New Delhi: A study by social scientists found that modern society has evolved faster than human biology. Feeling overwhelmed, tired, and out of your depth is a sign of this.
Published in Behavioral Sciences, the study titled “Evolutionary mismatch, stress, and competition: Making sense of psychosocial problems in the polycrisis era” by Singaporean researchers argues that this “evolutionary mismatch” is causing significant problems to our mental and physical health.
Evolutionary mismatch happens when human instincts evolved in one environment are forced to occur in a different one. Humans evolved in smaller groups and learned to respond to threats and danger accordingly. Still, those same traits are now being forced to function amid overpopulated cities, constant digital pressure, and increasing social inequalities.
“Competition is not new, but modern life can make it feel constant. An evolutionary perspective may help explain why people respond so strongly to comparison and the fear of falling behind, even when those signals come from strangers or screens rather than a small social group,” said co-author Jose Yong, Senior Lecturer at Singapore’s James Cook University.
Researchers also found that problems such as allergies, myopia, obesity, chronic anxiety, loneliness, and ultralow fertility can be a consequence of the “polycrisis.”
Polycrisis is a situation where multiple, seemingly unrelated global crises interact, and the combined impact is far greater. According to the study, these polycrises with their technological and socioeconomic changes push humans beyond what they are evolved to handle.
“Stress, loneliness and anxiety are often treated as personal or lifestyle problems. But they may also reflect a mismatch between the environments people live in and the conditions our minds and bodies evolved to navigate. That means we should think not only about individual resilience, but also about how cities and communities are designed,” said co-author Sarah Chan, Research Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities.
The study used existing data to further its research. They present evolutionary mismatch as one possible result or interpretation of the result of polycrisis.