Do hunter gatherers pull out hair?

Evolutionary psychology has a lot to tell us about why our brains produce odd self-directed behaviours as well as other behaviours that have adverse effects on our lives.

The humans we are today are not essentially dissimilar to the humans we were thousands of year ago.  Okay, today we have electricity, computers, biotechnology, gadgets galore, the internet – but these are all things that have come along within the last 100 years or much less.  The complex organ inside our heads is much, much, much older than any modern changes…older too than the development of agriculture 10,000 years ago.

Humans became the species that we are today during a vast period of time spent as hunter gatherers – possibly 250,000 years or more.  This is the period during which natural selection acted upon us so that those best equipped to survive went on to reproduce and passed their genes forward.  Those who were less good at adapting fell away.  

Survival in a genetic sense was afforded to those who were successful in staying close to caregivers and avoiding predators in their youth.  Later, success went to those who could attract a mate by providing resources (males) or producing healthy offspring (females).  Many other aspects of our humanity developed during this long epoch in man’s history including our whole motivational system that underlies different behaviours.  Seeking comfort, safety, sex, preferring fatty foods, working in teams, competing, tribal identification or bonding rituals, etc.

Today we go to football games and cheer our team, work with others in the factory or office to compete against business rivals, devour cheesecake, lock our front doors at night, relax in front of the TV…different manifestations but the same fundamental motivations.  In this respect, the human of today lives in a very changed environment but his brain does not know that he is no longer a hunter gatherer. For the architecture of the brain still bears the hallmarks of our ancestral past.

Of course very few of us live nomadic lives - we are rooted to our homes, jobs and families. But a lot of our problems stem from the fact that we evolved to be mobile, problem solving, tribal living people.  The disparity between what natural selection over thousands of years made us and how we live today can sometimes be so great that problems are inevitable.

Obesity from eating too much sugary food, not exercising enough and sitting at a desk all day is one example.  Another is isolation despite living in close proximity to people in cities, where forming strong attachments based on trust is a common problem of modern city life. 

In this blog I focus on self-directed behaviour and most particularly displacement behaviour.  I believe that people sometimes find themselves in situations which they have not evolved to cope with properly.  For example, if a child is unhappy s/he may not have a large family or supportive social network that can be trusted.  As a result, s/he may feel isolated and become introverted and cut off from peers.  In this sense, they lose touch with their social environment because they are unable to respond via behaviours that once served their ancient ancestors so well, e.g. attachment and co-operation seeking.  Maybe they turn towards an alternative strategy: an abundance of fatty food at the supermarket (chocolate, sweets, sodas) leads to overeating for comfort.  But this can make people feel fat and even more unhappy because it does not solve the original problem of isolation.  It is ats such a point as this, when the environment seems to offer no relief and available behaviours fail to offer a sense of control over the world, that self-directed behaviours may emerge. 

I think hair pulling fits this brief quite well.  For example, a behaviour that is denied expression (e.g. attachment seeking) because the environment is unnatural in some way (e.g. a rejecting caregiver) will eventually be repressed.  But the innate need behind its expression remains and a tension is established between the ongoing activation of the behaviour and its repression which that produces a third displacement behaviour, such as hair pulling.  It can appear from seemingly nowhere and  baffles everyone, including (and sometimes especially) the person displaying it. 

In such cases it is the environment that needs to get fixed as soon as possible but often time is lost because the presenting symptoms and not the underlying factors are easier to pinpoint.  In time the unwanted behaviour will become stereotypical and very hard to change because the puller will losetouch with the feelings and thoughts that preceded his pulling  and  he will be oblivious to why s/he is doing it.  In fact, the comfort derived from doing it will actually become a desirable mental state, though followed by guilt or anxiety at having pulled out hair…and from there that cycle can persist for years or even a lifetime.

By the way, if anyone knows if hunter gatherers or nomads develop unwanted self-directed I would love to know.