Pieter R. Adriaens

The evolution of a social construction: the case of male homosexuality.

Male homosexuality has been viewed by evolutionary psychologists as a Darwinian paradox, and by other social scientists as a social construction. We argue that it is better understood as an evolutionary social construction. Male homosexuality as we now know it is an 18th-century invention, but nonexclusive same-sex sexual behavior has a long evolutionary history. According to the alliance-formation hypothesis, same-sex sexuality evolved by natural selection because it created or strengthened male-male alliances and allowed low-status males to reposition themselves in the group hierarchy and thereby increase their reproductive success. This hypothesis makes sense of some odd findings about male homosexuality and helps to explain the rise in exclusive male homosexuality in the 18th century. The sociohistorical conditions around 1700 may have resulted in an increase in same-sex sexual behavior. Cultural responses to same-sex sexuality led to the spread of exclusive homosexual behavior and to the creation of a homosexual identity. Understanding male homosexuality as an evolutionary social construction can help us move beyond the traditionally polarized debate between evolutionary psychologists and social constructionists.

Why We Essentialize Mental Disorders

Essentialism is one of the most pervasive problems in mental health research. Many psychiatrists still hold the view that their nosologies will enable them, sooner or later, to carve nature at its joints and to identify and chart the essence of mental disorders. Moreover, according to recent research in social psychology, some laypeople tend to think along similar essentialist lines. The main aim of this article is to highlight a number of processes that possibly explain the persistent presence and popularity of essentialist conceptions of mental disorders. One such process is the general tendency of laypeople to essentialize conceptual structures, including biological, social, and psychiatric categories. Another process involves the allure of biological psychiatry. Advocating a categorical and biological approach, this strand of psychiatry probably reinforced the already existing lay essentialism about mental disorders. As such, the question regarding why we essentialize mental disorders is a salient example of how cultural trends zero in on natural tendencies, and vice versa, and how both can boost each other.

The evolutionary turn in psychiatry: a historical overview

Ever since Darwin, psychiatrists have been tempted to put evolutionary theory to use in their efforts to understand and explain various aspects of mental disorders. Following a number of pivotal developments in the history of evolutionary thought, including degeneration theory, ethology and the modern synthesis, this introductory paper provides an overview of the many trends and schools in the history of ‘psychiatric Darwinism’ and ‘evolutionary psychiatry’. We conclude with an attempt to distinguish three underlying motives in asking evolutionary questions about mental disorders.

Darwinizing sexual ambivalence : a new evolutionary hypothesis of male homosexuality

At first sight, homosexuality has little to do with reproduction. Nevertheless, many neo‐Darwinian theoreticians think that human homosexuality may have had a procreative value, since it enabled the close kin of homosexuals to have more viable offspring than individuals lacking the support of homosexual siblings. In this article, however, we will defend an alternative hypothesis—originally put forward by Freud in “A phylogenetic phantasy”—namely that homosexuality evolved as a means to strengthen social bonds. Consequently, from an evolutionary point of view, homosexuality and heterosexuality have entirely distinct origins: there is no continuum from heterosexuality to homosexuality. Indeed, the natural history we propose shows that the intensity of the homosexual inclination has little or no predictive value with regard to the intensity of heterosexual tendencies. In fact, this may be a sound Darwinian way to understand sexual ambivalence. But if sexual ambivalence is a biological datum, one has to conclude that psychodynamic mechanisms are often needed in order to explain exclusive heterosexuality or exclusive homosexuality.

Are Paraphilias Mental Disorders? The Case of the DSM

Are sexual perversions or paraphilias mental disorders? I attempt to answer this question by scrutinizing the presentation and discussion of unusual sexual behaviors and desires in the consecutive editions of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, from its very first edition in 1952 up until the freshly printed DSM-5. My main conclusion is that due to the manual’s messy definition of mental disorder, advocates of the DSM cannot convincingly claim that paraphilias are mental disorders.

Design and disorder: Gould, adaptationism and evolutionary psychiatry

Stephen J. Gould famously differs in opinion with adaptationist evolutionary theorists about the importance of natural selection as a mechanism of evolution. While agreeing that natural selection is the only origin of design in nature, they disagree about how powerful it is vis-a-vis the many constraints it has to struggle with and how ubiquitous it is vis-a-vis alternative mechanisms of evolutionary change. In this chapter, I argue, firstly, that this debate is muddled by the fact that both adaptationism and Gould’s criticism come in many varieties. Next, I contend that both parties (and many commentators) mistakenly consider the disagreement to be an empirical issue. Finally, I indicate how and why Gould’s work on constraints can be used to complement and contravene adaptationist explanations of mental disorders.