Adaptation to the Suicidal Niche

Soper, C. A.

doi:10.1007/s40806-019-00202-3

Cited by 13 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 90 publications

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“…Viewing suicide through an evolutionary psychology lens will not only lend toward stimulating systematic studies in scientific circles, but also to developing measures of suicide prevention to save valuable lives. There is a need to make a paradigm shift in treating suicide as a derangement or a disordered condition ( Soper, 2019b ) to viewing it from the vantage point of evolution as an ever-present danger to human existence ( Soper, 2019a ). Despite developments in social welfare programs across nations resulting in suicide’s adaptive function being apparently dimmed, suicide still continues to exist ( Aubin et al, 2013 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The discussion of pain in this text will concern psychological and social forms of pain. Human beings often seek to terminate psychological or social pain by resorting to suicidal behaviors that would end life and thereby end pain ( Eisenberger, 2012 ; Soper, 2019a , p. 457–458). However, psychological pain cannot be the only explanatory variable for suicidal acts and this realization brings forth another relevant variable: the brain ( Soper, 2019a , p. 458–459).…”

Section: The Evolutionary Understanding Of Suicidementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Human beings often seek to terminate psychological or social pain by resorting to suicidal behaviors that would end life and thereby end pain ( Eisenberger, 2012 ; Soper, 2019a , p. 457–458). However, psychological pain cannot be the only explanatory variable for suicidal acts and this realization brings forth another relevant variable: the brain ( Soper, 2019a , p. 458–459). The variable that makes suicide available exclusively to humans and not to other animals is the capacity of self-consciousness, and it is in adolescence that humans overcome a claimed “cognitive ‘floor’ for suicide” ( Perry, 2014 , p. 110).…”

Section: The Evolutionary Understanding Of Suicidementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Persons belonging to these two groups might thus lack the intellectual ability to contemplate conscious self-killing ( Baechler, 1975/1979 , p. 38). On the other hand, a human adult, who has adequate “cognitive sophistication,” can think in abstract terms and carry out the executive planning needed for deliberate self-killing ( Soper, 2019a , p. 459). Thus, according to this hypothesis, conscious self-destruction is a function of two adaptive mechanisms which interact together, that is, the experience of psychological pain and the possession of cognitive sophistication, enabling the willful cessation of one’s own life.…”

Section: The Evolutionary Understanding Of Suicidementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In an attempt to move in that direction, the current article firstly aims to summarize prominent theories reflected in the literature on evolution of suicide ( Brown et al, 2009 ; Tanaka and Kinney, 2011 ; Aubin et al, 2013 ; Selby et al, 2014 ; Syme et al, 2016 ; Soper, 2019a ). The authors attempt to conceptually analyze these theories which focus on the ultimate functionality of suicide.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Choosing Death Over Survival: A Need to Identify Evolutionary Mechanisms Underlying Human Suicide

Chatterjee

Rai

2021

Front. Psychol.

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The act of killing self contradicts the central purpose of human evolution, that is, survival and propagation of one’s genetic material. Yet, it continues to be one of the leading causes of human death. A handful of theories in the realm of evolutionary psychology have attempted to explain human suicide. The current article analyses the major components of certain prominent viewpoints, namely, Inclusive fitness, Bargaining model, Pain-Brain model, Psychological aposematism, and few other perspectives. The article argues that relatively more weightage has been given to understanding ultimate (the “why”) rather than proximate (the “how”) functionality of suicidal acts. Evolutionary theorists have consistently pointed out that to comprehensively understand a trait or behavior, one needs to delineate not only how it supports survival but also the evolution of the mechanisms underlying the trait or behavior. Existing theories on suicide have primarily focused on its fitness benefits on surviving kin instead of providing evolutionary explanations of the more complex mechanisms leading up to such self-destructive motivations. Thus, the current paper attempts to highlight this gap in theorizing while suggesting probable proximate explanations of suicide which stresses the need to diffuse attention paid to fitness consequences of the act alone. We speculate that such explorations are needed in order to build a robust and comprehensive evolutionary theory of human suicide.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Evolutionary Understanding Of Suicidementioning

confidence: 99%