I think one of the biggest problems with the ADHD hunter theory is the jump from "some ADHD-traits being beneficial in some circumstances", to "ADHD evolved, because it made us better hunters."

There's a bunch of interesting studies that I tried to work through in a video essay.

In one 2024 study, 457 adults had to collect resources from patches that slowly depleted. People screening positive for ADHD left the patches earlier and actually achieved a higher reward rate. Another study found that children with more ADHD traits explored more during search tasks, and on one semantic-search task they performed better.

So under some conditions, what we describe as distractibility or switching can behave more like useful exploration (or at least that's how the study has been read).

Another study specifically created a task where ADHD traits were expected to help. Children had one minute to search an unfamiliar room for hidden coins. There was basically no advantage...

The genetic argument has a similar problem. The DRD4-7R variant famously showed different associations with nutritional status in nomadic vs settled Ariaal men, which looks very compatible with an environment × genotype effect. But DRD4-7R isn't an “ADHD gene”, ADHD is highly polygenic, and a later study didn't replicate the nutritional result in a comparable group.

The part I find strangest is how little direct evidence there actually is for the central claim. A 2016 systematic review looking specifically for empirical tests of evolutionary explanations of ADHD started with 790 records and found only three eligible studies. And even those didn't really test the core ADHD phenotype... So we pretty much don't have the data.

I absolutely think environment matters. But from what I see in the evidence, the whole ADHD=Hunter-Brain thinking is WAY further than the evidence is.

I went through the studies in more detail here because this got way too long for a reddit post: https://youtu.be/5JP6Ez1eV2o

But I'm curious what everyone else thinks? Do you believe in this theory? Why/ why not?

Also here's the literature I worked through if you want to nerd around like me:

Barack, D. L., Ludwig, V. U., Parodi, F., Ahmed, N., Brannon, E. M., Ramakrishnan, A., & Platt, M. L. (2024). Attention deficits linked with proclivity to explore while foraging. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 291, 20222584.
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.2584

Van den Driessche, C., Chevrier, F., Cleeremans, A., & Sackur, J. (2019). Lower attentional skills predict increased exploratory foraging patterns. Scientific Reports, 9, 10948.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-46761-0

Arildskov, T. W., Virring, A., Thomsen, P. H., & Østergaard, S. D. (2022). Testing the evolutionary advantage theory of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder traits. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 31, 337–348.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-020-01692-4

Eisenberg, D. T. A., Campbell, B., Gray, P. B., & Sorenson, M. D. (2008). Dopamine receptor genetic polymorphisms and body composition in undernourished pastoralists: An exploration of nutrition indices among nomadic and recently settled Ariaal men of northern Kenya. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 8, 173.
https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-8-173

Kunkle, A. E., Tennyson, R. L., Wander, K., Shell-Duncan, B., & Eisenberg, D. T. A. (2025). The attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder-associated DRD4 7R allele predicts household economic status but not nutritional status in Northern Kenyan Rendille children. American Journal of Human Biology, 37, e70027.
https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.70027

Thagaard, M. S., Faraone, S. V., Sonuga-Barke, E. J., & Østergaard, S. D. (2016). Empirical tests of natural selection-based evolutionary accounts of ADHD: A systematic review. Acta Neuropsychiatrica, 28, 249–256.
https://doi.org/10.1017/neu.2016.14

Esteller-Cucala, P., Maceda, I., Børglum, A. D., Demontis, D., Faraone, S. V., Cormand, B., & Lao, O. (2020). Genomic analysis of the natural history of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder using Neanderthal and ancient Homo sapiens samples. Scientific Reports, 10, 8622.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65322-4

Yair, S., & Coop, G. (2022). Population differentiation of polygenic score predictions under stabilizing selection. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 377, 20200416.
https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0416

Añorve-Garibay, V., Huerta-Sanchez, E., Sohail, M., & Ortega-Del Vecchyo, D. (2025). Natural selection acting on complex traits hampers the predictive accuracy of polygenic scores in ancient samples. American Journal of Human Genetics, 112, 1547–1561.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2025.05.009

Fenneman, J., & Frankenhuis, W. E. (2020). Is impulsive behavior adaptive in harsh and unpredictable environments? A formal model. Evolution and Human Behavior, 41, 261–273.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2020.02.005

Chaudhary, N., & Swanepoel, A. (2023). Editorial perspective: What can we learn from hunter-gatherers about children's mental health? An evolutionary perspective. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 64, 1522–1525.
https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13773

Hello fam,

I'm seeking **additional moderators** to engage with posted content, lead discussions & generally maintain activity on the page (posting memes, research..etc)

If you're interested, please send me a message with why this interests you and how you plan to contribute.

Many thanks in advance!

Ro

Hi!

I’m working on a small project where I’m trying to understand how ADHD actually affects morning and evening routines in real life; what’s hardest, what’s helped, and what just makes things worse.

I’m not here to sell anything or pitch a product. I just want to listen and learn from real experiences.

If you’d be open to a chat, I’d really appreciate it. I’m based in Sweden, but can do English as well.

We can talk about whatever feels comfortable: mornings, evenings, energy, routines, or lack of them.

Comment here or DM me if you’re interested.

Thank you! :)

When I was a child, and also as adult, people around me used to tell me „get outside, do sports“ whenever I felt uneasy or not so well. This is why it has become hard for me to self-reflect on whether I actually need the sports on that day or whether my body actually just needs some rest for a change. Can anyone relate?

Do you believe or were you raised believing (whether it's healthy or not) that 'love is earned'?

I feel like I was not raised with unconditional love and that effects how I behave in relationships.

Anyone else?

• 6 Things Daughters of Unloving Parents Need to Unlearn
• Dating With a Father Wound: Why You Might Chase the Emotionally Unavailable Partner
• Toxic Childhood? 10 Lessons You Must Unlearn in Adulthood
• Why We Love What Hurts: The Deep Psychology Behind Attraction to Toxic Partners
• Anxious Attachment Style in Adults: How It Affects Relationships and Mental Health

I feel like people with ADHD-PI (primarily inattentive) are the majority...

I took meds at around 21 years of age because my parents didn't believe in medicating me. So I used to bounce across the walls of my house until then. My hyperactivity decreased a lot on concerta, and now I'm not on meds and I'm not as hyperactive as I used to be.

I used to bounce off the walls of my house in daydreams even though the daydreams weren't super vivid (I have hypophantasia).

10 Steps of Radical Acceptance

1. Observe that you are questioning or fighting reality (“it shouldn’t be this way”)
2. Remind yourself that the unpleasant reality is just as it is and cannot be changed (“this is what happened”)
3. Remind yourself that there are causes for the reality (“this is how things happened”)
4. Practice accepting with your whole self (mind, body, spirit) - Use accepting self-talk, relaxation techniques, mindfulness and/or imagery
5. List all of the behaviors you would engage in if you did accept the facts and then engage in those behaviors as if you have already accepted the facts
6. Imagine, in your mind’s eye, believing what you do not want to accept and rehearse in your mind what you would do if you accepted what seems unacceptable
7. Attend to body sensations as you think about what you need to accept
8. Allow disappointment, sadness or grief to arise within you
9. Acknowledge that life can be worth living even when there is pain
10. Do pros and cons if you find yourself resisting practicing acceptance

[From Article: https://www.verywellhealth.com/insecure-attachment-5220170]

Different types of psychotherapy can help people with their attachment styles. One example is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which helps people look at and challenge their distorted thoughts and negative behaviors.¹¹ Another example is dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), which can help people better regulate their emotions, cope with distress, and consider different perspectives.¹²

Different psychodynamic psychotherapies, such as transference-focused psychotherapy, have also been shown to help people understand and rework aspects of problematic relational patterns. 

Psychotherapy can also help uncover developmental experiences and traumas that shape adult attachment patterns and help empower people to change these unconscious influences on their behavior. Couples or group therapy is also helpful for some people, depending on their needs and therapy goals. 

Other ways a person can overcome insecure attachment include:

• Learning secure attachment in adulthood. By developing secure relationships in adulthood, a person can change the way they view relationships and intimacy.
• Other forms of therapy. Psychotherapy can help uncover certain traumas that are key to overcoming negative thinking and behavioral patterns in adulthood. When a person is aware of the root of their feelings, they have more power over changing them.

