Evolutionary explanations of depression and cognitive control dysfunction: A literature review

Cognitive control dysfunction, including difficulties in inhibition, shifting, updating, and balancing proactive and reactive control, is a core feature of depression. Although these impairments are well documented, their origins and functions remain debated. This review asks whether depressive cognitive control profiles can, at least in part, be interpreted through evolutionary lenses. Integrating three prominent accounts (Social Rank Theory, the Analytical Rumination Hypothesis, and Social Bargaining Theory), we examine how each framework maps recurrent depressive control patterns onto putative functions related to hierarchy management, complex problem solving, and support negotiation.Rather than treating cognitive control dysfunction as a unitary deficit, we draw on component-level findings and large-scale network models to show how specific configurations of control processes and attentional bias can instantiate context-sensitive trade-offs. We also situate these patterns within perspectives on evolutionary mismatch, byproduct explanations, stress–inflammation pathways, and developmental and cultural context, emphasizing that many depressive control states are best understood as conditionally functional yet often costly in contemporary environments.Finally, we discuss clinical implications, focusing on how cognitive control training and cognitive behavioral therapies may operate as mechanistic probes that modify particular control parameters and network dynamics. By aligning computational aims, cognitive algorithms, and neural implementations with evolutionary hypotheses, this review offers an integrative framework for understanding why certain cognitive control profiles recur in depression, why they are resistant to change, and how they might be more precisely targeted in future empirical and clinical work.