E107 - The Evolution of Psychiatry (w/ Dr. Adam Hunt)

Dr. Adam Hunt (PhD) is a post-doc researcher at the University of Cambridge and the host of the Evolving Psychiatry podcast which provides interviews, insights and an introduction to evolutionary psychiatry, with guest appearances from leading academics and psychiatrists.

His upcoming book Specialised Minds which seeks to explains the existence of long term, common mental disorders, and common personality traits as products of the same evolutionary process, specifically of cognitive specialisation.

You can learn more about Adam's work here:
https://www.adamhunt.info/

Interviewed by Dr. Alex Curmi. Dr. Alex is a consultant psychiatrist and a UKCP registered psychotherapist in-training.

If you would like to invite Alex to speak at your organisation please email thinkingmindpodcast@gmail.com with "Speaking Enquiry" in the subject line.

If you would like to enquire about an online psychotherapy appointment with Dr. Alex, you can email - alexcurmitherapy@gmail.com.

Give feedback here - thinkingmindpodcast@gmail.com - 
Follow us here: Twitter @thinkingmindpod Instagram @thinkingmindpodcast

Transcript

[00:00:00] The decade of the brain came and everyone was like, oh okay, we're going to finally discover the the simple brain regions which are causing these problems and never really finding it. It's always been more complicated than we hoped. I think everyone kind of knows now that psychiatry is in a bit of a mess, um, that these disorders are not as clean cut as we make them out to be, especially with this sort of maybe diagnostic expansion in the last five, ten years. 

And I think linking this. the evolutionary framework, um, to all these findings and kind of making sense of them all under the theory which explains all biological variation. The way that we explain jealousy and love and eyes and, and, you know, everything, you know, hunger, it's like everything needs some sort of evolutionary explanation at some level. 

And the reasons why people don't think about it enough is that people don't think about disease in that framework. 

Welcome back. As many people know. [00:01:00] Psychiatry is dealing with a lot of different problems at the moment. Problems like, why are mental health disorders so common? Why can they be so difficult to treat? What causes different mental health conditions? Why are people so different and why do we have such different personalities? 

One of the areas of research which is starting to help us understand these problems is the field of evolutionary psychiatry. We've made a few episodes about evolutionary psychiatry as it can be applied to different conditions before, including interviews with people like Dr. Randy Nesse and Dr. Henry O'Connell. 

Today we're in conversation with Dr. Adam Hunt, PhD. Adam has been working in the field of evolutionary psychiatry since 2016. He's a postdoc and he is the host of the Evolving Psychiatry podcast. which provides interviews, insights, and an introduction to evolutionary psychiatry with guest appearances from leading academics and psychiatrists. 

[00:02:00] He's working on an upcoming book, Specialized Minds, which seeks to explain the existence of long term common mental health disorders and common personality traits as products of the evolutionary process, specifically of something called cognitive specialization. Today I speak with Adam on a range of topics, including the usefulness of evolutionary psychiatry and how it can help us begin to answer so many of the questions which plague psychiatry. 

We discuss why humans have such specialized minds and how this could help us understand neurodiversity such as autism and ADHD. We discuss why we gossip, how a personality trait is a strength and a weakness at the same time. How an understanding of evolutionary psychiatry can help doctors talk to patients in a way that can enhance their awareness and help them to change their lives. 

Some of the limitations of the field at the moment. and the future of evolutionary psychiatry [00:03:00] looking forward. This is the Thinking Mind podcast, a podcast all about psychiatry, psychology, therapy, and related topics. As always, thank you for listening. And now here's today's conversation with Dr. Adam Hunt. 

Adam, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you so much, Alex, for having me. What do you wish more people would understand about evolutionary psychology or psychiatry? I think the main thing is that it is. It's complementary to other approaches. Uh, I, I think there's maybe a tendency in psychiatry to kind of take a brain based approach or talk about the genetics or talk about environmental factors which lead to whatever the disorder is. 

Um, and then When you start hearing about evolutionary psychiatry, you might think, oh, well, what's this alternative? And that's absolutely not what we're doing. What, what the evolutionary kind of approach and what evolutionary theory explains is sort of everything. It's, [00:04:00] it's, you need to explain why brains end up in these particular types of states and having these particular types of forms and receptors, um, rather than others. 

Uh, you, you need to explain why these environmental impacts of, for instance, stress. Uh, why do they cause these particular types of, uh, reaction? We are not trying to provide something, um, that's combating or refuting or, or can be refuted by, um, kind of genetic studies or neuroscientific studies. If you look inside the brain and you see, oh, there's this slight difference which is causing whatever, schizophrenia or depression, okay, that's fine. 

But why is the, is the big question. It's this ultimate why question, uh, which I think is so fascinating. And, and it's also something that really isn't being well addressed, um, by the current psychiatric paradigm. And mental disorders, more than physical disorders, are paradoxical from an evolutionary perspective. 

Most kind of bodily [00:05:00] Um, illnesses arise late in life, you know, you're, you're, you're 60, 70, 80, um, you start ageing, you start becoming, um, decrepit and developing more susceptibility, susceptibility to cancer and heart disease and everything, and the weird thing about mental illness is that it arises At the peak of reproductive potential, like adolescence, when you're meant to be kind of finding your place in the world and, you know, um, fitting in and finding a mate, uh, impressing people. 

Uh, it's, it's very strange for a disorder, a kind of simple illness, um, to arise at that, um, specific age. Uh, particularly, you know, before your, your twenties. It's, so there's, there's this big paradox. Uh, why, why do mental health conditions arise so early? but also so common, um, they are often long lasting, um, and the prevalence of them is high enough that we would [00:06:00] expect most of our ancestors to have known people who are on the autism spectrum or on the ADHD spectrum. 

Um, so, so this is kind of an extra question which is not being answered if you just find the genes which are predisposing you to autism. You know, you then have to keep asking, well, why do these genes persist? Why haven't they been selected out? So, and that's something that I think really, uh, appeal to me about the evolutionary perspective, uh, and I think gives a lot of insight into why we've been so confused about exactly what these conditions are. 

And we've been looking and looking for simple pathology. Uh, And never really finding it. It's always been more complicated than we hoped. You know, the decade of the brain came and everyone was like, oh, okay, we're going to finally discover the, the simple brain regions, which are causing these problems. 

And that just didn't happen. It's just complicated, messy, it's dimensional and. And then the same with genetics, you know, as soon as we were like, okay, finally, we can look inside the human genome. [00:07:00] And we're going to find these specific genes which are predisposing people to schizophrenia. Uh, and it just, and it just hasn't worked out like that. 

The, the genes are much smaller effect than we predicted. They're much more common in the population. They're older. Um, so, and, and, you know, these fields have sort of been, uh, forwarded with, you know, good intention to try and find pathology, but that's just not what they found. And I think linking this the evolutionary framework, um, to all these findings and kind of making sense of them all, um, under the theory which explains all biological variation. 

After all, it's like, it's the way that we explain jealousy and love and eyes and, and, you know, everything, you know, hunger, it's like everything needs some sort of evolutionary explanation at some level. And I One of the, maybe, the misconceptions, or the reasons why people don't think about it enough is that people don't think about disease in that framework. 

This is certainly the case [00:08:00] for me. You know, everyone hears about mental illness. Um, and a lot of people hear about evolutionary psychology or evolutionary theory explaining, you know, why we are the way we are. And, you're not, it's not put to you that mental illness is something that needs explanation within the realm of evolutionary theory. 

You just assume, okay, it's a breakage. It doesn't matter, you know, we explain the good things, we explain the, you know, the, the adaptations, um, but mental illness is not that, and that's, that's the assumption that you can live with for your whole life, and keep looking for the pathology and it's never there, but then when you really ask the, the question of why these traits persisted. 

Why are they so common in early onset? Um, then you are brought to this evolutionary paradox, uh, which I think justifies the field, um, and is, is something that I'm really interested in exploring in my work, and encouraging other people to explore as well. And I myself noticed in my psychiatry training, there was a stark lack of explanation for how lots of different, [00:09:00] uh, mental processes come to be. 

So for example, our emotional systems, why do we feel happy? Why do we feel sad? Why do we feel angry? What are the functions of these, all of these systems? And then if you understand that, then perhaps you might be able to go on to explain why you get extremes of these systems. Why anger can become perhaps antisocial behavior, why sadness could potentially become depression. 

We could perhaps go on to talk about it. The other thing I thought in listening to your, to your logic and your line of reasoning, which makes a lot of sense to me is, even very common, physical health problems, like obesity, metabolic problems, diabetes, etc. We're currently mostly think of them in the same disease framework. 

Something's just going wrong with the body. But using your same reasoning, why is it so common? Why is it happening to people at a young age? We have children now who are commonly diagnosed with type 2 [00:10:00] diabetes. And evolutionary thinking, specifically the idea of evolutionary mismatch, can really help us understand this a lot better. 

Like, hey, Our physiology, our bodies were designed for a certain environment, sugar, fat, salt, that was like really rare in our evolutionary landscape. So we're going to be predisposed to crave it. Now we're in a landscape where we can get literally as much of it as we want. So of course you're going to see diabetes, obesity as a consequence of that. 

And that really helps. I think using that concrete physical health example really helps us land just how helpful this kind of approach can be. Right. Yeah, we're living in a sort of obesogenic environment, and we might be living in a depressogenic environment as well. Like, there are so many aspects of our current social environment which are really strange. 

