Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Professor Daniel Nettle
Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.
It has been suggested that low mood in humans is an adaptive response to unfavourable circumstances, and that the anhedonia, pessimism and fatigue that often accompany it function to minimise risk until circumstances improve. While this is plausible, it would be possible to make the opposite prediction equally plausibly: individuals in bad circumstances should take greater risks in order to improve their situations. Here, I present a simple analytical model adapted from the risk-sensitive foraging literature. It shows that in dire states, individuals should be risk-prone, in poor states, risk-averse, and in good states, risk-prone again. I discuss how the various kinds of mood state observed in humans might be understood as mechanisms for adaptively adjusting behavioural risk-taking to the current situation.
Author(s): Nettle D
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of Theoretical Biology
Year: 2009
Volume: 257
Issue: 1
Pages: 100-103
ISSN (print): 0022-5193
ISSN (electronic): 1095-8541
Publisher: Academic Press
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtbi.2008.10.033
DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2008.10.033
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric