Perceived Control and Suicide from an Evolutionary Mismatch Perspective

Individuals are at a greater risk of killing themselves when they have developed a sense of powerlessness in relation to dealing with certain overwhelming problems in their lives. Such a drastic action, generally induced by one’s judgment that he/she is incapable of influencing an outcome of vital importance, is believed to have been adaptive in some situations for the majority of prehistory from an evolutionary perspective. However, as a result of considerable familial/social transformations in the modern environment in comparison to the ancestral context, attempts at self-murder are conceived to be much less likely to serve any useful evolutionary function in the present day.