[An organizational note: I will gradually add to this review, both via augmenting this original, and via separate comments mostly within this thread.]
Let me begin by saying that any book is to be warmly welcomed that offers an evolutionarily-informed analysis of depression as an alternative to the standard and almost criminally unimaginative medical model that posits unmitigated pathology. I can say with confidence, as an evolutionary biologist who has published on depression and continues to ponder it, that there is substance here. Yea!! So, read and consider "The Depths," but do not think that this is as good as it gets... "The Depths" largely remains in the shallows.
Several potentially important works by multiple evolutionary psychologists concerning the adaptive functions for navigating human social life of the chronic low mood gradient, from so-called minor to major depression, have been skirted by Rottenberg. Actually, that's an understatement.
As the author correctly states, theories don't prove anything; that may be his justification for not feeling a need to present them comprehensively. Its quite ironic, and perplexing, because the author genuinely seems to want to foster a brain-storming session around the evolved functional significance of depression. The author seems to have a terrible under-appreciation of theory, because it is theory that guides development of actual studies that, in turn, DO provide substantive evidence for or against alternative understandings of what's going on in the world, including the world of human moods. Of course, one wants good theory and good evidence. But even one good theory puts us light years ahead of where we would be with no theory, or even a hodge-podge of half-baked theories.
Let me be more specific. Most adaptations are expressed conditionally, contingently. When they are expressed, their specific triggering circumstances, is part of their functional design, which is a true hallmark of an adaptation. Without a specific theory (or, better, alternative specific theories) about the function of unipolar depression, which Rottenberg seems to wish to avoid, it will be impossible to predict specific conditions under which we expect it to be triggered, to escalate, and to go away. Rottenberg's eclectic multi-function orientation leaves us empirically handicapped. This would not be so bad, except that there ARE specific theories about the function of depression, solidly reasoned and evolutionary ones, waiting to be tested, about which he does not tell the reader. [This paragraph was added 4/26/14]
Theories not only guide research, they also may influence how a depressed person interacts with their therapist. Here theory has an immediate effect. There is a lot at stake! Without full detailed knowledge of potentially key correct theories, which can be subtle and complex (after all, the human mind and human social life are staggeringly complex), both research and critical therapeutic interactions may not advance efficiently or effectively. Also, by ignoring obviously relevant prior works, potentially therapeutic chances simply of understanding of one's own psychological condition will not be maximized.
Note that humans are obligate social creatures that depend, cross-culturally, upon "contractual reciprocity" for survival and reproduction. Thus we all build a social network around us that helps us solve most of our fitness-related problems. This contractual matrix sustains us, but it can also trap us... this basic problem must have been very common throughout much of human and perhaps even proto-human evolutionary history.
The social navigation hypothesis (and closely related bargaining hypothesis) suggests that people who would benefit hugely from a major change in their socioeconomic niche, but who are hindered from doing so by multiple members of their social network (including friends and mates), many of whom prefer to maintain status quo relationships, may become depressed after standard strategies of negotiation fail. In such cases, the depression (1) may enhance and focus ruminations about how to gain concessions and support, (2) send costly/honest signals of need to social partners that move them to cooperate, and (3) "extort" (without conscious intent) positive fitness correlates in the social network who are non-responsive to honest signals of need by withholding the status quo goods and services called for by current contractual relationships. Escalating, and essentially para-suicidal psycho-motor perturbation (e.g., fatigue) and anhedonia (which kills motivation to accomplish basic tasks), and the resulting inability to care for self and fulfill status quo obligations to others may eventually get crucial social partners to support niche change.
Many of the features of major depression that "The Depths" portrays as probably being too costly to be evolutionarily adaptive are well explained by the above-mentioned family of theories. For more information, easily find my web page on the evolution of unipolar depression by Googling: watson evolution depression. Some of the foundational references available for download on my page are:
Watson, P.J & Andrews, P.W. 2002. Toward a revised evolutionary adaptationist analysis of depression: The social navigation hypothesis. Journal of Affective Disorders 72, 1-14.
Hagen, E.H. 2002. Depression as bargaining: the case postpartum. Evolution and Human Behavior 23, 323-336.
Hagen, E.H. 2003. The bargaining model of depression. In: Genetic and Cultural Evolution of Cooperation, Peter Hammerstein, editor. Chapter 6, pp. 95-123. The MIT Press.
Cline-Brown, K., and Watson, P.J. 2005. Investigating major depressive disorder from an evolutionary adaptationist perspective: fitness hindrances and the social navigation hypothesis. In: Focus on Depression Research, Jeremy T. Devito, editor. Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
Hagen, E.H., Watson, P.J., and Hammerstein, P. 2008. Gestures of despair and hope: A view on deliberate self-harm from economics and evolutionary biology. Biological Theory 3(2), 123-138.
HERE IS THE 4-10-2014 ADDITION:
Today's appended remarks (entered 4-10-2014) were stimulated by material beginning on book page 27, Kindle Location 414. The issue that arises here, which at first may seem very picky, technical, and inconsequential, IMO utterly thwarts and poisons the book's whole laudable project of elucidating a potential evolutionary adaptive function of unipolar depression, understanding of which would, thank goodness, allow a significantly improved approach to professional treatment and, maybe even more important, more enlightened opportunities for friends and relatives to respond to depression.
Rottenberg states that he thinks that a hallmark of evolutionary adaptations is that they have multiple utilities' and that depression is no exception. This is wrong. Moreover thinking that this is what adaptations are like leads to a hopeless analytic morass if you're trying to get a handle on the evolved function of any trait that might be an adaptation.