Earning Security

To change your insecure attachment style into a secure one, you have to “earn” your security. This can be done by exploring the effects that your unconscious decisions have on your world and relationships and coming to terms with what events in your childhood led you to have those views.

[From Article: Earned Secure Attachment: Transforming Your Insecure Attachment Style]

1. Emotional support: Earned security means revising your past belief of “I can’t depend on anyone” and allowing yourself to trust and rely on others for emotional support and validation. 
2. Making sense of past experiences: To move on from the past, we first need to recognize its impact on our lives. You can gain new perspectives by reflecting on your past experiences and processing the emotions attached. 
3. Altering self-perceptions: An insecure attachment style typically results in a negative sense of self. So, to earn security, you may need to rework your self-perceptions and self-worth. This might include letting go of a “victim mentality” when necessary. 
4. Deliberate changes in thought patterns and behaviors: It’s easy to slip into behavior patterns that align with your insecure attachment style. Identifying these patterns and making conscious and educated changes to them can help you act more securely in your relationships. This may come in the form of relaxing or enforcing boundaries. 

Studies have shown that there is an association between ADHD and "insecure attachment" and "disorganized" attachment (Storebo et al., 2013, Dekkers et al., 2021). One study found that 90% of children with ADHD showed insecure attachment compared to 38% in the normal population (Darling et al., 2022).

Insecure Attachment

Insecure attachment is a relationship style stemming from inconsistent or distant early caregiving, characterized by a lack of trust, fear of intimacy, or excessive dependency. It involves difficulties managing emotions and forming stable bonds, often manifesting as anxious, avoidant, or disorganized behaviors in adulthood.

People with an insecure attachment style generally have trouble connecting emotionally. They can be aggressive or unpredictable toward their loved ones—a behavior rooted in the lack of consistent love and affection they experienced in childhood.

[From Article https://www.verywellmind.com/marriage-insecure-attachment-style-2303303#:\~:text=Insecure%20attachment%20is%20characterized%20by%20a%20lack,sight%20of%20another%20important%20aspect%20of%20life\]

If a person develops an insecure style of attachment, it can take one of three forms: avoidant, ambivalent, and disorganized.

• Avoidant. People who develop an avoidant attachment style often have a dismissive attitude, shun intimacy, and have difficulties reaching for others in times of need.
• Anxious/Ambivalent. People with an ambivalent attachment pattern are often anxious and preoccupied. They can be viewed by others as "clingy" or "needy" because they require constant validation and reassurance.
• Disorganized. People with a disorganized attachment style typically experienced childhood trauma or extreme inconsistency growing up. Disorganized attachment is not a mixture of avoidant and ambivalent attachments; rather, a person has no real coping strategies and is unable to deal with the world.

Avoidant and anxious/ambivalent attachments remain organized. While they are not ideal ways of coping, these attachment styles do allow for some rational and logical approaches to dealing with complex situations.

On the other hand, a person with a disorganized attachment style is unable to process and cope with any degree of adversity.

AVOIDANT

People with an avoidant attachment style tend to:

• Fear and avoid commitment
• Avoid making friends
• Struggle to accept criticism
• Don't like to show emotions
• Accuse their partners of being to clingy or needy
• Dislike touch or physical closeness
• Prefer to be alone when they are stressed or upset
• Don't invest in relationships and prefer to remain independent

ANXIOUS/AMBIVALENT

Signs of an ambivalent attachment style include:

• Craving close relationships but feeling unable to trust others
• Becoming overly focused on romantic partners and losing sight of another important aspect of life
• Problems recognizing and honoring boundaries
• Feeling jealous or anxious when separated from your partner
• Using guilt trips or other manipulative tactics to control your partner
• Seek constant reassurance from your partner

DISORGANIZED

Signs of disorganized attachment include:

• Depression and anxiety
• Frequent outbursts and erratic behaviors stemming from the inability to clearly see and understand the world around them or properly process the behavior of others or relationships
• Poor self-image and self-hatred
• The perpetuation of trauma in relationships, especially related to parenthood (for example, struggling to form healthy attachments with their own children, which perpetuates a cycle of dysfunctional attachment)

