Evolutionary Mismatch, Stress, and Competition: Making Sense of Psychosocial Problems in the Polycrisis Era

Abstract

Contemporary problems ranging from allergies, myopia, and obesity to chronic anxiety, loneliness, and ultralow fertility can be understood as consequences of evolutionary mismatch intensified by the polycrisis, in which accelerating technological and socioeconomic changes push human adaptations beyond what they evolved to handle. We sought to provide a conceptual review that maps these problems to adaptive needs that are disrupted in highly modernized environments. We then introduce the social evolutionary mismatch and competition hypothesis, which proposes that social aspects of evolutionary mismatch—e.g., increasing population sizes, fragmented communities, rising socioeconomic inequality, constant exposure to inflated social status cues—have a distinct effect of heightening both real and perceived competition. In turn, this perspective can help us make sense of predictable variation in psychosocial outcomes, including obsessive status pursuit, hostility, and social withdrawal. Finally, we outline strategies to lessen the impact of these dynamics by reducing sources of evolutionary mismatch. In sum, we contribute (1) an exposition of how the polycrisis exacerbates evolutionary mismatch and the adaptive needs that are impacted, (2) a theoretical advance identifying mismatch-driven competition as a predictor of multiple problematic outcomes, and (3) a translational framework showing how evolutionary insights can inform interventions to promote well-being in a time of profound societal strain.