You know, we don't have a constant community around us who [00:11:00] are kind of giving us, uh, feedback of, of, you know, that we're accepted, um, giving us direction about what to do every day, uh, like providing a kind of a life which is very, um, sort of transient and immediate and really needs your attention, uh, and there's no such thing as a goal for, you know, two years time because you have, you can think forward maybe a few months because sometimes, you know, you're carrying through your fields or you're gardening a little bit, or you've got animals and you want to raise the animals, but most of life is just so immediate and you have so much, um, stimulation in a kind of very active, uh, way that like, yeah, you can see why the. 

So much has changed and this kind of innate, so you know, building fat was obviously useful and for surviving times when you lose food and low mood. Probably, almost certainly, you know, very useful for times when you needed [00:12:00] to, you know, hunker down, like, it's a, it's a really resource poor environment, um, maybe you, you're suffering bullying, and actually the best thing to do is just, kind of, retreat from life, um, stay away from other people, you know, and, and one of those things, one of the things that might happen then is that you would get social support because people would see that you're not interacting with, uh, or you're not producing in the way that, um, you're kind of needed to, uh, so I, one of the things that I've been doing in the last five years or so is trying to build interest from evolutionary anthropologists who actually go and work with tribes people, uh, around the world to study what, what, what's happening with the mental health in these populations, because surprisingly to me, got to working this for almost 10 years, like there's, there's very few people who've really tried. 

to find, you know, the people with autism or schizophrenia or the depression. Which is the biggest [00:13:00] criticism of the field, right? That there isn't that much evidence. Yeah. Or it's hard to get evidence, I should say. It is hard to get it. I mean, we can never look back in time. We can never actually observe what happened for the hundreds of thousands of years, which have shaped our, our kind of, our minds. 

But we can look around the world today and look at people living in very distinctly different environments from our own that are much closer to what our ancestors would have been living like and see, well, you know, what happens to a state of depression. And anthropologists are interested in this. It's a very complicated question because I was optimistically naive going into this, thinking all I have to do is get, you know, take a questionnaire, convert it to the local language, but it's so hard because these questionnaires, if you read, you know, the, the, um, the autism quotient, it's sort of asking you, Oh, do you prefer spending time in the library? 

Uh, and what's the, what's the hunter gatherer equivalent to that? Right. And even like spending time alone, like if you can't live on the [00:14:00] autism spectrum. Like, but you can't actually spend time alone really as a hunter gatherer anyway, but maybe you're just like a little bit more subdued and you're not like, interacting as fluidly socially, and you're kind of sitting on the edge of the group. 

But these are such hard things to pick up, um, especially if you're coming from a culture which is very different than, and you know, we weren't noticing autism in our own society for the last, you know, well, 30 years ago, you know, the, we were diagnosing much less autism and now we're saying, okay, well, here are these differences. 

Going to a tribe and trying to ask the same question is also very messy. Um, But, but yes, the, in talking to anthropologists, almost all of them do have some sorts of anecdotes of when they were living with the tribes. You know, like one that, one that comes to mind is, um, a guy who worked with the Hadza, um, a tribe in East Africa. 

Uh, and they, uh, he noticed that there was this woman [00:15:00] who developed, basically it looked like a state of quite severe depression. Um, and it was very obvious to the people around her because she was unable to care for her children and she was not, was unable to get up and hunt and gather every day. Um, which is like the, the only thing that really matters is are you, you know, able to get up and just go and gather and care for your kids. 

It's, yeah. Yeah. It's, and, and it's super important for everyone in her community, you know, like her family and also her friends, um, you know, people that she lives with, the adults that she lives with. Um, that she's up and being productive as well, uh, because otherwise they have to feed her kids, and, and so it's a, it's a huge cost, and so, you know, when she entered this state of depression, which I think they, they had some word for it, which wasn't, it was kind of related to sickness, but they recognized this is not a classic physical sickness, you, you can see when someone is, has a fever, um, you know, is, is infected with something, and they, they kind of knew this was more of a soul sickness type of thing, and, So they kind of, you know, they kind of, uh, they [00:16:00] went to her and they, they tried to work out what was going on and it turns out that her husband had basically disappeared with another woman and this depression state had kind of arisen quite, um, quite quickly after he just hadn't come back for a few days. 

Uh, so, so this was basically a prompt for everyone to get together and chase down the husband. Um, bring him back and say, look, your, your wife is not caring for her kids. They're going to starve. We can't allow this. You know, we were all feeding them, you know, this is out, this is, you know, you have to come back. 

Um, so he came back and they did a healing ceremony, um, you know, and everyone, um, kind of stands around and he had to make a sacrifice or something like that. And, yeah, and she was, she was fine. She kind of got up and, you know, the next day and she's working again. Um, and it's like an interesting example, uh, for a, for a couple of reasons. 

Um, one is that it kind of, it hits, it huts home how important it is to not be depressed in [00:17:00] these environments. I think maybe we think of depression as like a, a common disorder. So maybe it's not as severe as schizophrenia or autism or whatever. But actually Exactly. And like, even just, just not getting out of bed for a day is hugely important for a group who are, you know, constantly needing to get up and, and hunt and get up. 

Like, we can have a full fridge, but depressed people in our own society can basically, you know, hide in a bedroom for weeks at end and order food online or, um, whatever it is, or just not eat that much. And it doesn't really matter and people don't notice. Um, because they're not, they don't have, you know, six kids who they're having to feed every day and the way to feed them is to get up and literally dig roots out the ground. 

Uh, so I think that there's, there's a couple of elements of our own society which, uh, which which kind of allow these depressed states to, you know, become kind of catastrophic and persistent, which is that, you know, people kind of don't notice. It's possible to just be depressed for days, weeks on end. [00:18:00] Um, and, and then therefore you don't have the kind of the, the intervention, which might be necessary. 

Um, but also you're going to, you know, by being depressed, you're actually going to end up in a, maybe a more depressing situation because maybe you do lose your job. Maybe you can't, um, you know, find a relationship. Uh, And so I think it's a, it's a very clear case of, um, you know, a tendency for low mood and even, you know, possibly quite severe low mood that should be resolved, um, but because we're living in a weird environment, it just doesn't. 

I think that's a huge point, and I don't think it's one I've ever quite thought of before, that in something like a hunter gatherer society, low moods, perhaps mild depression can serve this function, to get other people's attention, to signal to other people that things aren't quite okay. Yes, it's also allow you to rest and recuperate, but now in our modern environment, it allows depression to persist and to get into a [00:19:00] catastrophic positive feedback loop. 

And actually no one's noticing. And the thing about mental disorders is very often they are invisible illnesses. severe depression, but also schizophrenia and things like that. Many people have literally, unless you have a friend or a family member who's experiencing it, have no experience of what it's like to encounter someone's mentally ill. 

I think that's a really interesting point. I'm curious, how did you initially become interested in the field? I know you studied philosophy. before moving into evolutionary psychiatry. And how did this become your, your field? Yeah, back in whatever, 2010, I did an undergrad in philosophy. And then 2013, I did a master's at Bristol. 

Um, so that was really the start. I kind of, I really like, I liked truth. I liked, you know, understanding deep fundamental truths about the universe. And But if you do philosophy for long enough, you realize, oh, this is actually kind of going in circles and it's word games. And actually science is sort of actually the way that we've, um, worked out how to [00:20:00] discover truth. 

So I went to Bristol because Bristol has a master's, which is very specifically philosophy of science. Um, so I did philosophy of physics, philosophy of biology and philosophy of psychology there. So for people who don't know what the philosophy of. Biology is like, or philosophy of psychology, it's, it's sort of, to me it's the fun bit of the, of the theory, like rather than running the experiments you look over what the field has been trying to do, the core findings, and then also where the theory is sort of not adding up. 

So in philosophy of biology, um, most, most relevantly, um, you mostly think about evolutionary theory and some of the complexities of evolutionary theory and how it works, you know, and I was like, Oh, this is the, this is the kind of level of why I was sort of more looking for because a lot of psychology is just describing what's going on in the mind. 

And it's this, it's very messy because you're not actually hitting anything objective and you know, we say that thoughts follow feelings, follow behavior and it's like, oh, but how do you really pass this out? And it's just, it [00:21:00] seems so messy to me. Psychology is a very. It's a very difficult thing to grasp, even though it's so intimately obvious to us what conscious processes are. 

Yeah, it was sort of lacking something, but the evolutionary approach, I was like, wow, this is, this is super cool. So, so one of the things that I, uh, took away from that was like, okay, well, this is the way to understand mental traits and, you know, the, the fundamental explanation. Yes. But I, but no one mentioned disorder. 

Um, and then I kind of stopped, I finished my master's and I was like, okay, well, what am I going to do? And I came across basically this paradox, um, specifically in the context of. schizophrenia, which is, you know, so extreme and so harmful, but it's still so common. I was just absolutely stunned by this, this recognition that it it's, that we haven't been able to find the pathology. 

Um, and it's really an evolutionary paradox and like, is evolution not working here? What's happening? Um, and I suppose the other, the other thing that really hit me. Was the fact that [00:22:00] no one seems to be talking about this like I'd never heard of evolutionary psychiatry All of the information I was getting about mental disorder and mental health was sort of, I mean, it's kind of, you know, it's from Hollywood, and it's from newspapers, and it's like, whispers amongst your family about, you know, someone over here who, oh, this daughter is experiencing this, or, oh, that's, that's this aunt who'd had this happen, but you don't really understand what's going on, and it's sort of under the table. 

As you were saying, most people don't really know what schizophrenia looks like, and, um, You know, it's, it's, I think it's weird how little conversation there is about these, these traits, uh, maybe that's changing now. So I think that just, yeah, bringing these things, these things together and realising that the the evolutionary theory had to explain something. 

It had to explain the vulnerability, or why these traits persist, or, you know, what's the adaptive module that's going wrong here? Um, and, and I just, I was just, I was frankly like, I'm, I couldn't believe how few people were working in it. Um, this was 2016 and [00:23:00] The Royal College of Psychiatrists were just setting up, I didn't know this at the time, but they were just setting up a group, the Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group, which I can encourage anyone to join. 

It's, it's free to join their, uh, mailing list and you'll get, uh, informed of all of the events in evolutionary psychiatry. That's, that's really the kind of hub, the global hub, frankly, for, um, for researchers and clinicians who are interested in the field. Um, but it's 2016 and they were just starting up and so I didn't really know what to do. 

Um, and I talked to my professor about it, Samir, Samir Akashia, um. I kind of had these ideas about, you know, how selection might have maintained the variation in the population. Um, he was, oh, this is really interesting, but I'm not, this isn't like something I can, not something I'm doing as a, as a research study. 

So you should, you know, you should go try and find like an evolutionary psychologist. So then I approached evolutionary psychologists and then, oh, yes, it's really interesting, but, um, you know, it's not really what I'm doing, but you should try this other person. And I bounced around a few professors talking about, um, evolutionary psychiatry and, you know, [00:24:00] Yeah, basically no one was doing it. 

So I decided that I would, um, just spend, well, I would just go off and kind of do it myself. I had the joy of the internet and I spent, uh, in the end, I thought it would take six months, but it took about four years. The book that I was writing then, the Specialized Mind, which, um. Which will be published in 2027, so it will actually have been 11 years, not 6 months, from start to finish. 

That was, that was what I kind of started working on. And yeah, so then after that, I kind of, I spent a lot of time thinking about these things. Familiarizing myself with a lot of the fields. I think one of the reason, reasons why it's so understudies is because you're, it's so interdisciplinary by nature. 

You have to kind of know something about psychiatry, but something about anthropology, um, evolutionary biology. psychology. And so, and so academia has been very bad, is very bad at like allowing people to be truly interdisciplinary in the way that you kind of need to be if you're going to grapple with some of this, this stuff. 

And I think that's also why a [00:25:00] lot of, um, clinical psychologists and psychiatrists, maybe, Maybe a little bit reluctant or just like it's a slow to take it up Because there's just so this it's this other whole huge field of biology and anthropology And you know, even most anthropologists don't know all of the evolutionary theory and stuff So one of the things I think we have to do as a field is really build better resources to introduce people But yeah, so my my trajectory was basically spending a few years getting really deep into it and then coming out and kind of thinking, okay, I had a manuscript, which was actually what I would end up turning into my PhD. 

Um, uh, and I reached out to, um, the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine in Zurich, which is one of the first, I think still the only, um, true dedicated institute for evolutionary medicine in the world. Uh, and I found a really interesting group there, which was, you know, an evolutionary anthropologist who worked with tribes, but also had worked with primates. 

Um, was, was, was there Adrian Yagy, who's my, um, who's my supervisor. [00:26:00] And he had a really nice broad range of expertise, uh, which was very relevant. And I also, I was lucky enough to work with a. Uh, an excellent evolutionary biologist, Jordan Martin, um, and developmental psychologist there. So we had a cool, a really nice mix of, um, disciplines to sort of, uh, to really get into the details and, and, and, you know, hone some of the complexities in, in the theory. 

Um, the, the field is. been growing a lot, I think. I mean, you see more and more people get interested. The, the YouTube channel, which hosts the EPSIG UK, uh, the evolutionary psychiatry special interest group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. It's a bit of a mouthful, honestly, but, um, the, that YouTube is getting, um, you know, is growing. 

Uh, I think I just, with some other colleagues in the UK, set up a foundation, a charitable foundation to fund research in the field. But I'm glad, especially I found psychotherapists, uh, and people who are more, or maybe less biologically inclined in the first [00:27:00] place, um, are very open to the idea that, oh, it's, you know, the environmental, um, problems are something to do with it. 

And I also think, I mean, you've talked to Randolph Nessie on this, on this podcast, but I think that the, when he was, um, trying to build the field in the sort of, you know, eighties and nineties and thousands, um, I think he was pushing against a much stronger force, which just assumed that we would actually find the biological breakage. 

Um, you know, the, there was so much hope in neuroscience. and genetics to kind of really discover the pathology that I think, as much good work as he did, I think it was partly falling on deaf ears. Um, but I think everyone kind of knows now that psychiatry is in a bit of a mess. Um, that these disorders are not as clean cut as we make them out to be, um, especially with this sort of maybe diagnostic expansion in the last five, ten years, it's becoming more and more obvious that these are sort of more, um, normal or sort of [00:28:00] healthy ish traits which might cause suffering, and we are interpreting within a psychiatric framework, maybe inappropriately, maybe appropriately. 

It depends on where you stand on the kind of role of psychiatry as to whether you should be trying to medicalise healthy human emotions. Um, you know, it's a hard thing. I think Randy talks about this as well. Um, you know, say that you have a depressive state that's reacting to your divorce and job loss and abuse and everything. 

And, and okay, you're depressed. Um, and we say, okay, well, this is, you know, a natural response to being, you know, having this status loss and needing to kind of, um, avoid life. But at the same time, what are you going to do about it? And like, maybe a drug will help. Maybe a drug would help, but then also, and this is something I talked about actually in the podcast I just released last week, which was about like how to be less cynical as a mental health professional. 

All of those problems you mentioned also imply potential paths forward. So like, if losing a job or a [00:29:00] divorce or financial problems or, you know, lifestyle related issues all lead to depression, then by the same token, starting to work on those problems, albeit slowly and consistently, is a path for improvement. 

And yeah, drugs can be useful in that process. Um, but it's all about, I find it's all about how you frame it. And if you frame it to the patient that you have a problem, that's like multifactorial, lots of different factors are leading to this problem. And therefore he has a menu of options and let's pick which ones are the right for you. 

That's a totally different. paradigm, I think, to the paradigm that a lot of psychiatrists unfortunately do practice in. Right. I mean, you know, a drug, a drug makes sense as long as it's not preventing you fixing the problem. My colleague Paul Sir John Smith always makes the example of, you know, if you have a broken leg, you would take a painkiller. 

But you wouldn't ignore the fact you've got a broken leg. You'd want to kind of wrap it up and put it in a [00:30:00] cast and not step on it. And so, you know, drugs can be useful and maybe even for the person who's going through, you know, divorce and job loss, like maybe the drug sort of helps them get through that a little bit. 

But, but so long as they realize that, you know, it's a life problem that you're sort of, you're covering up a little bit and you're, you're covering the pain or you're helping get through it. Um, but you will eventually have to fix the. The ultimate cause, which is the, uh, the environmental, um, the environmental factor. 

But yes, it's, it's a nuanced discussion. And I mean, I think you've also, you've just hit on something which I'm really passionate about and actually my research in Cambridge is focused on, which is reframing the problem. I think like, I think so much comes downstream of the explanation and how we frame the problem. 

Um, in loads of subtle ways, uh, kind of, it's really, it's, it's hard to test, we will test it, and we will try and, we'll try and, you know, pin down some effect size that you can get by introducing an evolutionary explanation to someone in a particular context, and hoping to show that it's de [00:31:00] stigmatizing and encourages, um, you know, optimism about recovery, or maybe alters what they decide to do in their life, um, You know, if you take, if you take those depressed people who are coming to you and you give them the evolutionary explanation of depression, do they, then, are they, are they more likely to kind of try and fix the things in their life, rather than if you just kind of say, oh, it's a complex mix of genetic and environmental factors. 

Right. Like, it doesn't really give you any sort of sense of purpose or direction. Right, right, right. One of the things that evolutionary psychiatry has to kind of deal with is this, this criticism that it's not actually gonna help anyone. I think that, you know, psychiatrists are so, um, are so intent on, and, you know, for good reason, and psychotherapists are intent on, you know, the person comes into the clinic, I need to help them. 

That's, if, if you're, if what you're telling me in the next ten minutes is not gonna lead to me actually be able to help my patients better, then I don't, I [00:32:00] shouldn't need to, um, to listen to this. Um, you know, it's not relevant. A psychiatrist will will wonder what's going to be different about this, you know, 15 minute consultation. 

Now I have an evolutionary perspective and how will it help my patients better? Um, and at the moment evolutionary psychiatry doesn't have anything that we can point to to say, yes, look, this is how it will help. But I think we could do, and I think it could be in exactly the way that you, um, suggest, which is just reframing the problem. 

If you just spend a few minutes talking about it. I think, I honestly think it could help now. Uh, and you may or may not mention sort of evolutionary concepts explicitly, it might depend on who you're talking to. But I can, I think having this understanding can help now because you can, you can frame it to the patient, hey, here are a bunch of basic human needs that we evolved to have. 

We evolved to have the need, uh, to socialize with people, have a lot of face to face contact, have deep intimate relationships with people. [00:33:00] We evolved to be, spend a lot of time outside. We evolved to exercise and move our bodies quite a lot. We evolved to solve problems. And then, and this is something we can get into, people have different dispositions. 

