Depression linked to goal fulfillment

[Barringtonia]

...with the caveat that I tend to dislike any single-source solution for human behaviour...

Dr Nesse’s hypothesis is that, as pain stops you doing damaging physical things, so low mood stops you doing damaging mental ones—in particular, pursuing unreachable goals. Pursuing such goals is a waste of energy and resources. Therefore, he argues, there is likely to be an evolved mechanism that identifies certain goals as unattainable and inhibits their pursuit—and he believes that low mood is at least part of that mechanism.

So depression helps to stop you being a persistent jerk in chasing that unattainable partner, for example,

It is a neat hypothesis, but is it true? A study published in this month’s issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests it might be. Carsten Wrosch from Concordia University in Montreal and Gregory Miller of the University of British Columbia studied depression in teenage girls. They measured the “goal adjustment capacities” of 97 girls aged 15-19 over the course of 19 months. They asked the participants questions about their ability to disengage from unattainable goals and to re-engage with new goals. They also asked about a range of symptoms associated with depression, and tracked how these changed over the course of the study.

In a society that places enormous value on 'succeeding at your goals', might this lead to further depression, or that happy poverty is somewhat due to knowing nearly any goal is pretty much beyond one's reach?

Dr Nesse believes that persistence is a reason for the exceptional level of clinical depression in America—the country that has the highest depression rate in the world. “Persistence is part of the American way of life,” he says. “People here are often driven to pursue overly ambitious goals, which then can lead to depression.” He admits that this is still an unproven hypothesis, but it is one worth considering. Depression may turn out to be an inevitable price of living in a dynamic society.

For myself, I've never suffered from depression, perhaps I give up too easily though most friends would say I'm pathologically stupid in believing I can do anything, which sort of fits the hypothesis as well,

What thinks NSG?

Oh, and for the link-Nazis: http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnol ... d=13899022

[Mad hatters in jeans]

Interesting, but no i don't think this is sufficient to explain this type of behaviour.

[Verdigroth]

hmm I would love to see more on this.

[Barringtonia]

Interesting, but no i don't think this is sufficient to explain this type of behaviour.

Alone no, though where it becomes severe it might be a cause exaggerated by pattern-processing in the brain, as in one might twin it with those easily fall into habitual patterns - as I said, I don't subscribe to single-source solutions but it could certainly be a reasonably large part of the puzzle.

hmm I would love to see more on this.

The full paper is an $11.95 download alas,

[Rejistania]

Interesting theory.

[BunnySaurus Bugsii]

Setting an unrealistic goal for oneself, and failing to achieve it, OUGHT to make a person feel bad, even if one holds cheap the time spent and the other opportunities neglected. The first question to ask oneself is "was this shitty state of affairs my choice?" and if the answer is "Yes" or "Partly" ... one should not be running to the doctor for a pill to feel better. It's quite all right to feel bad about wasting one's time, and/or losing an ideal of "how things could be." It's quite fine to feel bad about fucking-up.

But depression isn't always that, and the cause of failure is not always in oneself.

I have some sympathy for the idea that depression is a drawn-out form of pain: suffering, consequent on actual harm to the person.

But to say that the only cause of the harm is "setting unrealistic goals" is simplistic and stupid. It is simplistic and stupid to ascribe all harm done to any person entirely to their own decisions.

[Barringtonia]

But to say that the only cause of the harm is "setting unrealistic goals" is simplistic and stupid. It is simplistic and stupid to ascribe all harm done to any person entirely to their own decisions.

Luckily no one is.

[Mad hatters in jeans]

Interesting, but no i don't think this is sufficient to explain this type of behaviour.

Alone no, though where it becomes severe it might be a cause exaggerated by pattern-processing in the brain, as in one might twin it with those easily fall into habitual patterns - as I said, I don't subscribe to single-source solutions but it could certainly be a reasonably large part of the puzzle.

hmm I would love to see more on this.

The full paper is an $11.95 download alas,

hmmm, no i still don't buy it. I'd like to i really would it's just that if there is a simple explanation for human behaviour it's almost certainly wrong no matter how you spin it.
There's just too much going on with people to attribute negative behaviour patterns with one simple root cause.

You've got to remember that the term 'depression' is just a label, each person is unique, and not only that but each person is not in the true sense an individual but interacting with other people, a persons personality is made up by interacting with other persons. What i'm essentially saying is if you're looking at brain activity maybe you're going into too much detail.

But everyone forms habitual patterns, that's what we do as humans.

[Triniteras]

But everyone forms habitual patterns, that's what we do as humans.

That's a good way to desensitize it.

[Anti-Social Darwinism]

Retiring wasn't even a goal of mine, yet when I was forced into early retirement, my long-term depression vanished overnight.

[Mad hatters in jeans]

But everyone forms habitual patterns, that's what we do as humans.

That's a good way to desensitize it.

i don't understand what you mean?

[Barringtonia]

Retiring wasn't even a goal of mine, yet when I was forced into early retirement, my long-term depression vanished overnight.

Yet had you achieved your goals at work, not in terms of whatever you do, but either in being the success you could have been or even just having a less depressing job.

I suspect the hypothesis is linked to 'I wish...' statements, as in I wish I wasn't working for this ridiculous boss/I wish I was paid more/I wish my job was more interesting - depression possibly helps you to resign yourself to the fact that these wishes probably won't be fulfilled and therefore you can get on with what's necessary,

[Ryadn]

Forgive my callousness, but studying "depressed teenage girls (ages 15-19)" does not equate to studying depression. It is one extremely small segment of a population--a small segment going through hormonal changes, at that. If the study was about how Americans spend their money and the only participants were men over the age of 80, the results might look a little strange.

I admit I only skimmed it, but did the article mention how the study subjects were chosen? Had all of these girls been formally diagnosed with depression? Scored high on Beck's Inventory or another frequently used assessment tool?

[Tranquilizer Cyborgs]

Depression totally rox!! I mean, I'm rich and happy and have lots of orgazmic lulz AND am depressed. All of these optimistic, hard-working, idealistic, Panglossian zombies can lick my BALLLZ!!!1

[Barringtonia]

Forgive my callousness, but studying "depressed teenage girls (ages 15-19)" does not equate to studying depression. It is one extremely small segment of a population--a small segment going through hormonal changes, at that. If the study was about how Americans spend their money and the only participants were men over the age of 80, the results might look a little strange.

I admit I only skimmed it, but did the article mention how the study subjects were chosen? Had all of these girls been formally diagnosed with depression? Scored high on Beck's Inventory or another frequently used assessment tool?

It's a hypothesis, of which an early indication that it might have some value is this particular study, there is no claim that this is either the ultimate solution, that it's valid nor that it's even mostly conclusive,

So, doubts are very much fine to hold.

[Zombie PotatoHeads]

They based their explanation on asking a few dozen teenage girls how they felt?
And we're meant to extrapolate this finding over the entire society?
One can just imagine what the responses were...
"I was like, so unhappy yeah? Cause, like Sheryl, she told everyone that me and Michael got it on at the, like, disco the night before but she's a lying cow and I did no such thing! I was, like, soooo bummed out and really depressed but then I went shopping with Bex and I bought a, like, really cool gucci handbag, right? So now I feel okay."

[Barringtonia]

They based their explanation on asking a few dozen teenage girls how they felt?
And we're meant to extrapolate this finding over the entire society?
One can just imagine what the responses were...
"I was like, so unhappy yeah? Cause, like Sheryl, she told everyone that me and Michael got it on at the, like, disco the night before but she's a lying cow and I did no such thing! I was, like, soooo bummed out and really depressed but then I went shopping with Bex and I bought a, like, really cool gucci handbag, right? So now I feel okay."

It's a report in the Economist on a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that seems to support a hypothesis by Randolph Nesse MD:

Randolph M. Nesse*, M.D., is Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan, where he directs the Evolution and Human Adaptation Program. His early work on the neuroendocrinology of anxiety and the origins of senescence led to a deep commitment to evolutionary biology. Nesse collaborated with George Williams on several early works in Darwinian medicine, including "The dawn of Darwinian medicine" (1991) and the accessible book Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine (1995). More recently he edited Evolution and the Capacity for Commitment (2001) about how gene-culture co-evolution shapes capacities for moral commitment.

While this doesn't guarantee anything, it's unlikely this was the equivalent of a 3rd grade science project.

[Barringtonia]

Further...

Neural correlates of idiographic goal priming in depression: goal-specific dysfunctions in the orbitofrontal cortex

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to determine whether depressed (vs non-depressed) adults showed differences in cortical activation in response to stimuli representing personal goals. Drawing upon regulatory focus theory as well as previous research, we predicted that depressed patients would manifest attenuated left orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) activation in response to their own promotion goals as well as exaggerated right OFC activation in response to their own prevention goals. Unmedicated adults with major depression (n = 22) and adults with no history of affective disorder (n = 14) completed questionnaires and a personal goal interview. Several weeks later, they were scanned during a judgment task which (unknown to them) included stimuli representing their promotion and prevention goals. Both groups showed similar patterns of task-related activation. Consistent with predictions, patients showed significantly decreased left OFC and increased right OFC activation compared to controls on trials in which they were exposed incidentally to their promotion and prevention goals, respectively. The results suggest that depression involves dysfunction in processing two important types of personal goals. The findings extend models of the etiology of depression to incorporate cognitive and motivational processes underlying higher order goal representation and ultimately may provide an empirical basis for treatment matching.

http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/cont ... t/nsp016v1

[Molested Sock]

Yet for someone with no goals, to have done nothing is to achieve what one set out to do.~Voltaire

[Eofaerwic]

May have a look at the article over lunch time.

Dissonance between expectations and reality have long been linked to frustration and unhappiness - so this finding isn't overly surprising, although I'd say the explanation put to it is somewhat simplistic (I'd have to read the article more in depth really to comment). But perceived failure to meet expectations, in terms of goals and life success or in terms of self image has been found at various points to be linked to depression and it has been theorised (I believe, depression is not my area) that issues will come out when people are unable to adjust to the difference between how they believe the world should be and how it actually is. Placing the cause entirely at goal fulfilment is I think overly simplistic when there are better models (like the one I've just stated) to encompass the findings.

[BunnySaurus Bugsii]

But to say that the only cause of the harm is "setting unrealistic goals" is simplistic and stupid. It is simplistic and stupid to ascribe all harm done to any person entirely to their own decisions.

Luckily no one is.

To say only that depression serves a function (avoiding further self-harm in pursuit of an unrealistic goal) does leave the implication that depression is a consequence of a person setting unrealistic goals. Always, and regardless of their circumstances.

The Economist is a pretty decent rag. But they do, perhaps unwittingly, tilt their commentary towards an old-school model of individual interest as the basis of society.

Not even economists do that any more. I think they call it a dirty word: "microeconomics."

So the micro-economists are pretty much out of work. It's editing The Economist, or trolling the Internet with unanswerable Randian gobbledegook for them now.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Setting an unrealistic goal for oneself, and failing to achieve it, OUGHT to make a person feel bad, even if one holds cheap the time spent and the other opportunities neglected. The first question to ask oneself is "was this shitty state of affairs my choice?" and if the answer is "Yes" or "Partly" ... one should not be running to the doctor for a pill to feel better. It's quite all right to feel bad about wasting one's time, and/or losing an ideal of "how things could be." It's quite fine to feel bad about fucking-up.

But depression isn't always that, and the cause of failure is not always in oneself.

I have some sympathy for the idea that depression is a drawn-out form of pain: suffering, consequent on actual harm to the person.

But to say that the only cause of the harm is "setting unrealistic goals" is simplistic and stupid. It is simplistic and stupid to ascribe all harm done to any person entirely to their own decisions.

That's why, IMO, one must think of a big goal and set small goals to achieve in order to reach said goal. As long as it is within the capacity of a person to achieve.

Of course, I cannot think about becoming a prima ballerina and dance with the Bolshoi (sp?) because, 1) I have never taken ballet, 2) I am almost 30, 3) I am as clumsy in movement as you can imagine and, 4) I injured my left ankle when I was a teen. To try and decome a prima ballerina is an unrealistic goal for me. Now, if I wanted to taken dance, then I could enroll in classes and have a good time. That is a small goal, realistic, and I can achieve it.

[BunnySaurus Bugsii]

Banga, you have to put up the twelve bucks, copy and paste, and bust some copyright.

It's just ridiculous to start a debate on such a high scientific tone, then be reduced to "it says in this article by someone who stumped up the twelve bucks" ... well, anything really.

I'm happy to debate the professional quality of the article you quoted in the OP. I could have done better, in as many words, with access to the pay-to-view research report.

But to actually debate the topic, someone has to put up.

Put up the source. Wrosch and Miller "You've Gotta Know When to Fold 'Em: Goal disengagement and systemic inflammation in adolescence."

Or ... anyone else who can get the full text, and considers linking to a copy "fair use."

I consider access to the full article, for criticism and debate, to be "fair use."

Not linking to it, yet relying on its scientific authority, would be "unfair use."

[Barringtonia]

Banga, you have to put up the twelve bucks, copy and paste, and bust some copyright.

Ha

I'm still not sure that's enough, I'll see if I can fly them over so they can sit down with you and go through the results to your satisfaction.

Can you at least guarantee a meal for them?

[Minnas]

That article implies that, right now, I am depressed because I didn't get who I wanted.

What a load of doodoo!