Michael T. McGuire

Last updated
Michael Terrence McGuire
Born1929/1930
United States
DiedFebruary 1, 2016
Cottonwood, California, U.S. [1]
Education Harvard University
Medical career
Profession Physician, psychiatrist, researcher
Institutions UCLA
Sub-specialties evolutionary biology, biological psychiatry

Michael Terrence McGuire (1929/1930 - February 1, 2016 [2] [1] ) was an American psychiatrist who made contributions to the theory of psychoanalysis, biological psychiatry, evolutionary biology, sociobiology and the theory and practice of psychiatry.

Contents

Career

McGuire was Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry/Biobehavioral Sciences at the University of California at Los Angeles. He was a physician, psychiatrist and researcher in the areas of ethology, evolutionary biology, central nervous system neurotransmitters, and the biological basis of behavior.

As a member of the Behavioral Research Institute at UCLA and Director of the Sepulveda Veterans Administration/UCLA Nonhuman Primate Laboratory, his primary areas of interest were nonhuman primate behavior, brain physiology, evolutionary theory, and ethology. A great deal of McGuire's published work in the last several years have been attempts to expand the application of Darwinian or evolutionary biology principles to areas such as law, healthcare, psychiatry and human behavior.

A significant amount of McGuire's work in the last few decades was to position developments in biology and evolutionary theory as tools to improve our understanding of politics, economics, and law. "[O]ur unimpressive record of understanding and forecasting political, social and economic events is largely a consequence of the failure to incorporate human nature into our thinking." [3] Neuroscience and evolutionary biology have created new strategies for analyzing and understanding many aspects of human behavior, from mother-infant bonding to sexual selection. These and other scientific advances, McGuire writes, provide more exact information about human behavior, which in turn "facilitates a better understanding of which policies and decisions are likely to be effective." [4]

In the preface to the 1994 book, The Neurotransmitter Revolution: Serotonin, Social Behavior and the Law, the editors, Roger Masters and Michael T. McGuire, state that new findings in neurochemistry and neuroanatomy offer valuable insights into human behavior. Numerous studies have demonstrated that in both nonhuman primates and humans, changes in neurotransmitter levels can lead to measurable changes in behavior, function and even social status. [5] [6] [7] "Social scientists and lawyers will increasingly need to consider the ways scientific evidence can uncover chemical influence on behavior. Hasty conclusions by uninformed lawyers, journalists or politicians could do unforeseen damage to the fundamental principles of a democratic society." [8]

McGuire posited that biologically-based insights into human behavior, the role of the environment on behavior, the role of technology (such as drugs, the technical means to prolong life) and the nature of culture and tradition could benefit our legal theory and practice. [9] At the same time, he cautions that there are numerous moral and ethical issues at stake in redefining our legal institutions and the application of biological information should not compromise the legal process or overstep the boundaries of our scientific knowledge. [10]

Darwinian Psychiatry

In the 1998 book, Darwinian Psychiatry, McGuire, along with co-author, Alfonso Troisi, make that case that psychiatry would be better served by utilizing an evolutionary model rather than the prevailing models (e.g., the psychoanalysis, behavioral, or biomedical models) for diagnosing and treating mental conditions. This position is not unique and has been set forth by a number of medical professionals. [11]

The idea that human behavior can indeed be understood within the framework of evolutionary theory was first suggested in Darwin’s publication of The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). More than one hundred years passed until these ideas entered mainstream scientific discussions. In 1975, E.O. Wilson’s Sociobiology was not the only major publication to address these issues, but it may have been the most controversial. Wilson posited that using the same tools and reasoning as had been applied to animal and nonhuman primate studies, we could identify and utilize the evolutionarily origins of human social organization, barter and reciprocation, bonding, role playing, communication, culture, ritual and religion.

McGuire & Troisi build a case for Darwinian Psychiatry as a science of human behavior, then offer evolutionary models of mental conditions including depression, personality disorders, schizophrenia, phobias, anorexia nervosa, suicide and others. The thesis that psychiatry can achieve the status of a science has its basis in a theory of behavior which has structured protocols and agreed upon methods for testing hypotheses. At the same time the attempted program is as complex and far reaching as the human subject itself, integrating genetics, physiology, ethology, behavioral sciences, psychology and sociology into an understanding of human behavior and mental conditions.

Darwinian psychiatry differs from psychiatry’s prevailing models in that the Darwinian model is based on a theory of behavior that applies concepts from evolutionary biology including: ultimate causes, biological motivations-goals, sexual selection, traits and trait variation, and the social environment. At least four ultimately caused (selectively influenced) behavior patterns or systems are thought to apply to Homo sapiens: survival, reproductive, kin assistance and reciprocation systems. [12] A person’s mental health will be, in part, determined by how well he or she functions to achieve their often predetermined goals in each of these areas. The primary goal of therapy designed in an evolutionary context is to improve the individual’s capabilities to achieve these short-term biological goals. [13]

Evolutionary Theory Applied to Disorders

The following are examples of evolutionary analysis applied to specific disorders:

  • Depression . There are many models of depression in evolutionary theory, but the idea that depression may be an adaptive trait has a relatively long history and has been postulated in many ways. The model builds on the idea that depression has evolved as a strategy to respond to an actual or potential reduction in goal achievement.
  • Personality Disorders. As with some kinds of depression, some forms of personality disorders may be viewed as adaptive. Many individuals with Antisocial Personality Disorder for example go on to be successful by evolutionary criteria. The same can be said of many females diagnosed with Histrionic Personality Disorder. In both cases, their behavior can be understood as a high risk strategy yet they can be successful by evolutionary standard. Borderline Personality Disorder, Paranoid Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder are examples where it appears the individuals are attempting high risk strategies to achieve evolutionary goals but ultimately fail to do so.
  • Schizophrenia . Schizophrenia is a loosely defined disorder and some have suggested that it is a genetic anomaly of relatively late evolutionary origin. The cluster of disorders classified as schizophrenia are minimally adaptive of achieving short-term goals, and gnarly show compromised information processing. Social understanding, social maintenance and manipulation are also compromised.
  • Anorexia Nervosa. The unusually high prevalence among females, the focus on physical attractiveness, and the use of strategies to avoid sexual maturation point to reproduction-related motivations and goals. Many of the beliefs and attitudes of the patient are related to social norms about beauty and fitness. Self-monitoring algorithms appear to be compromised.
  • Phobias . Phobias are most parsimoniously understood as either adaptive responses or exaggerated, unremitting and minimally adaptive forms of such responses. [14]
  • Suicide . One should be able to predict that the incidence of suicide would increase when an individual perceived that his or her costs to kin exceeds the benefits to kin of his or her continued existence. Failure to achieve reproductive goals is another reason to expect an increase in suicide, and the risk of suicide should correlate negatively with the number of offspring. All of these predictions have been more or less supported in the literature.

Objections to Darwinian Psychiatry

McGuire & Troisi address selected objections to the use and utility of evolutionary concepts to psychiatry.

  • Objection: Evolutionary theory is a reductionist discipline that seeks to understand behavior and mental states as a function and process of genes. Such an approach is too limited and too unsupported with scientific data to be useful. Response: Darwinian Psychiatry is not a highly reductionist theory of behavior. In fact, Darwinian Psychiatry makes a strong case for the importance of learning, culture and social context on development and behavioral outcomes. [15]
  • Objection: Some theorists argue that the last period of intense selection for many of the present day traits of Homo sapiens occurred during a period of time between 100,000 and 10,000 years ago, called the environment of evolutionary adaptation or EEA. Homo sapiens has largely ceased to evolve genetically, morphologically or physiologically following that time period. Psychological capacities for mediating behavior rather than behaviors per se were the traits favored by selection during EEA and the selection favoring psychological capacities most parsimoniously accounts for human behavioral plasticity. Response: There is the possibility that Homo sapiens is still undergoing genetic change. Since Homo sapiens is recent in origin, speciation may be continuing both in terms of physical traits and mental conditions. [16]
  • Objection: Evolutionary biology can be fallacious when it proceeds by breaking an organism into adaptive traits and proposing an adaptive story for each trait considered separately. [17] Response: Selection occurs on the level of the individual and not the individual trait. Less than optimal designs occur in part because the target of selection is the entire organism and not the trait itself. Selection does not optimize adaptive traits or strategies as much as it gradually eliminates unfit traits or strategies. We can measure adaptiveness by assessing the effort (costs) required. [18]