So if I'm talking to someone with something like ADHD, particularly at the milder end, Although there are disadvantages, there are also some advantages. So people with ADHD often tell me they're really good at hands on stuff, like not so good at abstract written work perhaps, although some are, but they often tell me when it comes to dynamic tasks that are very hands on, something like a sport, that's where they excel. 

So there are strengths and weaknesses. Similarly, If you have something like emotional sensitivity, yes, that might predispose you to depression, can also help you read a room better, it can help you maintain socially harmonious relationships better. So, you know, it might sound perhaps a bit soft to a [00:34:00] psychiatrist, but I think it can, these ideas can open up a wealth of understanding both for clinician and patient. 

And then that wealth of understanding can lead to a lot of practical interventions that you can advise. So again, if you think someone with mild to moderate ADHD, maybe pick a job that suits your strengths rather than your weaknesses. For example, that could be a really good intervention because if you're If you have something like ADHD and you have a job that relies on you constantly delaying gratification, for instance, you're constantly swimming upstream, where if you have a job where you're constantly presented new, quite stimulating information and requires you to make quick decisions on the fly, that might be the best job for you. 

So I think even now it can help, maybe not in the most medical sense, but I think can help our patients a lot. Absolutely. And The, uh, the example of ADHD is a, is a really interesting one because, you know, on the one hand, the environment has changed so much and we do need [00:35:00] to, you know, sit for nine hours in a classroom and, um, and for, you know, at least whilst it's kind of, uh, mandated by the government, um, uh, until you hit, you know, 16 or 18, uh, and then, you know, on most jobs require some particular type of cognitive skillset, which may be you. 

You're not naturally suited to, but on the other hand, you know, entrepreneurs or have a much higher, um, uh, prevalence of, uh, ADHD amongst them and some of them report that, you know, the, the quite impulsiveness, the, the hyperactivity, um, really suits being an entrepreneur because you're just kind of doing lots of things all the time and you've got 20 different problems to solve. 

And so it doesn't really matter that you're flicking attention and actually you can kind of hope of hyper focus into your business. and get a lot done. And maybe you're more creative, uh, you see solutions where there aren't any, um, that, well, that other people would see, uh, absolutely. And I, I think the, the reframing is super important. 

I mean, so when we get down to actually testing [00:36:00] these these, uh, how these explanations matter, you know, we basically have to take groups of people and say, you know, here's an evolutionary explanation. Now, what do you think of this person with ADHD? Um, and we might find some small effects. I'm, I'm optimistic we'll find some small effects, but I think if you imagine the world where evolutionary psychiatry is kind of accepted and, you know, people realize that, oh, well, you know, there's these natural Cognitive differences, um, you know, some of them are, you know, fit in better or worse to, uh, modern society. 

Um, I think you just see so many subtle differences, like in the teacher who is responding to the ADHD kid in the classroom and just has a little bit more empathy, um, and doesn't kind of, kind of, kind of like sigh and, oh, why can't you face the front? And, and, you know, I think that a lot of Make a, make a moral, make some sort of moral judgment. 

Which is often what people with ADHD complain about, that either they make moral judgments about themselves, that they call themselves lazy or [00:37:00] undisciplined, or that they constantly get that. Exactly. I mean, it's amazing that any of them manage, frankly, because you kind of know you're competent and you know that you can do things, but you're just not interested in sitting and looking at this board. 

You want to be outside and playing. And actually it's natural. It's normal. It's really bizarre that any child can sit still for, you know, eight hours and, uh, and kind of follow all these rules. It's really, it's really novel. But, and yeah, at the moment, you know, they treat it as if they're stupid, same with dyslexia of like, you can't read, reading is really a new thing. 

I mean, it's bizarre to kind of say to this 7 percent of people, Oh, well, you're worse than, and you've got a deficit and. And okay, it is a true deficit. It is, it's an interesting example because it's, it is such a disability to not be able to read. Um, but the cognitive differences which underlie that, um, which might include something like, um, uh, interpretation of visual stimuli in a different way. 

There's some interesting experiments that show that [00:38:00] dyslexics have, um, uh, somehow better at interpreting diffuse images. So basically if you take a picture, photograph of a cruise ship and you make it ever more blurry. Um, until it's just, you know, just a few blobs, um, and then you de blur it, um, dyslexics are somehow able to spot the cruise ship earlier when you're kind of taking this visual information and, and kind of making it more, uh, make more sense or be more specific. 

Which is sort of the opposite of like looking at fine little words, which are quite weird things. It's these tiny little details of lines up and down and dyslexics often report that the kind of the words swim around the page a bit or they can't kind of like focus on one bit at one time. Um, but it's, I think it's quite plausible that just having a different like visual search strategy. 

Um, is actually, would have been quite adaptive, fun to gatherers, you know, you're, you're looking around the environment, you just need to find something quicker than others or notice little, um, notice little differences which [00:39:00] aren't, which other people aren't picking up, that could actually be really useful, um, I think dyslexics also, um, seem to have somewhat of a better visual memory and a better kind of visual spatial, um, um, Uh, sort of, uh, logic or, or like ability. 

So if you put some, there's been some tests with, um, virtual reality rooms where you make a dyslexic, put on a headset and walk around like a virtual environment and then map it out for you. And they have a much more precise idea of the space that was there and, and, um, where everything was. Um, so I think there's, you know, there's interesting benefits there. 

I know, I actually know some. Uh, a dyslexic guy at uni, who I didn't really know at uni was dyslexic, but he, he kind of revealed it to me later. Um, when he found out I was, I was working on this stuff. Um, but he noticed that he was really good at some things and really good at, like, comprehending some things that other people were really bad at. 

Um, and did have this amazing, uh, memory. And actually one of his friends works for a, a design studio, uh, and something like 80 percent or 90 [00:40:00] percent of all of the employees were dyslexic. Uh, they kept around a couple of non dyslexic people basically as, like, spell checkers. Uh, but I, I have a, I have another friend who's a graphic designer who said, yeah, like, half my colleagues are dyslexic, and they're just, they're just, just, just better at visualizing visual imagery stuff. 

Maybe it's just because they knew from an early age, like, they weren't doing well with the writing stuff, so they just got really good at the, at the, the art and the imagery stuff. Or maybe there is actually a, a kind of a cognitive strength there, which is more innate, which isn't just learned. So I think this helps lead on to the next bit I'd like to talk about, which is this idea of specialised minds, obviously the subject of your book. 

So what makes humans different in this regard? Why do we specialise? Because if I think about. Another mammalian species, just giving a stupid example, like successful lions all seem to look the same. Like if you're stronger and faster and better at hunting prey, you're a more successful lion. Lions don't seem to [00:41:00] specialize. 

Do we specialize? And if so, why, why do you think that is? Yes, that's a really interesting point. So, uh, so this goes back to a kind of longstanding debate in the animal personality literature as to whether animals showed different personalities at all. And for the many decades, it was thought that they didn't really. 

Um, but then in the 90s, people realized that, wait a minute, there are some slight differences. Um, especially what is called the bold shy continuum. So it's usually along whether you're kind of aggressive and outgoing and sort of a go getting. And this, this, you see this across all sorts of, um, mammals, but also birds. 

Um, there, there's, you know, there are birds who will fly further away from their nest to try and find food. And then some which are kind of shyer and will stay closer. Um, but yes, you're right that like, it doesn't seem to be the case that other animals have anything like the same sort of personality differences as, as humans do. 

Um, so to explain this, [00:42:00] the, the way that you have to explain any individual difference is basically by saying, okay, it's not, it's, it's, it's something which can't be good for everyone to have. So if there is like a trait which is useful for everyone, like, you know, hunger, like, um, there's no one who shouldn't get hungry at all or, you know, falling in love or whatever. 

And okay, yeah, some people might be feel the variations around that, but actually, you know, these are, these are generally adaptive. The vast majority have those. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Right. So there are, there are many things. Most of evolution is like pushing us towards the optimum phenotype, having two eyes, which can see getting hungry. 

Um, And then you have this weird, uh, phenomenon of individual differences, and why would we have any individual differences at all? Why is everyone not extroverted, and no one's autistic, and no one's introverted? Um, uh, so the, the dynamics that often have to arise there [00:43:00] are, um, they can be related to changes in the environment, if, and you see this often with, um, with, for instance, bird personalities that, Certain, um, types of environment where there's more or less food will be good or bad, depending on whether you're a personality, which will kind of leave, leave further away from the nest. 

So you have what's called balancing selection. So most of natural selection is just pushing everyone towards having one thing. Balancing selection is, okay, there's times when it's good, there's times when it's bad. There's trade offs. It's actually, you know, often quite bad to be leaving further from the nest because you're Chicks might get eaten or whatever the eggs might be eaten, but actually you might find more food. 

So it depends on how many predators are around and how much food is around. And there's these complicated dynamics. Uh, the other major reason why we would have individual differences, which is why humans almost certainly have, uh, more individual differences than other animals. Um, I mean, perhaps, perhaps like eusocial insects are an interesting example. 

Um, but [00:44:00] the, um, but the. So the, the core factor is basically social groups, what we call social selection. Is that, is that the same as group selection? It is not the same as group selection, good point. So group selection, this goes back to like a classic argument in evolutionary biology about whether, whether evolution should act for the good of the group. 

