Why is Depression So Common?

I've been wondering why depression is so common. It doesn't make sense from an evolutionary point of view, as it often makes people want to kill themselves. Why do you guys think depression is so common even though that is true?

I think that the suicidal aspect is only one part. I can see evolutionary benefits in people "withdrawing" periodically. In times of stress or other illness. Conserving energy for fighting a single battle.

I also think that people commonly try to push through, ignoring the earliest signs. Which is like pushing through the first signs of pneumonia. Might work out OK, might put you in hospital. Paying attention to emotional health is as important as paying attention to physical health.

Finally I think we're still in the early stages as a society, of learning how to look after ourselves in that way. So it might simply be that depression is the most common symptom of bad emotional health. Same as tooth decay is a common symptom of excessive sugar consumption. And the emotional equivalent of a toothbrush and regular dental checkups. Whatever that turns out to be. Might be all that's needed to ward off depression for some people / in some cases.

I also think a lot of it has to do with how our society is constructed. As humans we like to look for patterns, things that repeat, things we can count on and therefore we look for that same repetition in our behavior and call it "normality". When people deviate from normal, society has a pretty subconscious (but sometimes very obvious) way of telling them they're wrong. It's the same reason why we see a rise in eating disorders. Depression may be a sign of bad emotional health but those bad emotional health habits usually come from somewhere. There are depressions where it absolutely comes out of the blue, but for most people they're feeling hopeless and worthless and guilty for a reason whether that reason is conscious or not. If they feel they can't do anything right then most likely something in their environment has hinted that they're doing something wrong. Subconscious thought of ones peers is extremely influential. For example, a study tested both women and men separately in the same math test. One test simply had the title "math test" for the first round, and the second round there was a line before the first problem that said "This test will show your true math abilities". In the first round women and men scored equally, but in the second round the women's score plummeted. The stereotype there is that women are horrible at math and although it isn't true, the mere hint at the stereotype affects their performance.

I will never blame society for everyone's problems. However, I'm a firm believer that people need to stop seeing people's issues as 100% individual issues and start viewing them also as societal issues. I know not everyone's depression is helped with mindset change, but many people are and those people had to learn that mindset pattern from somewhere, they certainly weren't born with it. As psychology students and as patients we're taught a lot about biological explanations for things, that there are "chemical imbalances" but if we can't yet tell whether the "imbalances" cause the "disorder" or if the "disorder" causes the "imbalances" (correlation is not causation) then we can't morally claim one over the other. On this basis, i'm not entirely sure true clinical depression is as common as it seems. I do believe the diagnosis is common.

Alucard wrote:I also think a lot of it has to do with how our society is constructed. As humans we like to look for patterns, things that repeat, things we can count on and therefore we look for that same repetition in our behavior and call it "normality". When people deviate from normal, society has a pretty subconscious (but sometimes very obvious) way of telling them they're wrong. It's the same reason why we see a rise in eating disorders. Depression may be a sign of bad emotional health but those bad emotional health habits usually come from somewhere. There are depressions where it absolutely comes out of the blue, but for most people they're feeling hopeless and worthless and guilty for a reason whether that reason is conscious or not. If they feel they can't do anything right then most likely something in their environment has hinted that they're doing something wrong. Subconscious thought of ones peers is extremely influential. For example, a study tested both women and men separately in the same math test. One test simply had the title "math test" for the first round, and the second round there was a line before the first problem that said "This test will show your true math abilities". In the first round women and men scored equally, but in the second round the women's score plummeted. The stereotype there is that women are horrible at math and although it isn't true, the mere hint at the stereotype affects their performance.

I will never blame society for everyone's problems. However, I'm a firm believer that people need to stop seeing people's issues as 100% individual issues and start viewing them also as societal issues. I know not everyone's depression is helped with mindset change, but many people are and those people had to learn that mindset pattern from somewhere, they certainly weren't born with it. As psychology students and as patients we're taught a lot about biological explanations for things, that there are "chemical imbalances" but if we can't yet tell whether the "imbalances" cause the "disorder" or if the "disorder" causes the "imbalances" (correlation is not causation) then we can't morally claim one over the other. On this basis, i'm not entirely sure true clinical depression is as common as it seems. I do believe the diagnosis is common.

That makes sense. I started having depression when I was taught a social skills curriculum that taught that expected behavior is good and unexpected behavior is bad, that you have to care what people think, and that you have to keep people from having bad thoughts about you and get them to have good thoughts about you. I didn't care what people thought before that, but then I started being sensitive to criticism and accepted what other people said as fact.

I have noticed how people with a different neurological wiring are more likely to have depression. I have mainly noticed an increased likelihood of having depression in autistic and schizotypal people, but it is likely true for other neurological variants, too. I think the increased likelihood is from constant messages saying that being different is bad rather than something about those conditions.

Also, I think the increased likelihood is in part from current society's ideal of always being busy, which isn't how we evolved to be.

Also, I think the increased likelihood is in part from current society's ideal of always being busy, which isn't how we evolved to be.

Good point. It's clear the future will be much more busy and introverted with the expansion of technology, a lot less face-to-face contact and I think our brains in these last few generations and the next few generations to come will still be adjusting to these transformations. That being said, we're the step ladder, basically The transition into a new age. Soon certain symptoms of childhood ADHD might not be seen as a disorder but instead the signs of a fully function, multi-tasking child, like the kind we're raising now. In fact, a lot of behavior we list as "abnormal" presently may, in the future, be the norm. The definitions will change with time, in my opinion of course.