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Glass, D. J. (2012). Evolutionary clinical psychology, broadly construed: Perspectives on obsessive-compulsive disorder. Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, 6(3), 292-308.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44DCWslbsNM
Anxiety (obsession) and rituals (compulsions)
Possible Evolutionary Forces Accounting for Existence of Mental
Disorders Adaptation: trait shaped by natural selection to solve
problems in EEA
Mismatch: once adaptive, but now maladaptive in novel environments
Byproduct: trait is a result of selection of other traits
Balancing selection: trait’s benefits offset its costs in particular environments
Mutation selection balance: minor mutations take longer to be selected against
Lesion
Adaptationism & OCD
Symptoms are related to threat-avoidance and once provided fitness benefits
Meta-cognition of risk scenarios
Benefits for entire group
Non-Adaptationist Evolutionary Approaches
Environmental mismatch theory and mental disorders as normal functioning processes? Harmful dysfunction defining a true disorder
Aren’t disorders just a by-product of our complex brains and not adaptations of our ancestors? But then how can evolution and natural
selection account for how common, harmful, and heritable these disorders are?
Non-Adaptationist Evolutionary Approaches
Antagonistic pleiotropy: a gene has both harmful and advantageous effects OCD can serve as a harm-avoidant tendency through
balancing selection
Ethological models
Animal models of OCD paralleled with human exemplar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWjxC0MV8UU
What about the anxiety/obsessive component? Basal ganglia dysfunction in animals CBT?
Other Evolutionary Perspectives on Mental Illness
Murphy and Stich: domain-specific modules are malfunctioning Could explain 4 dimensions of OCD as 4 different
neural pathways/domains of functioning
Feygin et al.: 4 domains are threat-avoidance based
Table 2. Possible Adaptive Functions Underlying Systems Dysregulated in OCD
Name of Symptom Dimension Symptoms Involved Possible Normal Function of
A ffe c te d B ra in S y s te m s
Forbidden Thoughts
Violent intrusive thoughts, “magical thinking,” checking rituals, religious/sexual obsessions
Causal relationships; precautionary measures to avoid danger
Cleaning Contamination fears, cleaning/washing
Avoidance of pathogens
Symmetry Ordering/repeating rituals,
obsessions with numbers, patterns, symmetry, exactness
Intuitive patterns/ mathematics; by-product of organized brain
Hoarding Hoarding behaviors Resource acquisition
Life without any level of OCD symptoms at all?
OCD sufferers are one extreme of the polygenetic trait, what about the other extreme?
Evolution as the only perspective
All research domains of biology and psychology are moving towards becoming evolutionary in nature Does not require strong adaptationism, but
might include it
Discussion
The article describes a mental disorder as a harmful dysfunction. Do you think this is accurate? Do you think this qualifies OCD as a mental disorder, in either our modern environment or the EEA?