And, you know, whether being altruistic and helping your group survive would then kind of, um, be selected for and whether that explains altruism. Um, that's a slightly different, uh, argument. It can relate a bit, a little bit, and it sort of does relate because basically the answer is you can be altruistic so long as you get some sort of benefit back from your group. 

So long as you're recognized as you're a hero, you put yourself in danger. Um, Even if you do die, your children are alive and we'll provide for them and we'll keep them and, you know, they might end up, um, you know, being honored and respected because their father sacrificed himself. Um, You kind of need that as well. 

You can't have pure altruism, [00:45:00] which is just like completely self sacrificing, um, because eventually those genes will just be, um, selected out. But, but the interesting thing about human society Uh, and human psychology is that we're, we're really good at noticing the people around us and noticing kind of what they're good at and what they're doing. 

Um, it's the thing we love gossiping about, you know, we love gossiping about, oh, this person was a little bit mean or, oh, they're, um. Oh yeah, they're really good at art, or, and, you know, whatever it is, um, or we, we, you know, one of the main things we like gossiping about, apart from relationships, which is obviously also, um, a critical part of, you know, the thing that we need to gossip about is to know who's with who, and you know, who's, who's open perhaps for my own, uh, my own sort of dating and mating market. 

Um, but we do also gossip about, you know, people and what they're good at and what they're bad at, and oh, my supervisor is good in this way, but bad in this way, or whatever it is, my manager. Um, this is exactly what you'd predict would lead to kind of adaptive [00:46:00] individual differences. Um, because basically you can reward people who are, um, you know, the people who go out on the hunt and notice the tracks in the bush, which like other people didn't notice, if you were to take the dyslexic example and that maybe, maybe, or ADHD, maybe like one of the, one of the hypotheses about, um, what ADHD minds are good for is just because they're kind of so scattered, they might just notice little extra things. 

in the environment that lead to opportunities. And, you know, when, when the hunt is done and everyone comes back and they, you know, you're, you're eating the animal, everyone's laughing and you're like, oh, okay, this is great. We've got, we've got meat. Well done. Well done. And everyone repeats what happened during the hunt. 

And it's like, oh, then he found, he saw the tracks and then, um, and then, you know, then I made the call and then, you know, and then someone else took the shot. Uh, and so this is kind of a, One of the ways in which humans are so good at interacting and cooperating, you know, we are like the ultimate cooperating kind of independent [00:47:00] species, um, Uh, and, and it's because of that we basically have been, uh, have been so successful. 

Um, so these are exactly the dynamics which are kind of required for, uh, for individual differences to evolve. Uh, the most traditional, uh, kind of game theory derived individual differences which would evolve are like cheating and cooperating. So This is probably the way that we can explain the psychopathy sort of spectrum, um, and also which at its extreme might be called the disagreeableness continuum from personality, um, science. 

Um, you know, when is it good to be a cheater versus being a co operator? Well, It depends on, um, you know, many factors, but one of the key factors is, are you being punished, um, for being a cheater, and how good is the rest of society at noticing cheaters, and kind of keeping them under control, um. And, and could I add to that, how many cheaters are there present in society? 

Exactly, yes, yes, yes. [00:48:00] Because that, that helps me understand, I was reading the papers that you authored, which you sent me, I'll link those, so those are papers around specialized minds. and around autism and how this relates to evolutionary psychology. And there's this concept of negative frequency dependency, which I've come across for the first time and correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is. 

That's the idea that the strength of a trait can be partly dependent on how frequent it is. So if there aren't that many psychopaths in the population, then the population as a whole, they're not very paranoid about it. They're not super worried or anxious that there's a bunch of psychopaths. So if you're a psychopath in that context, you can be really successful because you can take advantage of a lot of people. 

It's a bit like that movie, uh, with Ricky Gervais, the, the invention of lying. So he's the only person in the world who can lie. Um, because he's, because he's the only person who can lie or, or realizes that lying can be a thing, he gets away with it. Yes. [00:49:00] So the more psychopaths you have in the population, and I believe this is, this has been studied, the more wary of psychopathy the population is, and then the more likely it is that any given psychopath will be rooted out. 

So have I got that right? Right, exactly. Yes. Negative frequency dependency is a super important and interesting dynamic. I think you can see it in so many, um, places, and actually there's been a really big study recently on animal personalities and basically finding that negative frequency dependency is actually super common. 

Basically because there are so many ways in which you can kind of win, but as soon as there are too many people doing the thing, then you stop winning. And it's, and it can, it can happen in, you know, something as simple as like finding a particular food type. If you're, um, a particular type of bird, and you're kind of traveling around the environment. 

And you start looking for a particular type of berry, but everyone else is looking for that type of berry as well, then there's just going to be less of those berries. But if you kind of look for a different place for a different type of nut, then it's suddenly good, but then the more of you that are looking [00:50:00] for that nut, then it changes, and you have this sort of frequency dependency. 

And this is one of the main explanations for why you would see individual variation persist. It also happens with jobs and you know, something as simple as, yeah, it reminds me of business. Right? Like starting a podcast in 2024, . Yeah. Yeah. Like starting a podcast is 20, 24 is way different, as I'm sure you and I are both aware of than starting a podcast in 2010. 

Yes, exactly. You have to find your niche, right? Different landscape, different levels of competition. Exactly, yeah. You have to find your niche, you kind of, you know, differentiate yourself, um, you're, you're competing, right, and, and, I mean, yeah, it's the same in business, um, you know, the more people competing to provide a service, the harder it gets, same in running a business, like, you just don't, you, you kind of carefully tailor who you employ to the needs of the business, and you don't need, as soon as you realize you have five receptionists, but we don't, we don't need five receptionists, we only need one receptionist, then you just get rid of them, um, Um, [00:51:00] it's, yes, it's, this is a kind of, it's a fundamental, basically, dynamic to kind of niches in general, uh, and it's, and it's core, I think, to explaining why these individual differences would exist. 

The interesting anecdotal example from the autism literature, which I think kind of makes this very clear, is, um, is captured in this story of a reindeer herder. Um, from the Evenki in Siberia, who was studied by, um, an anthropologist, Piers Witebsky. And Piers went with these reindeer herders, um, and he lived with them for months. 

I think even perhaps he, over the, over the many years he spent there, um, over the many years he was studying them, he kind of spent years there. Um, and he noticed this very singular figure called Old Grandfather Nikitin. Um, Old Grandfather Nikitin was weird because he was a reindeer herder and he was, um, a very important figure in the community, but he didn't actually camp with everyone else, and he [00:52:00] didn't, um, eat with everyone else. 

He was sort of off on his own, in his tent, preferred his own space, um, but he was kind of talked about and revered, um, despite not really socially interacting at all, um, because he had this incredible memory for the reindeer. If you type in, um, you know, Evenki Reindeer Herder, Siberia, you'll, you'll find pictures of these reindeer. 

And, um, you know, when I'm presenting this in, with a, with a PowerPoint, I show a picture of a hundred of these reindeer and they kind of, they look quite interesting. I couldn't really pick one apart from the other. I mean, if I really tried, I might be able to, to pick them apart, but Old Grandfather could look at the herd of 2, 600 reindeer and know instantly which one was which and could tell you their parentage, could tell you their Um, their medical history, like, oh, this one got caught in a fence three years ago. 

Um, who's constantly observing them and noticing which ones were winning, which, which males specifically were winning in, um, [00:53:00] uh, kind of mating conflicts. Um, so which ones would, would kind of be mating this year or wouldn't be mating, which is really important because the Evenki need to eat the, some of the reindeer. 

And so the ones that they eat are the ones which are the males, which won't reproduce anyway. And, um, and like for the Evenki. The reindeer are more than just, oh, this kind of interesting, um, this herd of reindeer who are kind of like our pets or whatever, they are, you're kind of, you're very survival, they were clothing, they were food, they were transport, like the whole survival of the, of the tribe depended on, um, maintaining the reindeer herd. 

An old grandfather, every time they had to make any decision about whether they would be, you know, which ones they would be eating, and which ones they would be breeding, and what they should do, they'd just go to him. Even though he wasn't, uh, you know, socializing at all, you know, he's basically like this encyclopedic knowledge of the herd. 

Like, in the days before computers, when we could just write down everything, um, like, you needed people to have this really deep, intense knowledge [00:54:00] of You know, seasons and, you know, depending on where you are, plants or, or, or animal movements and whatever it is. Um, having this encyclopedic knowledge was, would basically make him a super high status figure. 

And, it's, if you read the account, it's interesting because all the other young men are quite jealous. And like, because everyone, all the men are like, no, no, I know the reindeer, I know the reindeer. But actually everyone knows, like, no, then you don't know the reindeer as well as old grandfather nicotine, so. 

Um, so it's a really interesting example of, uh, what seems to kind of fit a couple of these, um, the classic autism criteria of sort of this obsessive behavioral kind of interest and also this, this, this social distancing, um, uh, and yet also having extremely high status, um, and, you know, and, and reproducing and being provided for and the fact he's not socially interacting doesn't matter at all because he's just doing his thing and he's incredibly valuable. 

Um, Now, I think the reason why I thought of this when you were talking about negative frequency dependency, um, it's obvious why [00:55:00] you don't really need 10 old grandfather nicotines, because actually, like, having one person who is socially, like, you know, disconnected and just knows everything about the reindeer is kind of enough. 

