Are Mental Disorders Evolved Cognitive Styles?
A recent paper in the journal Evolutionary Human Sciences collects evidence that mental disorders as diverse as ADHD, bipolar disorder, autism, and schizophrenia can actually aid group survival in traditional societies.
Mental Illness and Group Survival
If this new research is on the right track, it could be the death knell for psychiatry’s disease model. Instead of disorders, conditions like autism or even schizophrenia might be designed responses to the problems of group living.
A paper by Helen Taylor, a researcher at the Universities of Strathclyde and Cambridge, previously developed the theory of Complementary Cognition, according to which humans evolved to specialize in different cognitive styles that promote group success. Far from being deficits, dyslexia, autism, and ADHD are viewed as cognitive specializations that play a critical role in enabling human groups to adapt both in the past and the present.
Taylor’s work reinterprets decades of research on dyslexia to show its association with exploratory learning, which includes divergent thinking – the ability to create multiple solutions to a problem. As she points out, it’s remarkable that about a third of American entrepreneurs have dyslexia.
A Massive Paradigm Change
But how might mental disorders help group survival?
Take ADHD, long suspected to be an evolved cognitive strategy rather than a disorder. Although evolutionary theories abound, one holds that rapidly shifting attention can be a benefit in an environment full of looming threats – from hyenas to hostile neighbors.
Or consider bipolar disorder. Some scientists propose that manic episodes can enhance leadership, creativity, and energy. Journalists were quick to speculate that Kanye West’s 2020 presidential bid might have been part of an extended manic episode. While we can’t know for sure, it’s not hard to see a connection between mania and extraordinary ambition.
Autism has long been seen as a cognitive strength, too. Autism has been associated with enhanced visual-spatial skills, superior attention, and heightened awareness of the physical, non-social world.
The Neurodiversity Movement
Neurodiversity advocates have promoted a similar view for decades. The movement was originally intended to help us rethink the nature of autism. In this approach, autism, far from being a brain defect, should be seen as an alternative cognitive style. For this reason, some prefer the neutral terminology of “neurodiverse” and “neurotypical,” as they explore how society has been unfairly designed to privilege “neurotypicals.”
The most important lesson we can draw from research on evolved cognitive styles? It’s the same lesson that neurodiversity advocates have been advancing for decades:
How can we design society and education so that people with different cognitive strengths can flourish, rather than founder?
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#Neurodiverity #Cognition #MentalDisorders
@calmDew1576 A better question might be how can we make society not foster ever more messed up humans. Kids used to be free to be kids, THEN parents decided that kids needed to have 15 extracurricular activities in order to be “competitive” so the world can produce more useless unneeded $Hi7 and simultaneously trash the planet. Then we overloaded them with a million channels of info and disinformation and didn’t care which as long as it sold more useless crap. But instead, no, let’s study how ADHD is an “adaptation.” It makes sense that it would be. But if you find people are dying because uranium is being dumped in their backyard, you don’t go study how society can foster better ways to cope with dying of cancer. You remove the uranium. Psychology Today seems to be like the rest of the corporate machine, they will ask us to learn how to make society deal with the new mutation where people are growing a third arm out their belly button instead of maybe look at the heavy metals we dump in our water that made the mutation appear. Sneaky way to normalize the problem and not find a solution.