Addiction to drugs, evolution and society: a study on the addiction starting from the evolutionary psychology
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5944/rdh.26.2015.16342Keywords:
Adicción, Natural Selection, Evolutionary Psychology, Psychoactive Drugs, AddictionAbstract
This article aims to analyze the evolutionary foundations of human addiction to psychoactive substances. To this end, we used two recurrent dichotomous hypotheses in evolutionary psychology literature. The first is that natural selection has structured mechanisms of pleasure in our mind that are linked to the maintenance of life and the reproductive success, and in that drugs are a kind of shortcut within these mechanisms, the co-opts so to speak. In this context the addiction would be linked to chemical imbalance in our brain caused by a wear. The other hypothesis is that psychoactive drugs were important for the maintenance of life of our ancestors when going through difficult times or uncertainties. So, if we consider its addictive factor it would be an adaptive consequence of the common use of drugs in the past. Our results show that even that is not possible to define which of the hypotheses is more adherent, both results show that humans are susceptible to addictions.
Downloads
References
Barron, A. B.; Maleszka, R.; Helliwell, P. G. & Robinson, G. E. (2009). Effects of cocaine on honey bee dance behaviour. Journal of Experimental Biology, 212 (2), 163-168.
Durrant, R.; Adamson, S.; Todd, F. & Sellman, D. (2009). Drug use and addiction: evolutionary perspective. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 43 (11), 1049-1056.
Dutton, D. (2009). The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Forbey, J. S. & Foley, W. J. (2009). PharmEcology: A pharmacological approach to understanding plant-herbivore interactions: an introduction to the symposium. Integrative and comparative biology, 49 (3), 267-273.
Fowler, J. H. & Schreiber, D. (2008). Biology, politics, and the emerging science of human nature. Science, 322 (5903), 912-914.
Fox, T. P.; Oliver, G. & Ellis, S. M. (2013). The Destructive Capacity of Drug Abuse: An Overview Exploring the Harmful Potential of Drug Abuse Both to the Individual and to Society. ISRN Addiction, 2013.
Gerald, M. S. & Higley, J. D. (2002). Evolutionary underpinnings of excessive alcohol consumption. Addiction, 97 (4), 415-425.
Gonçalvez, R., (1999). Globalização e desnacionalização. 1ª ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra.
Gonçalvez, R., (2003). O nó econômico. 1ª ed. Rio de Janeiro: Record.
Gorelik, G., Shackelford, T. K., & Weekes-Shackelford, V. A. (2012). 27 Resource Acquisition, Violence, and Evolutionary Consciousness.
Hagen, E. H.; Sullivan, R. J.; Schmidt, R.; Morris, G.; Kempter, R. & Hammerstein, P. (2009). Ecology and neurobiology of toxin avoidance and the paradox of drug reward. Neuroscience, 160 (1), 69-84.
Haviland, W.; Prins, H.; Walrath, D. & Mcbride, B. (2011), Princípios de Antropologia. São Paulo: Cengage Learning
Howells, W. W. (1997). Getting here: The story of human evolution. Howells
House. John; Smith, S.; McQueen, D.; Edwards, L. & Schifano, F. (2013). Classical and novel psychoactive substances: rethinking drug misuse from an evolutionary psychiatric perspective. Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental, 28 (4), 394-401.
Kirkham, T. C. (2009). Endocannabinoids and the non-homeostatic control of appetite. In Behavioral Neurobiology of the Endocannabinoid System. Berlin: Springer., p. 231-253.
Koob, G. F., & Le Moal, M. (2001). Drug addiction, dysregulation of reward, and allostasis. Neuropsychopharmacology, 24 (2), 97-129.
Krill, A. L., Platek, S. M., Goetz, A. T., & Shackelford, T. K. (2007). Where evolutionary psychology meets cognitive neuroscience: A precís to evolutionary cognitive neuroscience. Evolutionary Psychology.
Liddle, J. R., Bush, L. S., & Shackelford, T. K. (2011). An introduction to evolutionary psychology and its application to suicide terrorism. Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, 3 (3), 176-197.
Lyvers, M. (2000). Loss of control in alcoholism and drug addiction: a neuroscientific interpretation. Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology, 8 (2), 225.
McKey, D.; Cavagnaro, T. R.; Cliff, J., & Gleadow, R. (2010). Chemical ecology in coupled human and natural systems: people, manioc, multitrophic interactions and global change. Chemoecology, 20 (2), 109-133.
Mithen, S. (1994). Technology and society during the Middle Pleistocene: hominid group size, social learning and industrial variability. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 4 (01), 3-32.
Mithen, S. (1995). Palaeolithic archaeology and the evolution of mind. Journal of Archaeological Research, 3 (4), 305-332.
Mithen, S. (1997). Cognitive archaeology, evolutionary psychology and cultural transmission, with particular reference to religious ideas. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, 7 (1), 67-74.
Mithen, S. (1998). A creative explosion. Creativity in human evolution and prehistory, 155-193.
Mithen, S. (2000). Mind, brain and material culture: An archaeological perspective. Evolution and the Human Mind: Modularity, Language and Metacognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 207-217.
Mithen, S. (2002). A pré-historia da mente. Uma busca das origens da arte, religião e da ciência. 1ª ed. São Paulo: Unesp.
Mithen, S. (2005). The singing Neanderthals: The origins of music, language, mind, and body. Harvard University Press.
Mithen, S. (2006). Ethnobiology and the evolution of the human mind. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 12 (s1), S45-S61.
Mithen, S. (2009). The Music Instinct. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1169 (1), 3-12.
Moraes, T. P. B. (2013). ¿ Por qué los hombres presentan un comportamiento más agresivo que las mujeres?. Por una antropología evelutiva del comportamiento agresivo. Nómadas: Revista Crítica de Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas, 37 (1), 93-111.
Moraes, T. P. B. (2014). Politica, biologia e natureza humana. Uma introdução aos estudos de biopolítica evolutiva. Revista Electrónica de Psicología Política, 12(32).
Moraes, T. P. B., & Millani, F. (2014). Consumo Conspícuo e Racionalidade Limitada. Uma Crítica à Teoria da Escolha Racional a Partir da Psicologia Evolucionista. UNOPAR Científica Ciências Humanas e Educação, 15(2).
Nesse, R. M. (1994). An evolutionary perspective on substance abuse. Ethology and Sociobiology, 15(5), 339-348.
Nesse, R. M. (2002). Evolution and addiction. Addiction, 97(4), 470-471.
Nesse, R. M. & Berridge, K. C. (1997). Psychoactive drug use in evolutionary perspective. Science, 278 (5335), 63-66.
Nestler, E. J. (2005). The neurobiology of cocaine addiction. Science & Practice Perspectives, 3 (1), 4.
Nestler, E. J. (2014). Epigenetic mechanisms of drug addiction. Neuropharmacology, 76, 259-268.
Panksepp, J., Knutson, B., & Burgdorf, J. (2002). The role of brain emotional systems in addictions: a neuro-evolutionary perspective and new self-report animal model. Addiction, 97(4), 459-469.
Pharo, P. (2011). Sociologie cognitive et morale de l'addiction. Revue française de sociologie, 51(4), 692-719.
Pinker, S. (2004). Tábula Rasa. A negação contemporânea da natureza humana. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras.
Riddley, Matt, (2004). O que nos faz humanos. Genes, natureza e experiência. 1st ed. São Paulo: Record.
Saah, T. (2005). The evolutionary origins and significance of drug addiction. Harm reduction journal, 2(8), 2-8.
Savage, S. R.; Joranson, D. E.; Covington, E. C.; Schnoll, S. H.; Heit, H. A. & Gilson, A. M. (2003). Definitions related to the medical use of opioids: evolution towards universal agreement. Journal of pain and symptom management, 26 (1), 655-667.
Sullivan, R. J. & Hagen, E. H. (2002). Psychotropic substance seeking: evolutionary pathology or adaptation? Addiction, 97(4), 389-400.
Sullivan, R. J., Hagen, E. H., & Hammerstein, P. (2008). Revealing the paradox of drug reward in human evolution. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 275(1640), 1231-1241.
Wise, R. A. (1988). The neurobiology of craving: implications for the understanding and treatment of addiction. Journal of Abnormal Psychology,97(2), 118.
Wise, R. A. (1996). Neurobiology of addiction. Current opinion in neurobiology, 6 (2), 243-251.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The work was published in Revista de Humanidades licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. The authors know and agree that the distribution of the work is done by the use of such license. You can copy, use, distribute, transmit and publicly display, provided that the original authorship and source publication (magazine, editorial and URL of the work) is acknowledged, no use for commercial purposes and the existence and specifications of this license is mentioned. For any other use not specified in the license of authors consent should be required.
