There's nothing wrong with being a little weird. Because we constantly think about mental disorders, we can become concerned when our own way of thinking and behaving does not match our idealized notion of health. But some variability may be healthy and even adaptive, researchers say, although it may also complicate efforts to identify standardized markers of pathology.
Each behavior is not only negative or only positive, there are also potential benefits to both, depending on the context in which it is placed. For example, impulsive thrill seeking, a willingness to take risks in order to have new and exciting experiences rooted in our evolutionary history, is often viewed as negative. Heightened thrill-seeking is associated with things like substance abuse, crime, risky sexual behavior, and physical injury. But if you flip it upside down and look at potential positive outcomes, those same individuals can also thrive in complex and vibrant environments where it's appropriate to take risks and seek excitement," the researcher said. They often have more social support, are more outgoing and exercise more.
The same goes for fear. "You may be more inhibited in social situations and you may find it more difficult to make friends," the researcher says. “But that same fear, when you think about it in a workplace, is what motivates you to prepare for a big presentation. When you're in school, that's the same fear that motivates you to study for an exam.” He also notes that we have more control over the context we find ourselves in than we think we do, meaning it's entirely possible to end up in an environment that's the way our brains work.
But if variation in a particular trait is normal, it raises questions about what leads to disordered behavior, which he emphasizes is a very real phenomenon. “It may be that if you focus on a single phenotype, there is no specific line separating health from disease, and we need to consider multiple phenotypes at the same time,” he says.
This makes it much more complicated to try to find biomarkers for mental illness. The usual approach is to break down a disorder into its component parts, find a specific associated genetic marker or biological process for a particular piece, and then look at that marker or process in the general population to see if it predict the disorder. The problem, he says, is that "a single isolated phenotype will never be necessary or sufficient to cause disease."
What this does mean, however, is that it's actually not appropriate to think of ourselves in terms of a single trait that is good or bad, healthy or unhealthy. “This is a broader issue with our society,” he says, “but we are all striving for some artificial, archetypal ideal, be it physical appearance or youthfulness or intelligence or personality. But we must recognize the importance of variability, both in ourselves and in those around us, because it serves as an adaptive goal in our lives. ”
