Fast Spectrum Disorders versus Slow Spectrum Disorders:

The Evolutionary Future of Psychopathology (2016)
Marco Del Giudice
[Some excerpts and pictures from the article.]

-----

"Possible explanations of mental disorders from an evolutionary perspective. Psychopathological conditions may arise from dysfunctional mechanisms, or from functional mechanisms that produce maladaptive outcomes because the present environment is different from the one in which they evolved (mismatch). Other conditions are the occasional maladaptive outcomes of generally adaptive mechanisms. Finally, some conditions may represent biologically adaptive but undesirable strategies:"

-----

"My colleagues and I have extended the diametrical model by framing individual variation in autistic- and psychotic-like traits in the context of a specific evolved domain, that of mating and reproduction [22]. The hypothesized trade-off is between short-term mating with multiple partners (favored by traits associated with psychosis risk, e.g., creativity, mentalistic skills, and impulsivity) and investment in long-term romantic relationships (favored by traits associated with the autism spectrum, e.g., technical skills, reduced sex drive, and preference for routines). Sexual selection in the context of short- and long-term relationships could help explain the maintenance of autistic- and psychotic-like traits in human populations. The sexual selection hypothesis has received promising empirical support; for example, autistic- and psychotic-like traits in non-clinical samples show the predicted diametrical associations with sexual behavior, investment in long-term relationships, and impulsivity [22,23]."