That's all you really need, um. And as soon as, you know, if there were five people, say their old grandfather, I mean he had kids, we don't, I don't know anything about his kids, but you know, say that they were more on the autism spectrum, because it's a heritable condition, the chances are that some of them, you know, the ones who were, prove themselves as being, you know, Um, having similarly encyclopedic memories, um, would do well, um, but not, but like at some point, you know, the social inability would become kind of too much of a cost. 

Um, people do actually really want to, you know, socialize and chat and banter. And um, so, so it's, yeah, it's a, it's a good example of where you'd probably see this quite like strong negative frequency dependency, um, uh, and that can extend to kind of a lot of the different, um, the different [00:56:00] traits which are related to both personality, uh, and, and some mental disorders. 

So, so it sounds like human beings specialize because I think human beings seem to success, seem to succeed or fail as a group much more than individuals, but also there's something about the adaptability of different individuals to different tasks which can make human beings hyper successful. In a way that animals simply can't, humans can go into these different environments and adapt and people can split off into different niches. 

And that can give. Human beings are set in a level of superiority. And then the other point I'd like to get to is this idea that every trait, whether it's like a personality trait, or a trait with regards to your psychology or your mental health, is in fact a trade off. So you look at old grandfather Nick, [00:57:00] the trade is you lose some ability to socialize. 

What you get is this encyclopedic knowledge, and I talk about this when I lecture about personality. It's really important to understand every personality trait is a strength and a weakness at the same time. If you're really extroverted, that's amazing for developing lots of more superficial social connections quickly, but you are sacrificing depth. 

You're getting breadth and sacrificing depth. Uh, similarly, if you're really, really hard working, that means you're really good at delaying gratification. You're really good at prioritizing the future. That, that's a major predictor of life success if you're very conscientious, but you're not that fun at the party, actually. 

People prefer people, people prefer hanging out with people who are much more present focused. So if there's one idea, which maybe you can tell me what you think, but I'd like to sort of. I'd like listeners to take home is traits always present this trade off, strengths and [00:58:00] weaknesses. And maybe there's a question around how can we build a life for ourselves that capitalizes on our strength while minimizing the impact of our weakness or our disadvantage, something like that. 

Yeah, absolutely. So Daniel Nettle has written the kind of most comprehensive book that I know of on personality from an evolutionary perspective, um, basically looking at the, I mean, proposing, saying, I think it's called Personality, Why We Are The Way We Are, or something like that. And yes, absolutely. 

Trade offs are everywhere. It's really hard. I mean, and it's sort of inevitable as part of kind of individual differences. Um, you know, if there weren't the trade offs, then we would all just be extroverted. Um, one of the interesting insights, uh, from sort of more anthropological research and from an evolutionary perspective on extroversion. 

is that extroverts might be more likely to get into conflicts with others, um, especially a few extroverts kind of [00:59:00] fighting to be the most extroverted. Uh, social conflict can actually be really harmful in a world where people might end up getting into violent, um, kind of altercations with each other. Um, there's no rule of law, um, you know, uh, life is quite, um, yeah, life was quite different. 

The, I think one of the interesting, um, additional points, although I, absolutely, strengths and weaknesses are every, are everywhere, and You know, don't they need to, but also work on their strengths, um, and whether that is because of a dimension of, you know, ADHD or autism spectrum, or it's just conscientiousness or extroversion, uh, that I think that's the general advice, which is super important. 

And maybe there are ways in which employers and educators can do a better job of incorporating those individual differences. I think it is. It's a shame that we are so bad at. Um, kind of adapting around those, those innate differences when there is so much to give. Um, but then [01:00:00] this is, this does then to the point where like a lot of these differences, so for instance, neuroticism, neuroticism is associated with, it's basically bad. 

It's, it's associated with so much it's suffering and anxiety. Just, just for listeners, so yes, just for listeners, so neuroticism is. Uh, part of the big five model of personality, I like to call it emotional sensitivity for marketing purposes. Cause I can't think of a less market, less marketable name than neuroticism, but it's like basically it's neuroticism is how much emotion do you feel per unit stress? 

So person A loses their job, person B loses their job. They're going to feel different levels of stress depending on their levels of neuroticism. And, and, uh, yeah, and it's. Neuroticism really does overlap with sort of anxiety scales and depression scales a lot. You know, there's um, the people who come to you with, um, you know, general anxiety disorder are probably somewhere neurotic. 

They're not [01:01:00] likely to be, kind of, have very low neuroticism. And neuroticism is very interesting because it's It's so obviously good to be kind of fearful in an evolutionary environment, um, just being cautious, making sure everything's fine and like looking around like, oh, don't go out too late. Um, watch out for snakes. 

Uh, are my children okay? I have, you know, seven children running around. Am I kind of making sure that they're actually not, you know, stepping on snakes or eating poisonous berries or whatever it is. Neuroticism obviously adaptive in a world where you have no safety measures at all. There's everything is trying to. 

kill you and eat you and, and there's infection and whatever. The, there's a sort of, there's an evolutionary mismatch, I think, partly because we've, we've tried really hard to get rid of the, the harmful sides of, um, of society where, you know, it's, even though there are kind of strengths to being somewhat neurotic now, um, they're less impressive and useful than they were, you know, a few thousand years ago. 

Um, so, [01:02:00] you know, and it's, It's hard. Like, there's definitely something to be gained. There's something to look at and say, Oh, what's my neuroticism teaching me? What is my anxiety teaching me? But also recognizing that you're probably overreacting. Um, it's life or death anymore. It should feel like it's life or death because at some point it was. 

Like the, the emotions were there because of life and death situations. Uh, but it's not life or death anymore. And you have to, and yeah, working out psychological and techniques and maybe an extreme, you know, medication. Uh, to, to kind of deal with that is, is just, you know, it's, it's sort of your lot and it's what you've got to, um, got to work out how to do. 

And just not, not trust your, um, not trust your instincts to be kind of seeking, seeking danger anywhere, everywhere anymore. Um, but all of our natures are kind of completely mismatched to our environments and, um, pleasure is I, I think you did an episode, I kind of clicked through one of your episodes with them. 

So I'm working on video games. Uh, I think there's, there's another side to neuroticism, which is less [01:03:00] noticed in psychiatry because it's basically like pleasure and how, and, and how enjoyment can be, um, can actually end up being quite bad for you. I mean, it depends. I mean, drugs are the most obvious case for this, you know, like you're just tricked into thinking that the thing is good and you just need to keep doing the drug. 

Um, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, in the same way that our fears are misaligned to what is actually dangerous in the modern environments. Often our, our kind of pleasures and our desires are kind of misaligned to what will actually help us, you know. Pleasure and desire and feeling good was always meant to be the signal of, this is a good thing to do for your life. 

Um, and in some cases video games can be good to do. But if you do them at the extreme when you spend ten hours a day and you don't get a real job, um, although obviously now you can make video games a job, but it's not, yeah, like, the probability of that is low. Um. Yeah. I put out an article in the Guardian about this, which was basically about the danger of, in this case, modern conveniences, that evolution makes [01:04:00] us incredibly vulnerable to conveniences because my God, the evolutionary landscape was so inconvenient. 

But if you stumbled upon anything convenient that could help you save energy, save time, rest, you, you're going to pounce on it. Now we have access to all the conveniences at our fingertips. And in many ways, super helpful, you wouldn't want washing machines or modern transportation or things like that to go away. 

But I, I basically posit in the article that we're now in an era of what you could call hyper convenience, convenience that's not just helping us reach new heights, but is taking away our ability to delay gratification, taking our way to deal with. Uh, our ability to deal with discomfort and therefore very much diminishing our resilience and our ability to navigate through tough situations in life, you know, I'm talking about people who might have a video game addiction or [01:05:00] a social media addiction, which prevents them from say, going out in the world and forming relationships. 

Cases like that. So absolutely, as much as there are downsides to negative emotions, there can be downsides to positive emotions as well. And it's some, it's one of those things, once you see it, it's very difficult to unsee because it kind of makes you very wary of the modern world. Yeah, I don't trust my, I don't trust my instincts at all. 

It's so tempting for me to finish this interview and then just go and play video games for five hours. But I'm like, actually, I did want to, you know, read this book, which will be more useful and better for me, but, but it's less pleasurable and. And, uh, yeah, I mean, obviously there's the classic criticism of social media is that it's very specifically designed to be, kind of, give you this, this pleasure response. 

Um, but I think, I think games are actually probably better designed to be, um, to be, to be, uh, so, uh, yeah, in engaging. Um, It's a hard thing to know what to do with because people aren't complaining about it, you know, it's and and and and you and [01:06:00] you really to know the harm you have to kind of play out the counterfactual life where you what you weren't addicted to Call of Duty or whatever and you and you did actually just spend time on You know your, your work. 

I say this as a, as a kind of gamer who's had to kind of deal with the fact that I am probably gaming too much and I've had to kind of bring in rules and regulations on myself. Um. I mean I use a simple rule of thumb with this, which is that I'm, I'm basically kind of mistrustful of anything, especially if it's kind of on the artificial end of things like a drug or a video game that gives you a lot of pleasure or comfort up front and then takes from behind. 

Like, yeah, the video game is super fun and seductive and interesting, but then after a few hours, you're left holding a controller and feeling kind of sweaty and uncomfortable. Same thing with eating a pizza. But then using the counter example, something like, I don't know, working on your business or studying or even going out and socializing, often uncomfortable at first. 

first few minutes, but then afterwards you feel [01:07:00] like accomplished. You feel like you've done something. And so in person socializing might be the best example where many people can relate to being a little bit uncomfortable, especially if you're not drinking alcohol, but then after you found you form a new connection or you feel really good. 

