We often hear that mental health problems are “in the genes.” It’s a familiar story: anxiety runs in families, depression is a chemical imbalance, and maybe you inherited a predisposition to feel the way you do. But while genetics may shape how we respond to the world, they don’t fully explain why so many people are struggling now—and why some problems seem to be growing worse with each passing decade.
To understand what’s really driving much of today’s emotional distress, we need to look beyond biology. The bigger story lies not in our DNA, but in our environments—in the rapidly changing social world we live in and how poorly it fits the psychological systems we evolved to rely on. In short: social evolution is moving much faster than genetic evolution, and the mismatch between the two is where much of modern suffering begins.
Let’s think like behavioral scientists for a moment. If you studied an animal in captivity and saw it pacing obsessively, isolating itself, or failing to interact normally with others of its kind, you wouldn’t assume it had defective genes. You’d look at the enclosure. You’d ask what was missing from the animal’s social environment. Has it been isolated? Overstimulated? Confined in a space that doesn’t let it behave the way it’s built to behave?
Human beings are no different. We evolved in small, cooperative groups where survival depended on shared effort, physical activity, and ongoing connection with others. Our brains were shaped in these environments, and our emotional systems—our anxieties, our sensitivities to exclusion, our drive for belonging—are built for that kind of world. But that’s not the world most of us live in now.
Today, we spend much of our time alone, or interacting through screens. We are expected to multitask constantly, maintain a curated image of ourselves online, and juggle economic and emotional pressures in environments that offer little social support. The average person moves more, sleeps less, and worries more about reputation, competition, and status than ever before. It’s no wonder that stress, anxiety, and depression are so common. These are not just internal malfunctions; they are responses to an environment that overwhelms systems that were never designed for this pace or scale of life.
And that’s a key difference between viewing mental health through a genetic lens and a social one. The genetic view tends to assume that the problem lies within the person: that the brain or body is somehow broken or misfiring. The social evolution view asks a different question: What if the environment has changed in ways that create chronic distress? What if the individual is functioning as best they can in conditions they weren’t designed for?
Take loneliness, for example. From an evolutionary standpoint, being excluded from a group once meant a real threat to survival. Our brains are wired to respond to social disconnection with discomfort and distress. But in today’s world, social isolation has become common—even expected. Many people live alone, work alone, and spend their free time scrolling through filtered versions of other people’s lives. The pain they feel isn’t irrational. It’s their mind doing exactly what it evolved to do—alerting them that something is missing.
Or consider the rise of depression in adolescents. Their brains are highly sensitive to peer acceptance, identity formation, and social comparison—all systems designed to help them find their place in a community. But when their daily life involves navigating social media, cyberbullying, or constant exposure to images of unattainable perfection, those very systems can turn against them. Again, this isn’t a malfunction of genetics. It’s the mind trying—and often failing—to adapt to a modern environment that bombards it with confusing and unrealistic signals.
This is not to say biology doesn’t matter. Of course, people vary in temperament, sensitivity, and the ways they process experience. But biology is always playing out in a context. And the context we live in today is changing faster than any gene can keep up with. That’s why social evolution—the evolution of our cultural systems, technologies, and social norms—matters more than ever in explaining why so many people are struggling.
Even therapy works through social means, not genetic ones. When someone feels heard and understood, when they learn to view their thoughts differently or take meaningful steps toward what matters to them, they are reshaping their responses—not through medication or genetic editing, but through relationship, reflection, and behavioral flexibility. These are all forms of social learning. And they work precisely because human minds are designed to change in response to social experience.
Understanding mental health through the lens of social evolution also opens the door to greater compassion. Instead of labeling people as defective or blaming them for their suffering, we can ask: What in their world is making life harder than it needs to be? What systems, expectations, or environments are placing them under pressure they were never meant to carry?
If we accept that our minds evolved for a world of slower rhythms, deeper connections, and shared purpose, then it makes sense to feel disoriented in a world of constant noise, competition, and disconnection. The discomfort isn’t pathological—it’s adaptive. But the solutions won’t be found in our biology. They’ll be found in how we reshape our social world to better meet human needs.
Mental health problems are not evidence that the person is broken. More often, they’re signals that something in the environment is out of balance. And that’s good news—because environments can change. Expectations can change. And people can heal, not by altering their genes, but by reconnecting with the kinds of lives their minds were designed to live.
