Schizophrenia is an early-onset mental illness (van Dongen and Boomsma, 2013)
Positive symptoms: “hallucinations, delusions, and racing thoughts”
Negative symptoms: “poor social functioning, apathy, and lack of emotion”
Cognitive symptoms: “disorganized thoughts, concentration problems, memory problems, and difficulty with completing tasks”
Theory of mind is impaired in Schizophrenia (Brüne, 2001, 2005)
“The cognitive capacity to represent one’s own and other persons’ mental states…in terms of thinking, believing, or pretending”
There is an increased risk of committing suicide (Preti and Wilson, 2011)
Brain circuitry that is involved with sociality, emotion, and theory of mind is impaired (Brüne et al, 2004)
Connectivity between the frontal …show more content…
Thus, an evolutionary perspective is …show more content…
Usually, one is expected to put effort into maintaining a group in order to belong to that group. If one can be a part of a group without putting in any effort, however, then this is advantageous because one can put more energy into other things, such as reproduction, while still receiving benefits from the group. This is “group splitting”: independently splitting from a group via asociality while still receiving benefits from the group
It is not “Schizophrenia” that is directly selected for, but rather the asociality trait that facilitates group splitting
This is only advantageous up to a certain point, as a group cannot function if nobody puts effort into the group, at which point individuals with this trait would no longer receive benefits, but would actually be maladapted.
Thus, it is suggested that Schizophrenia has persisted because, through a frequency-dependent selection mechanism, it facilitates group-splitting by conferring
Positive symptoms: “hallucinations, delusions, and racing thoughts”
Negative symptoms: “poor social functioning, apathy, and lack of emotion”
Cognitive symptoms: “disorganized thoughts, concentration problems, memory problems, and difficulty with completing tasks”
Theory of mind is impaired in Schizophrenia (Brüne, 2001, 2005)
“The cognitive capacity to represent one’s own and other persons’ mental states…in terms of thinking, believing, or pretending”
There is an increased risk of committing suicide (Preti and Wilson, 2011)
Brain circuitry that is involved with sociality, emotion, and theory of mind is impaired (Brüne et al, 2004)
Connectivity between the frontal …show more content…
Thus, an evolutionary perspective is …show more content…
Usually, one is expected to put effort into maintaining a group in order to belong to that group. If one can be a part of a group without putting in any effort, however, then this is advantageous because one can put more energy into other things, such as reproduction, while still receiving benefits from the group. This is “group splitting”: independently splitting from a group via asociality while still receiving benefits from the group
It is not “Schizophrenia” that is directly selected for, but rather the asociality trait that facilitates group splitting
This is only advantageous up to a certain point, as a group cannot function if nobody puts effort into the group, at which point individuals with this trait would no longer receive benefits, but would actually be maladapted.
Thus, it is suggested that Schizophrenia has persisted because, through a frequency-dependent selection mechanism, it facilitates group-splitting by conferring