The Evolutionary Psychopathology of Human Pair-Bonding
Riadh Abed, Paul St John-Smith · 2026
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Description
Abed and St John-Smith presented an evolutionary psychiatry framework arguing that several recognized mental disorders are best understood as malfunctions of the human mating system. Their 2026 paper contends that pair-bonding with two-parent investment is a species-typical human trait. It is supported by a bundle of evolved psychological adaptations, just as other biological systems are shaped by natural selection to serve survival and reproduction.
Abed proposes that because functional systems can fail in characteristic ways, disorders rooted in pair-bonding should show patterns that this framework predicts. They should not appear in closely related species using different mating systems. The authors argue the approach explains both why such disorders exist and why they take the forms they do, rather than merely cataloguing symptoms. They offer the functional, family-tree-based reasoning as a template that evolutionary psychiatry can apply to other groups of mental disorders beyond mating.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Riadh Abed, Paul St John-Smith |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 60 KB |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |