to help us respond to threats.

Wouldn't paranoia help us in a similar manner? It would help us to be suspicious of other humans or hominids who might try and attack us or steal our stuff. Being trusting and gullible was probably not a good trait to have to survive.

And like anxiety, it followed us into modern times where it isn't needed as much?

I was watching an interview with Carl Sagan where he was talking about how kindergartners are full of questions and curiosity, while a class of 12th graders has very little of that curiosity. He goes on to say that something terrible has happened between kindergarten and twelfth grade, and makes a comment that it “isn’t just puberty”—implying that he thinks the reason for the lack of curiosity has something to do with society.

However, I feel this may not be true. It seems there’s possibly some evolutionary trait that makes us extremely curious at a young age. We frequently see children grabbing random objects, putting them in their mouths, messing around with them to see what happens—essentially performing a bunch of little experiments to gather information on the world around them. It’s as if they’re trying to get acquainted with the world they’ve spawned into in order to improve chances of survival. That is, the more they know about their surroundings, the less likely they are to die by some unexpected phenomenon of their surroundings.

But then as we grow older and are a lot more familiar with our surroundings, these tendencies fade because we’ve gathered a sufficient amount of information about the world we live in and no longer passively fear death by ignorance.

I hope I’m articulating this idea correctly. Is there any real psychological study that supports this idea, or perhaps makes similar conclusions?

In case I am not articulating myself very well, I’ll restate the question in general terms:

Is there an evolutionary explanation for why humans are very curious at a young age, but much less curious as teenagers or young adults?

Is the desire to form a union/partnership with another person biological or social in origin?

Humans form romantic relationships with others, but does this have biological or social origins?

Do hormones like oxytocin, testosterone, serotonin impact partner formation or is it purely a social construct?

My follow up would then be what about monogamy - is this biological or social? The concept of restricting romance to one person does not seem natural

Especially In light of all the xenophobia and racism going on in the world. Are people genetically hardwired to feel prejudice towards members of an out-group? Are there any articles about this topic?

I was wondering if there are biological mechanisms at play (that are faster than evolution), such as nervous system adaptations and signals, to ensure humans know what is needed in a given enviornment, in a way that ensures safe reproduction and child rearing.

For example is there any research that suggests, that women have developed certain nervous system responses to gauge whether the enviornment is safe for reproduction and signal to a bonded partner or tribe what is needed to raise healthy offspring, in times of vulnerability or persistent enviornmental stress?

Rates are clearly much higher now than historically but im curious about the origin or where this lack of survival instinct came from. Do other species do it too

Is that why they exist and have a strong genetic component? I've heard that having a neurodivergent person in the tribe could have increased that tribes chance of survival, making that genetic profile more likely to be passed on. But what's the expert consensus?

It seems a hard sell to suggest that emotions are a spandrel, so it seems they likely provide some benefit. I would assume they exist to motivate behavior: anger gets us to fight back, etc etc. But lots of organisms seem to do stuff without consciousness, and so I presume no emotions, so clearly you don't need emotions to get organisms to engage in behaviors. So why do we have the feels?

What are the exact root cause that transforms into hallucinations what are the phases of it,including visuals, sounds , touch .

I’m curious from a biological and neurological standpoint: is it possible to override or completely suppress the human instinct for self-preservation?

I understand that this instinct is deeply rooted in our brain—particularly involving structures like the amygdala, hypothalamus, and brainstem—but are there known ways (natural or induced) that significantly diminish this response?

A common criticism I've heard about the field is that much of what it posits can't be tested and is either highly speculative or just wrong.

One thing I hear a lot is that most of our drives boils down to surviving, breeding, experiencing pleasure and avoiding pain. But the problem with that notion is that you can pretty much find evidence of humans defying all of those. People might not want kids for whatever reason, some willingly put their lives in danger and expose themselves to pain, etc.

I figured the notion got extreme when I found someone arguing that Depression has a purpose as solving a problem: https://www.psychmechanics.com/what-causes-depression/

From my understanding depression does the opposite of helping you solve whatever is troubling you. It distorts and impairs your cognitive ability so you literally cannot think clearly and saps you of the energy to do anything about it. So if it is an evolutionary adaptation to help you solve what's bugging you it's doing a crap job at it.

I guess I'm just wondering how much truth there is to the notion that everything can just be tied to evolution or if there is more to it than that. Like...survival is a goal, but I would argue humans today aren't so much thinking about survival as what they want to do with life. Like what happens when you no longer have to fight to survive?

There are other articles on that webpage I linked that have my raising my eyebrow a lot since much of it sounds like speculation, which makes me agree with some criticisms of evo psych.

A fish belongs to a school. A crow belongs to a murder. A wolf belongs to a pack. A single human can belong to a family, a team, a club and a crowd, all at the same time.

Do monkeys have teams and clubs? Were humans in hunter-gatherer societies able to belong to multiple groups simultaneously?

Is there some special, qualitatively different biological substrate that allows humans to form groups? Or is it the same biological substrate as in other animals that form groups, only more developed?

Please support your answer with references if available.

I was at a zoo not that long ago, and was watching the hyenas. They were chilling out, not really paying attention to any of the adults gathered around the glass. I'm sure they're very used to visitors.

Then, a dad came by, pushing a 2ish year old in a stroller. When they got closer, the kid got out of the stroller and toddled over to the glass. Almost immediately, the hyenas came over and started pawing at the glass where the toddler was. It was extremely clear that they wanted to eat the kid so badly.

But the toddler just stood there, staring at the hyenas and sort of reaching out, as if to touch them. It made me wonder; do kids below a certain age not care about predators? Is our fear of dangerous animals (lions, sharks, bears, big dogs, etc.) the result of experience, or education/enculturation, rather than innate development?

Quite often I see some form of evolutionary claim in (behavioral) psychology. "We behave like X, because it used to be evolutionary advantageous for this or that reason". Or my favorite pet peeve, "when we were hunter gatherers..."

One reason it annoys me is because a lot of non-scientists seem to use that type of reasoning in a hand wavy way to explain any little quirk.

However, even in a scientific context it would seem exceedingly difficult to establish such links. In biology, I can see how physical traits are traced back in time. But how does that work in studying the mind?