Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-bvgqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-30T20:27:11.372Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Social Competition Hypothesis of Depression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

John Price ,
Leon Sloman ,
Russell Gardner Jr ,
Paul Gilbert  and
Peter Rohde
John Price*
Affiliation:
Odintune Place, Plumpton, E. Sussex, BN7 3AN
Leon Sloman
Affiliation:
Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, Toronto, Canada
Russell Gardner Jr
Affiliation:
University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, USA
Paul Gilbert
Affiliation:
Derby University
Peter Rohde
Affiliation:
53 Harley Street, London W1N 1DD
*
∗ Department of Psychiatry, Wellington School of Medicine, Wellington, New Zealand
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Depressive personality and depressive illness are examined from an evolutionary adaptationist standpoint. It is postulated that the depressive state evolved in relation to social competition, as an unconscious, involuntary losing strategy, enabling the individual to accept defeat in ritual agonistic encounters and to accommodate to what would otherwise be unacceptably low social rank.

Information

Type
Peer Review
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 164 , Issue 3 , March 1994 , pp. 309 - 315
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abbott, D. H., Barrett, J., Faulkes, C. G., et al (1989) Social contraception in naked mole-rats and marmoset monkeys. Journal of Zoology, London, 219, 703–710.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Archer, J. (1988) The Behavioural Biology of Aggression. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barkow, J. H. (1989) Darwin, Sex and Status: Biological Approaches to Mind and Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bateson, G. (1972) Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine Books.Google Scholar
Beck, A. T. (1967) Depression: Clinical, Experimental and Theoretical Aspects. New York: Hoeber.Google Scholar
Beck, A. T. (1987) Cognitive models of depression. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 1, 5–37.Google Scholar
Birnbach, M. (1962) Non-Freudian Social Philosophy. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, G. W., Andrews, B., Harris, T., et al (1986) Social support, self-esteem and depression. Psychological Medicine, 16, 813–831.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Darwin, C. (1871) The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Dl Waal, F. B. M. & Harcourt, A. H. (1992) Coalitions and alliances: a history of ethological research. In Coalitions and Alliances in Humans and Other Animals (eds A. H. Harcourt & F. B. M. De Waal), pp. 1–19. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fava, M., Rosenbaum, J. F., Pava, J. A., et al (1993) Anger attacks in unipolar depression. Part 1: clinical correlates and response to fluoxetine treatment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 1158–1163.Google ScholarPubMed
Gardner, R. J. Jr. (1982) Mechanisms in major depressive disorder: an evolutionary model. Archives of General Psychiatry, 39, 1436–1441.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilbert, P. (1992) Depression: The Evolution of Powerlessness. Hove: Erlbaum. New York: Guilford.Google Scholar
Glantz, K. & Pearce, J. K. (1989) Exiles from Eden: Psychotherapy from an Evolutionary Perspective. London: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Goldberg, S. (1991) Recent developments in attachment theory and research. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 36, 393–400.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haley, J. (1963) Marriage therapy. Archives of General Psychiatry, 8, 213–234.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hamburg, D. A., Hamburg, B. A. & Barchas, J. D. (1975) Anger and depression in the perspective of behavioral biology. In Emotions: their parameters and measurement (ed. Levi, L.), pp. 235–278. New York: Raven Press.Google Scholar
Hamilton, W. D. (1963) The evolution of altruistic behaviour. The American Naturalist, 97, 354–356.Google Scholar
Harvey, P. H. & Bradbury, J. W. (1991) Sexual Selection. In Behavioural Ecology: An Evolutionary Approach (eds J. R. Krebs & N. B. Davies), pp. 203–233. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Henry, J. P., Stephens, P. M. & Ely, D. L. (1986) Psychosocial hypertension and the defence and defeat reactions. Journal of Hypertension, 4, 687–697.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hill, D. (1968) Depression: disease, reaction or posture? American Journal of Psychiatry, 125, 445–456.Google Scholar
Holst, D. von (1986) Vegetative and somatic components of tree shrews' behavior. Journal of the Autonomic Nervous System, (suppl.), pp. 657–670.Google Scholar
Huntingford, F. & Turner, A. (1987) Animal Conflict. London: Chapman & Hall.Google Scholar
Karasu, T. B. (1990) Toward a clinical model of psychotherapy for depression. 1: Systematic comparison of three psychotherapies. American Journal of Psychiatry, 147, 133–147.Google Scholar