George C. Williams, wrote a little bombshell of a book entitled "Adaptation and Natural Selection" (1966) that was crucial in kindling the so-called "second Darwinian revolution" of the 1960's and 70's. William's book was (is) so important because it finally helped naturalists and organismal biologists / ecologists, not just quantitative geneticists, fully understand Darwin's theory and its implications. (See William's obituary in Nature 467, 790; the 14 Oct 2010 issue - everyone interested in evolution, including laypeople, should know of him. If you cannot get to it, I'll email it to you on request.)
Anyway, one of the great services William's provided in A&NS was to elucidate how to identify any organismal feature as an evolutionary adaptation. He gave three essential criteria, namely, that in relation to the reproductive problem it is hypothesized to have evolved to solve, and in the evolutionary ecological context in which the trait arose, a putative adaptation must be strikingly (1) effective, (2) efficient, and (3) SPECIFIC in its functional design. (Adaptations might also reasonably be expected to be fitness-enhancing, on average. However, while it is worth checking for specific hypothesized fitness effects that correspond to a trait's putative evolved function, positive fitness effects may be very context specific, sporadic, or small. Thus negative results may not tell you much. It's the multi-investigator, peer-reviewed, reverse engineering analysis that Williams demands that, in spite of its subjective aspects (how specific??!) that is the only way to nail whether you've really nailed an adaptation. Comparative studies can also help identify adaptations, but there is no space here for that. Comparative studies are probably not too useful in the case of human depression anyway, as if is likely to have a highly altered function in humans than it has in mice, and even in other primates. Human social systems are unique in crucial respects and human depression has evolved, I propose, to solve a uniquely human problem - especially major depression.)
So for example, the human brain is not an adaptation. To some readers this may sound weird. But the brain actually is a reasonably well integrated, still evolving (work in progress) collection of 10's of thousands of information processing adaptations, each designed to perform a specific computational task relevant to increasing an individual human's fitness (or that of his close genetic relatives and other bona fide positive fitness correlates). There is no general problem solving device in the brain, as the social sciences tragically assumed for decades. The basic reason is that (Achtung!) there are no truly general problems in the environment. All reproductive problems have a structure to them. Selection can creates adaptations in response to a specifically structured "problem template," a specific and enduring reproductive challenge. Thus we get a close "fit" of the organism and each of its many adaptations to the environment.
The eyelid example Rottenberg gives to bolster his view is very misleading. To understand the adaptive function of traits, the organism has to be "carved at its evolutionary joints." That is, you have to separate out component adaptations properly in order to understand their function, their evolutionary history. Rottenberg does not do this in his example. He lumps multiple adaptations and calls them an eyelid. When Rottenberg talks about all the advantages of eyelids, he is really talking about a collection of adaptations that, working together, provide multiple benefits. Each of these adaptations was favored by selection to solve a specific problem related to having our type of eye. Selection, of course, favors integration of different adaptations over evolutionary time so that total fitness is maximized. This is NOT the same as a properly delineated single feature of an organism having multiple functions. The eyelids are not tears, are not eyelashes, etc.
As part of his justification for proposing that depression has multiple functions, he brings up the "obvious fact" that depression can be triggered by so many circumstances. It is worth noting, however, that every one of the listed triggers are circumstances UNITED by the strong possibility that they may bring about the need for major socioeconomic niche change in the affected person's life. Recognition that a need for niche change could arise in many ways in human social life, and the likelihood that such change would often be resisted by critical portions of the focal person's social network (i.e., recognition that a socially imposed capacity-opportunity mismatch vis-a'-vis fitnesss-enhancing activities would be a common occurrence in human life, thus selecting for an adaptation specifically designed to deal with that problem when standard depression-free negotiations with relevant social partners fail) - that is, in part, how the "niche change" hypothesis came about.
OK, so here is the thing. If you start by assuming that there are many depressions, that have many functions, you are never going to discover the likely SPECIFIC, or at least overwhelmingly dominant function of human unipolar depression, the key features of which Rottenberg correctly identifies (e.g., in his description of Matt, page 3 location 109). Consequently, your mission to really understand the trait better is bound to fail. This issue has kept evolutionary psychology at large from contributing significantly to the understanding of depression so far, and, for all its virtues, that failure continues in "The Depths." As far as I can tell, Rottenberg does not offer any kind of new sweeping compelling theory about the evolutionary function of depression in "The Depths," does he? Yes, he goes over some old ideas that are worth pondering, if you have not done so before, like depressive realism (easily explained by the SNH). But depression is massively over-designed to just sober one up about how life is treating you. None of these explanations are satisfying, are they? (Note some of the explanations offered in "The Depths" are on a "proximate" or "mechanistic," not an evolutionary "level of analysis" - more on this issue latter - if you want a brief paper on the confusion caused by mixing up levels of analysis I'll email you that too.)
We tried to avoid this multi-function error in developing the niche change hypothesis: THE FUNCTION of minor and major depression is hypothesized to be to confront and attain, if at all possible, and as an unconsciously chosen method of last resort, stubbornly socially opposed yet greatly needed niche change.
Even if am completely wrong about depression being a discreet psycho-physical adaptation with one crucial social navigation or bargaining function, we should still seriously TRY to determine if it has such a single core universal function, so that we can come up with a cogent useful Darwinian understanding and corresponding treatment, if one exists. Many people seem to resist making this effort.
I could go on and on. I've got to finish for today, friends. No doubt I'll edit this entry in upcoming days. (I'll also try to respond to questions about today's entry.) But, let's have at it. The time has come for me to begin to deliver on my promise of more specific critiques of this book. So here is the first. Further entries probably will be entered as comments by me under the main review, otherwise this thing will probably get too long.
Come and get me! Cheers -- PJW
END OF 4-10-14 ADDITION
MORE: 4-12,4-13, & 4-16 additions to this original PJW review have been added as comments to this thread, below.
Dr. Paul J. Watson
Department of Biology
University of New Mexico
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