Nesse R M
Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48106-1248, USA.
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2000 Jan;57(1):14-20. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.57.1.14.
Many functions have been suggested for low mood or depression, including communicating a need for help, signaling yielding in a hierarchy conflict, fostering disengagement from commitments to unreachable goals, and regulating patterns of investment. A more comprehensive evolutionary explanation may emerge from attempts to identify how the characteristics of low mood increase an organism's ability to cope with the adaptive challenges characteristic of unpropitious situations in which effort to pursue a major goal will likely result in danger, loss, bodily damage, or wasted effort. In such situations, pessimism and lack of motivation may give a fitness advantage by inhibiting certain actions, especially futile or dangerous challenges to dominant figures, actions in the absence of a crucial resource or a viable plan, efforts that would damage the body, and actions that would disrupt a currently unsatisfactory major life enterprise when it might recover or the alternative is likely to be even worse. These hypotheses are consistent with considerable evidence and suggest specific tests.
关于情绪低落或抑郁，人们提出了许多功能，包括传达对帮助的需求、在等级冲突中示意屈服、促使从对无法实现的目标的承诺中脱离，以及调节投入模式。通过尝试确定情绪低落的特征如何提高生物体应对不利情况中适应性挑战的能力，可能会出现更全面的进化解释，在这种不利情况下，追求主要目标的努力可能会导致危险、损失、身体伤害或精力白费。在这种情况下，悲观和缺乏动力可能通过抑制某些行为而带来适应性优势，特别是对主导人物徒劳或危险的挑战、在缺乏关键资源或可行计划时的行为、会损害身体的努力，以及在当前不尽人意的主要生活事务可能恢复或替代方案可能更糟时会扰乱该事务的行为。这些假设与大量证据一致，并提出了具体的测试方法。
