The Evolutionary Psychology Of Anxiety & Depression - Ed Hagen
Ed Hagen (guest), Chris Williamson (host), Narrator
In this episode of Modern Wisdom, featuring Ed Hagen and Chris Williamson, The Evolutionary Psychology Of Anxiety & Depression - Ed Hagen explores evolutionary roots of depression, suicide, strength, and music explained Ed Hagen applies evolutionary psychology to reframe depression, suicidality, postpartum depression, and even music as potentially adaptive responses to adversity rather than mere malfunctions. He argues that depression is analogous to physical pain—an evolved form of “psychic pain” that halts harmful behavior, forces deep problem-solving (rumination), and signals need to others. He presents data suggesting that the apparent sex difference in depression is largely a strength difference, with physical formidability influencing who prevails in social conflicts and thus who is more likely to become depressed. Hagen also proposes that most suicide attempts and postpartum depression function as costly, credible signals of need, and that music and synchronized performance evolved as honest signals of coalition quality.
Evolutionary roots of depression, suicide, strength, and music explained
Ed Hagen applies evolutionary psychology to reframe depression, suicidality, postpartum depression, and even music as potentially adaptive responses to adversity rather than mere malfunctions. He argues that depression is analogous to physical pain—an evolved form of “psychic pain” that halts harmful behavior, forces deep problem-solving (rumination), and signals need to others. He presents data suggesting that the apparent sex difference in depression is largely a strength difference, with physical formidability influencing who prevails in social conflicts and thus who is more likely to become depressed. Hagen also proposes that most suicide attempts and postpartum depression function as costly, credible signals of need, and that music and synchronized performance evolved as honest signals of coalition quality.
Key Takeaways
Reframe depression as extreme sadness serving problem-solving and signaling functions.
Hagen suggests depression is akin to physical pain: it is triggered by serious adversity, forces you to stop what you’re doing, focus intensely on what went wrong (rumination), and can prompt learning and behavioral change to avoid similar threats in the future.
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Recognize that depression strongly tracks adversity, especially unclear, high-stakes problems.
Depression is most likely when events severely threaten survival/reproduction (loss of partner, job, health, social status) and when the solution is not obvious, necessitating prolonged cognitive effort and withdrawal from other activities.
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Consider physical strength as a buffer against depression via conflict outcomes.
Using large national datasets, Hagen’s group finds that when controlling for upper-body strength, sex differences in depression largely disappear; stronger individuals of both sexes are less likely to be depressed, plausibly because they more often prevail in social conflicts.
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View many suicide attempts as costly signals to elicit support, not true ‘fitness maximization’ failures.
Because most attempts do not result in death (especially in women), Hagen argues suicidality frequently functions as an honest signal of severe need during conflict or abuse, convincing skeptical social partners to intervene—though some signals tragically overshoot and become lethal.
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Interpret postpartum depression in the context of support and child viability.
Postpartum depression strongly correlates with low partner/family support or mother/infant health problems. ...
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Understand that evolutionary psychology does not require racial psychological hierarchies.
Hagen emphasizes that core evolutionary psychology posits a shared ‘psychic unity’ evolved in Africa, with very recent and minor physical population differences; he criticizes low-quality ‘race and IQ’ work that abuses poor national data and is not representative of mainstream evolutionary psychology.
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See music and synchronous performance as potential coalition-quality signals.
Our ability to remember songs for decades and perform in tight synchrony likely required specialized adaptations; Hagen proposes that costly, well-rehearsed musical/dance synchrony signals long-term coordinated cooperation, making groups more attractive allies and thereby enhancing fitness.
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Notable Quotes
“We should really think of depression probably as an extreme form of sadness, or what Randy Thornhill and others have called psychic pain.”
— Ed Hagen
“Our hypothesis was that the sex difference in depression is really a strength difference, not a sex difference.”
— Ed Hagen
“For the vast majority of suicidal behavior, the phenomenon of interest is the suicide attempt, and the deaths are the unintended, accidental consequences of making a serious signal.”
— Ed Hagen
“Many, many cases of postpartum depression are occurring in contexts where mothers feel they don't have social support… and that would have been a cue ancestrally that this child isn't going to make it.”
— Ed Hagen
“If we rule out telling stories, then science dies.”
— Ed Hagen
Questions Answered in This Episode
If depression and suicidality are evolved signals, how should that change clinical treatment strategies in practice?
