Barnaby J.W. Dixson

Introduction Gaffney et al. (2022; henceforth also "the authors") are to be commended for an important advance in the debate concerning the proximate and ultimate causation of suicidality and depression. They argue that these phenomena function as evolved credible signals by which subdominant individuals can elicit fitness-enhancing concessions from dominant others.

In most animal populations, status or social rank is positively related to reproductive success (Ellis, 1995, Low et al., 2002, Strier, 2003, Voland, 1998). There is much evidence that the same relationship between status and reproductive success also holds in preindustrial human populations, especially for males (see Table 1).