Bad feelings, best explanations: in defence of the propitiousness theory of the low mood system

Abstract

There are three main accounts of the proper function of the low mood system (LMS): the social risk theory, the disease theory, and the propitiousness theory. Adjudicating between these accounts has proven difficult, as there is little agreement in the literature about what a theory of the LMS’s proper function is supposed to explain. In this article, drawing upon influential work on the evolution of other affective systems, such as the disgust system and the fear system, I argue that a theory of the proper function of the low mood system should: (i) account for the reliable, distal causes and effects of the system’s activation, and (ii) explain how having a system that performed such a function increased fitness in ancestral environments. On this basis, I show that the proper function of the low mood system is to limit resource expenditure in relatively unpropitious circumstances, exactly as hypothesised by the propitiousness theory.

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Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Turner, J. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2115-3095
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords:	Low mood; Depression; Proper function; Evolution; Adaptation
Dates:	Published: 22 January 2024 Published (online): 22 January 2024 Accepted: 17 December 2023
Institution:	The University of Sheffield
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > Department of Philosophy (Sheffield)
Depositing User:	Symplectic Sheffield
Date Deposited:	29 Jan 2024 11:04
Last Modified:	29 Jan 2024 11:04
Published Version:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10670-023-00773-5
Status:	Published online
Publisher:	Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1007/s10670-023-00773-5
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:208183

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Bad feelings, best explanations: in defence of the propitiousness theory of the low mood system

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