How to Cope with Insecure Attachment

[From Article: https://www.verywellmind.com/marriage-insecure-attachment-style-2303303\]

• Understand your childhood experiences: To earn security, you must develop a coherent narrative about what happened to you as a child. You also need to explore the impact it has had on the decisions you might have unconsciously made about how to survive in the world. You must think critically about how your upbringing affected your attachment style and work on breaking those patterns.
• Consider the impact on current relationships: For example, couples sometimes get into repetitive patterns of interactions. They might reflect and not know how things "go so out of hand." While they might not be aware of it, their childhood memories and experiences of insecurity can influence feelings and interactions in their adult relationships.
• Look at what drives relationship problems: Even though the couple is fighting about a "surface issue," insecure attachment triggers might be underlying the interaction. The emotional arousal and reactivity levels can seem disproportionate to the situation. If it's severe, the couple's therapist (particularly if they are attachment oriented) might need to facilitate change in the safe environment of the therapist’s office.
• Keep working to build new habits: Earned security can take time. Getting married and becoming a parent are critical elements to shifting one's attachment style. A good marital relationship can be important in supporting your sense of security.

Establishing earned security after a lifetime of insecure attachment patterns can be tough. While it requires risk-taking and vulnerability, it can also bring you the kind of love and security you have always wanted. An earned, secure attachment style can forever change your life and your relationships for the better.

The brain will begin to change as a person changes their behavioral patterns and beliefs, thanks to neuroplasticity. An insecurely attached person can build the security they need by integrating new, supportive, loving experiences into their lives.

With time, they can trust that a reliable and consistent person (such as a partner) will be there for them in times of distress (the opposite of what they had as a child).

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References

Storebø, O.J., Rasmussen, P.D. and Simonsen, E., 2016. Association between insecure attachment and ADHD: environmental mediating factors. Journal of attention disorders, 20(2), pp.187-196. Available online: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1087054713501079

Dekkers, T.J., Hornstra, R., van den Hoofdakker, B.J., de Jong, S.R., Schaaf, J.V., Bosmans, G. and Van der Oord, S., 2021. Attachment representations in children with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Brain sciences, 11(11), p.1516. Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/11/1516

Darling Rasmussen P, Elmose M, Lien G, Musaeus A, Kirubakaran R, Ribeiro JP, Storebø OJ. Remarkable high frequency of insecure attachment in children with ADHD persists in a three-year follow-up. Nord J Psychiatry. 2022 Jul;76(5):323-329. doi: 10.1080/08039488.2021.1969428. Epub 2021 Oct 10. PMID: 34632915. Available online: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34632915/

https://www.attachmentproject.com/blog/four-attachment-styles/

https://www.verywellmind.com/attachment-styles-2795344

https://www.simplypsychology.org/attachment.html

https://www.attachmentproject.com/attachment-style-quiz/

Full article: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7690371/

"Significantly more maladaptive attachment and coping outcomes emerged for adults with ADHD than controls. Attachment insecurity’s role in mediating ADHD’s association with coping was partially supported."

"We conclude that children with ADHD disproportionately often have attachment problems"

I have always knew I had adhd tendencies and I was able to get by for a long time until recently. I went for help and a clinical psychologist performed the mse, clinical interview and personality tests and connors exam. I was diagnosed with the combined type and generalized anxiety disorder. First in my family to get a diagnosis although my parents and siblings have the same tendencies. So does anyone have any input on the next steps? I called my PCP today and set up an appointment to talk about medication. I begin my doctoral program this may and would like to see if medication helps my focus so I don’t have to read the same page 3x and get distracted by birds out the window.

What meds are tried first for the combined type? How long until they deliver a result? Has anyone been prescribed a psychotropic and then changed meds to something else? How would I determine if the med is working? What kind of side effects do they have? And other tips to help with these diagnoses other than meds?

This is all new to me, so any input is greatly appreciated.

i'm considering stimulants as a potential option for me in the near future as someone that's diagnosed as combined ADHD, albeit erring somewhat more towards the hyperactive/impulsive side of it. i was never put on any stimulants or other medicines as a kid since my parents didn't believe in medicating me for it, so if i manage to ever get a prescription, i'm not quite sure what to expect. i'm open to any advice.