{"id":32953,"date":"2021-04-21T10:17:03","date_gmt":"2021-04-21T14:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=32953"},"modified":"2021-04-23T14:19:32","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T18:19:32","slug":"functions-of-emotions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/functions-of-emotions\/","title":{"rendered":"Evolutionary Functions of Emotions: We Need Them"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What do emotions have to do with evolution? Why do we diagnose overly anxious people but not people who don’t feel anxiety at all? How can sadness actually benefit us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the authors of Why We Get Sick<\/a>,<\/em> emotions are a maladaptive psychological process. In the Stone Age, anxiety was necessary to keep us alive and sadness prevented us from repeating losses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading for more information about the evolutionary functions of emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Evolution and Mental Disorders <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The field of psychiatry has tried to codify mental illness through clear-cut symptoms, rather than as gradations of emotions that are influenced by psychology and life experiences. Patients also understand their mental illness as imbalances in brain chemicals; they might be offended<\/a> if the psychiatrist insisted that the functions of their emotions were just a maladaptive psychological process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authors of Why We Get Sick<\/em> argue that ignoring the underlying function of emotions is like ignoring physiology in medicine<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an analogy to today\u2019s approach to psychiatry, imagine if we investigated \u201ccough disorder,\u201d creating objective criteria for diagnosis and subtyping (like coughing more than twice per hour). We then discover a cough center in the brain and muse about what dysfunctions lead to coughing, then investigate genetic causes for people prone to coughing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is clearly silly, but only because we know cough is a defense. We know not to look for causes of cough in the nerves and muscles, but rather upstream in the stimulus that provokes a cough (like the common cold).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emotions are no different. They provide a valuable function to us in everyday life. Understanding this normal function should give us insight into when emotions go wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Function of Emotions<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As with everything else discussed in Darwinian medicine<\/a>, our emotions are adaptations shaped by natural selection<\/a><\/strong> and have powerful uses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emotions adjust multiple aspects of our body to respond effectively in a situation\u2014they change our cognition, physiology, subjective experience, and behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unpleasant emotions like fear and anxiety protect us from bad situations. Positive emotions like optimism and joy help us seek opportunity and seek more of what is good for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we feel an emotion, we may not be conscious of its cause, but the cause likely does exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s cover a range of conditions considered mental illness, question the function of the root emotion, and consider why mental illness might be so common today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anxiety<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Anxiety causes the fight or flight physiological response that is useful in aiding an escape from danger\u2014a rapid heartbeat, faster breathing, sweating, and an increase in blood glucose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anxiety is triggered in the face of danger or an emergency. Justifiable modern day triggers include hearing a gunshot or having a paper due.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the anxiety-provoking system may be overly sensitive, just like a smoke alarm<\/strong>. A false positive (being anxious when you don\u2019t need to be) isn\u2019t very costly, but a false negative (not being anxious when you should be) can be fatal. As a Stone Age person, imagine you hear a stick break in the forest. It\u2019s better to be overly cautious and assume it\u2019s a tiger, than to have too little anxiety and assume nothing is wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If anxiety is protective, why not be anxious at all times? The stress from anxiety uses extra calories, makes us unable to perform many everyday activities, and damages tissues. Like driving a car to its absolute limit, anxiety is a costly defense mechanism that pushes the body past its normal operating limits, and it should be released only in the case of emergency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There might be a whole class of people who feel too little anxiety, but these aren\u2019t classified as a mental disorder. People who feel too little anxiety may be impulsive and end up fired from their jobs or in emergency rooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadness and Depression<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Sadness often stems from a personal loss that can harm reproductive fitness. This includes losing resources (like a job), losing a mate, losing reputation, and losing friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The evolutionary function of sadness is to stop current losses and prevent future ones<\/strong>. Specifically, sadness has a few functions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n