Evolutionary developmental psychopathology is an approach to the understanding of psychiatric disorders. Modern evolutionary psychopathology examines the current adaptiveness of psychiatric disorders by examine their impact on fertility across the lifespan
Evolutionary developmental Psychology can be based on the following.:
human adaptations were forged to function in past environments rather than the current environment;
humans are constantly evolving, and thus one can study the adaptiveness of psychopathology in the current environment to establish their prevalence in the near future;
research should be particularly attentive to any data showing sexual dimorphism and changes in psychological functioning and neural architecture across the lifespan, and therefore to comparisons between adults, adolescents, and children.
all study of evolutionary psychopathology requires a trait to be at least partially heritable. Thus examining the heritabilitiy of a trait is the first step in research.