Selected publications

Books

Related Research Articles

Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regards to the ancestral problems they evolved to solve. In this framework, psychological traits and mechanisms are either functional products of natural and sexual selection or non-adaptive by-products of other adaptive traits.

Sociobiology is a field of biology that aims to examine and explain social behavior in terms of evolution. It draws from disciplines including psychology, ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, and population genetics. Within the study of human societies, sociobiology is closely allied to evolutionary anthropology, human behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology, and sociology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sensory processing sensitivity</span> Personality trait of highly sensitive people

Sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) is a temperamental or personality trait involving "an increased sensitivity of the central nervous system and a deeper cognitive processing of physical, social, and emotional stimuli". The trait is characterized by "a tendency to 'pause to check' in novel situations, greater sensitivity to subtle stimuli, and the engagement of deeper cognitive processing strategies for employing coping actions, all of which is driven by heightened emotional reactivity, both positive and negative".

The hunter versus farmer hypothesis is a proposed explanation of the nature of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) first suggested by radio host Thom Hartmann in his book Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception. This hypothesis proposes that ADHD represents a lack of adaptation of members of hunter-gatherer societies to their transformation into farming societies. Hartmann developed the idea first as a mental model after his own son was diagnosed with ADHD, stating, "It's not hard science, and was never intended to be."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psychological adaptation</span>

A psychological adaptation is a functional, cognitive or behavioral trait that benefits an organism in its environment. Psychological adaptations fall under the scope of evolved psychological mechanisms (EPMs), however, EPMs refer to a less restricted set. Psychological adaptations include only the functional traits that increase the fitness of an organism, while EPMs refer to any psychological mechanism that developed through the processes of evolution. These additional EPMs are the by-product traits of a species’ evolutionary development, as well as the vestigial traits that no longer benefit the species’ fitness. It can be difficult to tell whether a trait is vestigial or not, so some literature is more lenient and refers to vestigial traits as adaptations, even though they may no longer have adaptive functionality. For example, xenophobic attitudes and behaviors, some have claimed, appear to have certain EPM influences relating to disease aversion, however, in many environments these behaviors will have a detrimental effect on a person's fitness. The principles of psychological adaptation rely on Darwin's theory of evolution and are important to the fields of evolutionary psychology, biology, and cognitive science.

The evolution of human intelligence is closely tied to the evolution of the human brain and to the origin of language. The timeline of human evolution spans approximately seven million years, from the separation of the genus Pan until the emergence of behavioral modernity by 50,000 years ago. The first three million years of this timeline concern Sahelanthropus, the following two million concern Australopithecus and the final two million span the history of the genus Homo in the Paleolithic era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Randolph M. Nesse</span> American physician, scientist and author (born 1948)

Randolph Martin Nesse is an American physician, scientist and author who is notable for his role as a founder of the field of evolutionary medicine and evolutionary psychiatry.

Dual inheritance theory (DIT), also known as gene–culture coevolution or biocultural evolution, was developed in the 1960s through early 1980s to explain how human behavior is a product of two different and interacting evolutionary processes: genetic evolution and cultural evolution. Genes and culture continually interact in a feedback loop: changes in genes can lead to changes in culture which can then influence genetic selection, and vice versa. One of the theory's central claims is that culture evolves partly through a Darwinian selection process, which dual inheritance theorists often describe by analogy to genetic evolution.

In the study of psychology, neuroticism has been considered a fundamental personality trait. In the Big Five approach to personality trait theory, individuals with high scores for neuroticism are more likely than average to be moody and to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, pessimism, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness. Such people are thought to respond worse to stressors and are more likely to interpret ordinary situations, such as minor frustrations, as appearing hopelessly difficult. The responses can include maladaptive behaviors, such as dissociation, procrastination, substance use, etc., which aids in relieving the negative emotions and generating positive ones.

Evolutionary approaches to depression are attempts by evolutionary psychologists to use the theory of evolution to shed light on the problem of mood disorders within the perspective of evolutionary psychiatry. Depression is generally thought of as dysfunction or a mental disorder, but its prevalence does not increase with age the way dementia and other organic dysfunction commonly does. Some researchers have surmised that the disorder may have evolutionary roots, in the same way that others suggest evolutionary contributions to schizophrenia, sickle cell anemia, psychopathy and other disorders. Psychology and psychiatry have not generally embraced evolutionary explanations for behaviors, and the proposed explanations for the evolution of depression remain controversial.

The concept of the evolution of morality refers to the emergence of human moral behavior over the course of human evolution. Morality can be defined as a system of ideas about right and wrong conduct. In everyday life, morality is typically associated with human behavior rather than animal behavior. The emerging fields of evolutionary biology, and in particular evolutionary psychology, have argued that, despite the complexity of human social behaviors, the precursors of human morality can be traced to the behaviors of many other social animals. Sociobiological explanations of human behavior remain controversial. Social scientists have traditionally viewed morality as a construct, and thus as culturally relative, although others such as Sam Harris argue that there is an objective science of morality.

Some of the research that is conducted in the field of psychology is more "fundamental" than the research conducted in the applied psychological disciplines, and does not necessarily have a direct application. The subdisciplines within psychology that can be thought to reflect a basic-science orientation include biological psychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and so on. Research in these subdisciplines is characterized by methodological rigor. The concern of psychology as a basic science is in understanding the laws and processes that underlie behavior, cognition, and emotion. Psychology as a basic science provides a foundation for applied psychology. Applied psychology, by contrast, involves the application of psychological principles and theories yielded up by the basic psychological sciences; these applications are aimed at overcoming problems or promoting well-being in areas such as mental and physical health and education.

Darwinian anthropology describes an approach to anthropological analysis which employs various theories from Darwinian evolutionary biology. Whilst there are a number of areas of research that can come under this broad description some specific research projects have been closely associated with the label. A prominent example is the project that developed in the mid 1970s with the goal of applying sociobiological perspectives to explain patterns of human social relationships, particularly kinship patterns across human cultures.

Evolutionary aesthetics refers to evolutionary psychology theories in which the basic aesthetic preferences of Homo sapiens are argued to have evolved in order to enhance survival and reproductive success.

The evolution of schizophrenia refers to the theory of natural selection working in favor of selecting traits that are characteristic of the disorder. Positive symptoms are features that are not present in healthy individuals but appear as a result of the disease process. These include visual and/or auditory hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, and major thought disorders. Negative symptoms refer to features that are normally present but are reduced or absent as a result of the disease process, including social withdrawal, apathy, anhedonia, alogia, and behavioral perseveration. Cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia involve disturbances in executive functions, working memory impairment, and inability to sustain attention.

Evolutionary psychiatry, also known as Darwinian psychiatry, is a theoretical approach to psychiatry that aims to explain psychiatric disorders in evolutionary terms. As a branch of the field of evolutionary medicine, it is distinct from the medical practice of psychiatry in its emphasis on providing scientific explanations rather than treatments for mental disorder. This often concerns questions of ultimate causation. For example, psychiatric genetics may discover genes associated with mental disorders, but evolutionary psychiatry asks why those genes persist in the population. Other core questions in evolutionary psychiatry are why heritable mental disorders are so common how to distinguish mental function and dysfunction, and whether certain forms of suffering conveyed an adaptive advantage. Disorders commonly considered are depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, autism, eating disorders, and others. Key explanatory concepts are of evolutionary mismatch and the fact that evolution is guided by reproductive success rather than health or wellbeing. Rather than providing an alternative account of the cause of mental disorder, evolutionary psychiatry seeks to integrate findings from traditional schools of psychology and psychiatry such as social psychology, behaviourism, biological psychiatry and psychoanalysis into a holistic account related to evolutionary biology. In this sense, it aims to meet the criteria of a Kuhnian paradigm shift.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of evolution</span>

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to evolution:

Human evolutionary developmental biology or informally human evo-devo is the human-specific subset of evolutionary developmental biology. Evolutionary developmental biology is the study of the evolution of developmental processes across different organisms. It is utilized within multiple disciplines, primarily evolutionary biology and anthropology. Groundwork for the theory that "evolutionary modifications in primate development might have led to … modern humans" was laid by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Ernst Haeckel, Louis Bolk, and Adolph Schultz. Evolutionary developmental biology is primarily concerned with the ways in which evolution affects development, and seeks to unravel the causes of evolutionary innovations.

Social rank theory provides an evolutionary paradigm that locates affiliative and ranking structures at the core of many psychological disorders. In this context, displays of submission signal to dominant individuals that subordinate group members are not a threat to their rank within the social hierarchy. This helps to achieve social cohesion. According to social rank theory, anxiety and depression are natural experiences that are common to all mammalian species. It is the pathological exaggeration of anxiety and depression that contributes to psychological disorders.

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by persistent hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, and thought disorder. These experiences are evident in multiple sensory modalities and include deviation in all facets of thought, cognition, and emotion. Compared to other psychological disorders like major depressive disorder (MDD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), schizophrenia has significantly higher heritability. Schizophrenia has been found to present cross-culturally, and it almost always has 0.1% prevalence in a given population, although some studies have cast doubts on this. It has been hypothesized that schizophrenia is unique to human beings and has existed for a long time.

References

  1. 1 2 "View Michael McGuire's Obituary on Redding.com and share memories". www.legacy.com.
  2. ↑ "In Memoriam - Dr Michael T. McGuire", bradshawfoundation.com; accessed February 18, 2021
  3. ↑ Human Nature and the New Europe, Ed. by Michael T. McGuire (1993) p. 3
  4. ↑ Human Nature and the New Europe, Ed. by Michael T. McGuire (1993) p. 6
  5. ↑ "Social influences on endocrine function in male vervet monkeys." In: Socioendocrinology of Primate Reproduction. 1990.
  6. ↑ "Dominant social status facilitates the behavioral effects of serotonergic agonists." Brain Research 348:274-282, (1985)
  7. ↑ "Short term and repetitive administration of oral tryptophan in normal men." Archives of General Psychiatry 38:619-626, 1981
  8. ↑ The Neurotransmitter Revolution: Serotonin, Social Behavior and the Law (1994) p. xiv
  9. ↑ "Biology and the Law" In: The Neurotransmitter Revolution p 20-21.
  10. ↑ "Biology and the Law" In: The Neurotransmitter Revolution p. 22
  11. ↑ Randole Nesse, "What Darwinian Medicine Offers Psychiatry," Evolutionary Medicine, 1999
  12. ↑ Darwinian Psychiatry, p.61
  13. ↑ Darwinian Psychiatry, p.258
  14. ↑ Darwinian Psychiatry, p.216
  15. ↑ Darwinian Psychiatry, p.38
  16. ↑ Darwinian Psychiatry, p.41
  17. ↑ "The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: A Critique of the adaptionist programme." Proceedings Royal Society London. 305:581-598, 1979.
  18. ↑ Darwinian Psychiatry, p.43
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