sadness and depression

Question 1

Describe three ways that depression may be evolutionarily adaptive.

Answer 1

Help to conserve energy and resources especially when striving toward unproductive goals

Facilitates sustained analysis of problems

Reduces risk of social losses and exclusion

Facilitates the de-escalation of conflict

Reduces immune system vulnerability

Question 2

Describe three ways that depression can bias individuals that are affected by it.

Answer 2

Biased attention toward depressive stimuli, depressed individuals will spend more time attending to negative stimuli or stimuli with loss or sadness themes

People tend to remember things congruent with mood, so depressed people will remember things that are sad because they feel sad

Depressed people report more pessimistic cognitions about the future