Keenleyside, M. H. A. (1979) Diversity and Adaptation in Fish Behaviour. Berlin: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendler, K. S., Kessler, R. C., Neale, M. C., et al (1993) The prediction of major depression in women: toward an integrated etiologic model. American Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 1139–1148.Google Scholar
Klinger, E. (1975) Consequences of commitment to and disengagement from incentives. Psychological Review, 82, 1–25.Google Scholar
Krebs, D. (1987) The challenge of altruism in biology and psychology. In Sociobiology and Psychology (eds C. Crawford, M. Smith & D. Krebs), pp. 81–118. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Krebs, J. R. & Davies, N. B. (1987) An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology, 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lancet (1988) Editorial: self-esteem. Lancet, ii, 943–944.Google Scholar
Leshner, A. I. (1983) The hormonal responses to competition and their behavioral significance. In Hormones and Aggressive Behavior (ed. Svare, B. B.), pp. 393–404. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, A. J. (1934) Melancholia: a clinical survey of depressive states. Journal of Mental Science, 80, 277–378.Google Scholar
McGuire, M. T. (1988) On the possibility of ethological explanations of psychiatric disorders. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 77, suppl. 341, pp. 7–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maynard Smith, J. (1982) Evolution and the Theory of Games. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nesse, R. M. (1990) Evolutionary explanations of emotions. Human Nature, 1, 261–289.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parker, G. A. (1974) Assessment strategy and the evolution of fighting behaviour. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 47, 223–243.Google Scholar
Parker, G. A. (1984) Evolutionarily stable strategies. In Behavioural Ecology: An Evolutionary Approach, 2nd edn (eds J. R. Krebs & N. B. Davies), pp. 30–61. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Powles, W. E. (1992) Human Development and Homeostasis: The Science of Psychiatry. Madison CT: International Universities Press.Google Scholar
Price, J. S. (1967) Hypothesis: the dominance hierarchy and the evolution of mental illness. Lancet, ii, 243–246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, J. S. (1988) Alternative channels for negotiating asymmetry in social relationships. In Social Fabrics of the Mind (ed. Chance, M. R. A.), pp. 157–195. Hove: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Price, J. S. (1989) The effect of social stress on the behaviour and physiology of monkeys. In Contemporary Themes in Psychiatry (eds K. Davison & A. Kerr), pp. 459–466. London: Gaskell Press.Google Scholar
Price, J. S. (1991) Homeostasis or change: a systems theory approach to depression. Journal of Medical Psychology, 64, 331–344.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Price, J. S. (1992a) The agonic and hedonic modes: definition, usage, and the promotion of mental health. World Futures, 34, 234–269.Google Scholar
Price, J. S. (1992b) Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative: the role of boosting and putting-down signals in mental health. In Promotion of Mental Health, Vol. 1, 1991 (ed. Trent, D.), pp. 89–101. Aldershot: Avebury.Google Scholar
Price, J. S. & Sloman, L. (1987) Depression as yielding behavior: an animal model based on Schjelderup-Ebbe's pecking order. Ethology and Sociobiology, 8 (suppl.), 85–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radford, M. H. B., Mann, L. & Kalucy, R. S. (1986) Psychiatric disturbance and decision-making. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 20, 210–217.Google Scholar
Riley, W. T., Treiber, F. A. & Woods, M. G. (1989) Anger and hostility in depression. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 177, 668–674.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ryan, M. J. (1985) The Tungara Frog: a Study in Sexual Selection and Communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sachser, N. & Lick, C. (1991) Social experience, behavior and stress in guinea pigs. Physiology and Behavior, 50, 83–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sloman, L. (1976) The role of neurosis in phylogenetic adaptation with particular reference to early man. American Journal of Psychiatry, 133, 543–547.Google ScholarPubMed
Sloman, S. & Sloman, L. (1988) Mate selection in the service of human evolution. Journal of Social and Biological Structures, 11, 457–468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sloman, L., Gardner, R. & Price, J. S. (1989) Biology of family systems and mood disorders. Family Process, 28, 387–398.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stravynski, A. & Greenberg, D. (1992) The psychological management of depression. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 85, 407–414.Google Scholar
Wenegrat, B. (1984) Sociobiology and Mental Disorder. California: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Wilhelm, K. & Parker, G. (1989) Is sex necessarily a risk factor to depression? Psychological Medicine, 19, 401–403.Google Scholar
Winberg, S. & Nilsson, G. E. (1993) Time course of changes in brain serotonergic activity and brain tryptophan levels in dominant and subordinate juvenile arctic char. Journal of Experimental Biology, 179, 181–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.