Ed Hagen applies evolutionary psychology to reframe depression, suicidality, postpartum depression, and even music as potentially adaptive responses to adversity rather than mere malfunctions. ...
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To what extent can increasing physical strength or perceived formidability realistically reduce depression risk, and through which psychological pathways?
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Where is the line between adaptive rumination and harmful, immobilizing overthinking, and how can individuals recognize and manage that boundary?
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How can we ethically use the ‘credible signaling’ framework for suicidality without seeming to legitimize or romanticize self-harm?
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What kinds of modern mismatches (e.g., social media, firearms, nuclear families) might be distorting these ancient signaling systems for depression, suicide, and postpartum distress?
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Transcript Preview
Our hypothesis was that the sex difference in depression is really a strength difference, not a sex difference. And so what we found is that when we controlled for upper body strength, the sex difference in depression diminished and actually went away in, in some of our analyses. Suggesting that, uh, once you control for the differences in strength between the sexes, there is no longer a sex difference in depression. And our, our hypothesis for that is that stronger people are less likely to become depressed, and physically weaker people are more likely to be depressed, in our data. (wind blows)
One of the phenomenons that I'm most interested in is depression. How should we understand depression through, uh, an evolutionarily adaptive lens?
Yeah. Well, I think the... If you look at depression, it's the most common mental health problem. And it is, it is a problem. I don't... Nothing I say should be construed as, as trying to diminish the fact that it is a, a very serious problem. But when we look at the causes of depression, it's very clear. The evidence is overwhelming that it's adversity. Um, folks, uh, that experience adversity are at much higher risk of experiencing depression, and folks with depression have been much more likely to have experienced adversity. And there's quite a bit of evidence that that's a causal relationship, that adversity causes depression. And rates are quite high. Uh, in comparison to something like schizophrenia where the rates might be around 1%. Um, rates of depression are at least 10 times higher than that, if not more. So it's very common, it's caused by adversity, and the symptoms, unlike the symptoms of schizophrenia which are kind of odd, including delusions and hallucinations, uh, the depressions of, uh, the symptoms of depression are things that we've all experienced. Sadness, loss of interest, uh, inability to sleep, overeating or lack of eating, um, anxious movements like this when we're, we're stressed out. So their, their, their symptoms are, are not, um, strange or, um, uncommon. They are things that we've all experienced in response to adversity. So I think these types of evidence suggest that, um, we should really think of depression probably as an extreme form of sadness, or what Randy Hor- Thornhill and others have called psychic pain. And I think this is the best fundamental approach, an evolutionary approach to depression, is thinking about, um, physical pain. Uh, it's unpleasant, we don't like it. It's costly, it prevents us from doing things. But we have special receptors for it and special neural circuits for it, and it is caused by physical injuries. Um, and you might say, "Why do we, why do we have to suffer physical pain?" Well, we suffer it, uh, for a number of reasons. One is if you injure yourself, stop doing (laughs) whatever you were doing to injure yourself. So it's a signal that you're doing something that is going to harm your biological fitness, as we call it. And so that's one clear function of physical pain. And a second clear function is we b- we begin to think about what did I do to get myself into this situation and, and learn how do I avoid this kind of situation in the future. So that physical pain, uh, you know, when I broke my ankle, it hurt like hell, uh, but it kept me off my feet. It made me think, "Don't do that stupid thing that you did (laughs) to break your ankle." Uh, and, um, I've more or less avoided breaking my ankle, uh, subsequently. And so Thornhill and others have proposed psychic pain is very analogous to that. Um, something bad is happening to you, not physically, but socially perhaps. Um, your wife has left you, your boyfriend has left you, you've lost your job. Um, that's bad for your biological fitness, and you need to think about it. So you need to, first of all, stop doing (laughs) whatever it is that drove away your romantic partner or got you fired, um, or causing your friends to, um, disown you. And you need to think about that, and you really need to focus your attention on that. And then maybe learn, uh, don't do whatever it was that you did, uh, that may have, uh, caused your relationship to break up or you to get fired. And it may turn out that you didn't do anything wrong, but you need to think about it. It... You need to stop and say, "Something really bad has happened and I need to address this." And so psychic pain, sadness, and even depression, um, are probably very analogous to psychic pain as a way to, um, stop furthering any problems that you have perhaps caused or other people have caused you. And, and maybe somebody else has, has caused the problem, and you kinda need to deal with them somehow. So I think this, this is the, uh... Sorry about that. My cat, there's a cat down there.
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