So I, my rule of thumb is something I call like the economics of discomfort. If it feels really comfortable at first, And then after you've done it, it feels bad to maybe don't do it so much. You can do it sometimes that's all right, but maybe not so much. If something feels uncomfortable upfront, but then it's rewarding, the reward is amplified later. 

Maybe that's more of a regular activity that can be part of your day, you know, and that's really very much going against your instincts, as you said. Absolutely. No, yeah, I think that's very, um, that's very wise. There is a, you know, there's a, there is the sensation of achieving something in a video game which is so strict and clear and it's like this Ding, ding, ding. 

And it's like, Ooh, something pops up on the screen and you get an extra medal and you can see [01:08:00] you're, you're 85 percent of the way in there and now you're 87 percent of the way and you get so much feedback to kind of convince you that this is, uh, the right thing to do when you're there and then you step up and you turn it off and you're like, Oh God, what have I. 

Um, but it's, um, but yeah, real life is just not, I mean, there's, there's no quantifiable, uh, I mean, maybe it's a problem in, in modernity as well, but our work is just so disconnected, you know, like the daily work for a hunter gatherer is just getting up and killing the thing and bringing it back home and then being able to eat it. 

And there's just so much pleasure all the way there, which is, which is, I mean, because, you know, I'll, I'll. body and brain designed were designed by evolution over millions of years to really find that enjoyable. Um, and yeah, it's the problem of modernity is the problem of delayed gratification and having, you know, 10 year goals or five year goals. 

And if you can't tick off these little happy boxes, um, I don't know. I think there's maybe [01:09:00] an argument where like the video game being Um, something which keeps you going a little bit. Um, just giving you, because we have, you know, lost so much pleasure and so much, we, um, we've removed so much of these natural stimulations from, from our life, that I, I'm very sympathetic to, you know, using technology to somehow, Um, refill that gap, um, to, to kind of remove the evolutionary mismatch, which might be caused by industrialization. 

Um, but doing so in a healthy way is really the question and, and understanding where you yourself as an individual, how much you is healthy for you, um, and whether it's kind of dragging you in too much. Um, yes. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know. It's, but it's a very hard line. I think, you know, so many of these questions, the general evolutionary theory does apply. 

to, to all sorts, you know, to everyone, you know, everyone can understand themselves and their individual differences and their tendencies and their desires and their fears through the evolutionary [01:10:00] framework. But when it, the way it applies to you is, is really a very individual, um, thing and it will require you kind of understanding yourself and perhaps working with a therapist to kind of understand, you know, how to, how to best, um, to best manifest it. 

And I do think that the, one of the things to go back to your kind of earlier point. One of the things that an evolutionary perspective will add to therapy is just, you know, just giving this extra kind of lens and helping to understand yourself in a way which maybe is quite rewarding and encourages people to engage in therapy more, um, encourages people to kind of do, uh, to challenge themselves, uh, especially in something where it's like removing the pleasure, like giving up a video game. 

Um, you know, the problem is like, do you really want to, and like, you kind of know you should. But also your wants, your desires are much more aligned to no, no, no, I need to keep progressing in the game. Um, and so, you know, maybe like giving illusion equipment will, will [01:11:00] help some people kind of take that step to, you know, restrict use. 

Um, or, you know, take a month off or just try and restrict it to weekends and then, and see what happens. And I, and as you kind of pointed out, like, I think that when you, when you do engage in those behaviors or, you know, the restriction of those behaviors, um, or challenge yourself to overcome your fears. 

Then you look back on your The last month or the last week and you're like, Oh my God, that was actually, that was actually much better. I should have been doing that. And then you can kind of get a, we can kind of trick ourselves into feeling good, um, about like how we're progressing. Uh, but you know, but making people make, take that step is maybe something the evolutionary perspective can, can help with. 

And going even a bit deeper than that. You know, you're interested in, your background is in philosophy, which is all about, you know, what constitutes a good life, how can we live a good life, what is wisdom, moral questions. And I'm wondering, you know, I think if you had to pick an area of science that could help us actually inform philosophy, I don't know if you [01:12:00] could do much better than evolutionary. 

psychology because it helps us to understand why we have the mental software we have. Even the story you told at the beginning of the podcast about the woman whose husband left, left her and then the groups kind of gets together and say, Hey, this isn't right. There's almost, you can see in that story, an emerging sense of morality. 

I'm really interested in morality because I think it's something we've kind of tossed aside in a hyper rational modern landscape. I'm interested perhaps in what form we can bring morality back, maybe get the best uses of morality without being moralistic. And do you think evolutionary psychology can help us to answer questions around morality and, and. 

What it means to live a good life. I think it definitely informs us somewhat. Most philosophers, I think, don't like this view. Or definitely most ethicists. I remember actually confronting one of my professors. I say [01:13:00] confronting, it was a, it was a conversation which, which felt, which then turned, which turned into feeling like a confrontation because she reacted quite badly to it. 

Um. Because a lot of philosophers want ethics to be something that's kind of above and beyond, uh, science and, and, uh, you know, just part of, they want to keep that at least for philosophy alone. Would you say above and beyond our biology as well? Yeah, exactly. Well, this is, I, I disagree that it's a useful way of framing it. 

But yeah, I think that, But depending on the person, then, um, yeah, most of them are just not that interested. Um, but I think in, in terms of practically practical ethics, you might say, or just recognizing how people can be moral, um, and, and because you can have your moral norms, which maybe are not constrained that much by evolutionary theory. 

And I think in fact, you know, a lot of the time. You don't want to make the naturalistic fallacy of thinking that because, you know, ADHD [01:14:00] was beneficial. Yeah, yeah, exactly. There is, there is no sense in which evolutionary psychiatry is saying, okay, well, we shouldn't be treating this person who's in a terrible state, um, just because it's an adaptive response. 

Like, no, you just need to help people as much as you can. That's the, that's the kind of overarching framework. Um, but I think what it does lend is it does lend more insight into how to do it well. So. If you want people to kind of be enthusiastic about participating in a society where people care for each other and are, you know, somewhat altruistic, recognizing human nature and kind of the, the, the environmental, um, factors and the social factors which encourage that cooperation from an evolutionary perspective could just be a really, you know, a simple way, um, to do that. 

So, you know, people often need like The people that they are cooperating with are also cooperating back. There's a sort of mutualism there. Um, that you're [01:15:00] not just kind of giving to a sort of a cheating, um, economy. One of the things I found most interesting about my four years in Switzerland, uh, which I think is kind of downstream of Swiss democracy, which is very direct. 

All of the Swiss people vote four times a year on thousands of laws. Um, and they feel more than any place I've ever been. They feel really part of the government because they really are the government. Basically, the Swiss people are making the decision. And it's a, it's a sort of strange place to be because it's very utopian, um, but it's not just utopian, it's like the fact that everyone is sort of going along with it. 

And I think part of that is just, and they kind of believe in the system. When I talked to my Swiss, um, flatmate, she really did, she defended Swiss laws, she defended Swiss government. And, which is very rare in the UK. You, all you do is complain about the government because it feels like an us and them and, you know, they, they have their own interests. 

Sounds nice. Yeah, exactly. And, uh, I, I think that somehow that, that, that form of democracy has kind of [01:16:00] allowed them to feel more engaged in this, in the system, and then also actually just be more ethical and be more moral and follow the laws in a way which we perhaps feel is like less, um, it's just less kind of natural or less appealing, um, in, in other countries where representative democracy is the norm. 

I mean, there are these little things. I do, yeah, I mean, just in terms of, if being ethical requires overcoming your innate nature to somewhat be selfish and lazy and, um, then I think that the evolutionary perspective does kind of give some little tips and tricks, um, Perhaps, uh, you know, I think about this quite a lot, like ways in which you can encourage people to try to, to enjoy their job and, and also enjoy school. 

But I think most of it in terms of the, um, mostly in terms of the workplace, like what are the simple things to make people feel kind of connected in a community at the workplace? [01:17:00] Um, and, and the evolutionary perspective can kind of lend something there. Which is, you know, the, the everyday and kind of regular activities of a hunter gatherer group. 

Um, for instance, sharing food together, like sharing food with people. And, and that food being kind of provided by the sort of work you're doing together, um, is just such a natural part of being human. It's literally millions and millions of years of evolution. Almost the most fundamental thing that kept us cooperating was working together to catch food and share it. 

And my understanding is that sharing food is actually very unique to humans. Is that right? Um, it depends. Primates do share food with their children and I mean, if there's like a lot of food, there might be a sort of the alpha gets in first and then lets others take it. There is, we are the most food sharing for sure. 

Um, uh, [01:18:00] but yeah, but, but, um, I mean, we're also unusual because we have a We hunt large game, which then we can like bring back to the camp and then everyone, um, we have rituals around it and we, we party, uh, not that other like predators do hunt large game and then, and then actually end up leaving the carcass, um, which sometimes then humans will scavenge. 

Um, one of the hypotheses as to where we started eating meat was just kind of, you know, following the lions along and just waiting until they've eaten their share and then taking it back. Um, the. But I mean just like simple things like sharing food, feeling like you're in a sort of egalitarian society where there's not like a strict hierarchy and people are kind of abusing you for for resources. 

