An exploration of evolved mental mechanisms for dominant and subordinate behaviour in relation to auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia and critical thoughts in depression

Background. Mental mechanisms have evolved to enable animals (and humans) t o be able to function in various social roles. It is suggested that the nat ure and functions of the mental mechanisms that enable animals to act as a hostile-dominant or threatened-subordinate can be distinguished. It is furt her suggested these can be internally activated and 'play off' against each other, such that a person 'attacks' themselves and then responds to their own internal attacks with subordinate defences. Hence, a depressed person c an submit, feel defeated, belittled, beaten down, or want to run away (esca pe) from their own self-attacking thoughts, while psychotic voice hearers c an feel similarly to their hostile voices. Such internal interactions may r elate to depression in both psychotic voice hearers and depressed people. Method. A group of 66 voice hearers with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and 5 0 depressed patients were compared on a series of self-report questionnaire s measuring the power of hostile self-directed thoughts/voices and the acti vation of defensive responses, especially fight/flight. Results. We present evidence that schizophrenic, malevolent voice hearers a nd self-critical depressed people experience their hostile, internally gene rated voices/thoughts as powerful, dominating and controlling (i.e. have ty pical characteristics of a hostile dominant). Moreover, these voices/though ts activate evolved subordinate defences such as fight/flight and these are associated with depression in both depression and schizophrenia. Conclusion. Conceptualizing aspects of depressed and psychotic thinking as relating to evolved mental mechanisms, which are role serving, but can inte rnally play off against each other, may open new ways of investigating cert ain aspects of severe pathologies.