We are naturally quite egalitarian. Um, it's really the kind of modern work environment because of just the one, just the way that capitalism and businesses are set up. Um, but like at least trying to kind of encourage people to be, um, to [01:19:00] feel part of a community again, I think is something that we've lost in the last, 20 years, since it became kind of normal to switch jobs so much. 

Um, even, you know, I think the loss of religion was one core part. place where we lost kind of our local community and a local, um, people that we could rely on at the church and find for mates and, and, and for social support. But then even after that, it was much more common to join a company and then work with them for 50 years and then retire. 

Uh, and part of that, and that, that was, that was a more communal, um, I think there was, there's more opportunity to build a community spirit in that. In that environment. Um, uh, yeah, I think that like the world has gone ever less. It's become much more focused on productivity and optimizing, but it is it is at the expense of an environment which is naturally engaging and which could also encourage, um, you know, good [01:20:00] behavior and kind behavior and actually just happiness as well. 

I don't think that, um, morality and and ethics, uh, need to, um, um, To contrast with the kind of pursuit of happiness, um, for oneself and, and for everyone, um. Yeah, I mean, even connecting to points we raised earlier in the podcast, I even think discovering your, like, becoming more aware of your, your traits, by which I mean your strengths and your weaknesses, and then developing your strengths and developing your potential It may even constitute, it may even be a moral act to do that because in doing so and discovering and developing your strengths, almost inevitably may be excluding the psychopaths in the audience. 

Lots of them. Yeah. Mostly my audience is mostly psychopaths. You know who you are. And by, by developing your strengths. For most people, you're developing something that can be tremendously useful [01:21:00] to other people. If you can become a really great engineer, say, or a really great doctor or really great philosopher, whatever it is, that's something that you can then contribute to the group. 

You're going to enjoy it because it being your natural disposition, it's going to be something that you're In all likelihood, inclined to do and then the other people are going to get value from it. So it's like a natural win win relationship, whereas actually hiding for your own, from your own potential, um, you could say on some level, and this is not like a judgment thing, but you could say that's kind of immoral because you're hiding something that could benefit you and other people. 

I should say, highlight, this is my own personal philosophy, but that's a bit how I think about it. I think you've hit on something there. And also I think that it's possible But using that sort of social worth argument could be one way to actually convince people to work harder on it, because if it's just yourself, we are highly social creatures. 

We do want to be helpful, we do want to [01:22:00] be respected and provide and, you know, it's a problem that a lot of people face is that they're actually not providing enough and they're worthless, um, and And I do think that maybe emphasizing that it's not just for you that we want to kind of overcome this state of depression and like, find your strengths and kind of get you back on your feet, but actually it'll be really helpful to other people. 

Um, I think people will respond to that. Um, the, uh, yeah, the question as to as to like, what will best motivate you to act, to act the good life. Um, we probably do overlook the usefulness of just social influence, like, you know, and not just from, you know, being respected, um, and being, um, and gaining social status for kind of such way, but just because you want to be useful and it's, it's cool to be helpful. 

And one of the things that is really. Encourage me. And in fact, frankly, the only thing that like keeps me working in this field is like, I do actually think it will be useful to people. I wouldn't be working on it. I wouldn't have been working on it for whatever, eight years or whatever it is, unless I thought there was that [01:23:00] someone will appreciate it, uh, and that it, that it's meaningful. 

I think you're probably the same. Um, I think most people want that from their jobs. Uh, And, you know, I'm working out how to do that and, and to convince you of that is maybe, I mean, maybe that's also something that companies and maybe therapists and need to think about because so much of the time our job is completely disconnected. 

I mean, you know, you, you found the podcast, right? You release the episode, but you don't actually see the impact. Like so many of our. Our jobs are, you know, you write the email, you create the product, you do the service, but you don't actually see the person who's enjoying it or it's like, wow, that's really interesting. 

Occasionally they email you, which is always lovely, but we have no idea how beneficial our effects are of our products. work on the rest of the, um, of the rest of the, uh, the species. Um, and, and if we were there and like seeing in their faces, I mean, it might get a bit overwhelming, frankly, if you know the thousands of people who are listening to you, if you think of the stadium that you'd [01:24:00] fill with this podcast, but it doesn't feel like that at all. 

And we kind of, we don't feel the same rush that we would feel if we were standing in front of 4, 000 people. Um, but we should, you know, and that's, that's why I enjoy speaking live whenever I can. And it's also why I love being a therapist, because that's a profession where you really do see the impact, you see the, the improvement week to week, and it's incredible. 

Um, maybe as we draw towards a close here, could you tell us a little bit about You know, what, what are the, where maybe is evolutionary psychiatry stuck at the moment? And what do you see as the, the future of the field? What's maybe exciting you about the future? I'm very excited in Cambridge at the moment. 

We have a really good team together of psychiatrists, um, anthropologists, we're, we're kind of really trying to build the field. Uh, I, I'm seeing more and more people get interested. I have all sorts of, um, young people who are interested in getting in the field. [01:25:00] I think that some of the, so I think that the need is there. 

And when I talk to people, um, you know, just in a bar about the field, people are interested. I think it's, um, that's a good test. The bar test, the bar test is actually great. It's one of the things that keeps me going when you just say that what you're working on and people are like, Oh yeah, this makes sense of my cousin or whatever. 

You're like, Oh yeah, cool. Um, the, so I think the couple of things are, we do need better evidence, especially anthropological evidence. Um, we, I, and it's something that I'm working on is, you know, finding out like exactly what is, how is autism manifesting in its various, on different levels of the spectrum in hunter gatherers? 

You know, can we find people with ADHD? Can we find people with depression? How's it resolving? This hasn't really been done well enough. Um, Um, there's a big opportunity now because so many societies are gradually industrializing. Um, they're kind of running natural experiments, as we say, um, in, you know, bringing in all these kind of weird [01:26:00] novel environments. 

And it will be interesting to see if, you know, people do just become more persistently depressed when they are living in an urban environment with, you know, wage labor. In comparison to, you know, a hundred miles in the other direction where people have basically the same culture, but are actually living in a cultural lifestyle. 

Um, You know, do conditions like bipolar and schizophrenia manifest differently, um, or just less, um, in, in those agricultural communities? Is there something going on with that mismatch? There's, I think there's so much evidence that we can gather that will be critical, and I would actually say, anyone out there has a billion dollars to, to fund this, um, it's, Well, the one thing that's so pressing about this to me is that there will never be another time to replay this experiment. 

Um, you can fund the Large Hadron Collider, you know, in the 90s or 2010 or 2100, and it's just a replicating experiment, you know, we'll just be able to see it. And, but, but the humanity in its [01:27:00] kind of, its various stages of industrialization, it's already sort of going, basically, the, you know, the, the natural lifestyle. 

Um, but capturing this information right now, And even if we can't analyze it all right now, I think it will be, it's information, it's data that will be so important for as long as humanity exists, whether if we existed in a thousand years, we'll be looking back at this information on what were people living like, you know, it's, it's the true history of our species that we can try and capture. 

So I think it's so important for us to do as much as we can right now. That's one thing. And I am working with people to try and do that. Um, and we will hopefully, um, find people interested in funding the field who. who recognize that potential and the importance of this work. Uh, the other thing which I talked about a little bit is just proving where it matters, you know, proving how it reframes people's perspectives on themselves. 

How does it affect parents or teachers? We actually ran a, a great, um, workshop in Cambridge. We invited some [01:28:00] young psychiatrists. Uh, trainee psychiatrists to, to come and practice giving evolution explanations to actors. Um, uh, and we had a few stations and there was, you know, someone who was, um, agoraphobic and another woman who had, um, uh, who was presenting as if she had a son with ADHD. 

And you know, the psychiatrists give these explanations to the person and to the actor and they practice giving it so that, you know, when they go back to their clinic, they can hopefully feel like they're a little bit more expert. But the interesting thing that came out of that was that the actor who had A son with ADHD actually did have a son with ADHD. 

She wasn't really acting at all. Um, I mean, she was being positive. Um, but when we were talking to her afterwards, she said, this is, this has been so interesting to me and I am actually more, you know, optimistic about Jack's, Jack's success. One of the questions she asked was, okay, well this is, you know, so okay, so the environment is weird and you know, school's not right for him, but like what, how will he do when he grows up? 

You know, when he goes into workplace, she was worried, you know, she's worried like what's going to happen to my son when he's 18 or 19. [01:29:00] Is he going to be, is he going to be this bad? Um, and the evolutionary perspective just gave her a more optimistic view on what would happen. So, so yeah, I mean, just showing that this happens and finding out, you know, who it's most important to communicate with. 

Communicating this, just the fundamentals with these people, I think is, is one of the next stages for the field, as well as better, um, Um, empirical evidence and also better theory, which is another thing that my research, um, focuses on, but yeah, there's a lot to do, but I think we have a lot to do. Yeah. 

Well, that's awesome. And I, I look forward to seeing where the field goes and look forward to following your work. So thank you so much for coming on today. We're going to have to have you back on. At some point in the future, maybe once your book comes out, I'd love to, when the book comes out, I'd love to. 

And yeah, we'll have done quite a bit of research here in the Cambridge group. Um, then we're going some of our colleagues off to the Congo in a few weeks to, to run some of this research. So it would be fun to, um, to share what they found. So yes, thank you [01:30:00] for inviting me. Awesome. Adam Hunt. Thank you very much.