maladaptive

Of behavior, showing inadequate or counterproductive mental and behavioral adaptation to a new situation.

• An individual's functioning can be conceptualized on a continuum, with one end being more adaptive and healthy and the other end being more maladaptive and less healthy.
• Some programmatic responses to power issues are more maladaptive for particular clients, such as women, because they affect their role expectations.

Of anatomy, physiology, or behavior, showing inadequate or counterproductive evolutionary adaptation to an environment or its changes.

• The mismatch is the result of an adaptive lag that occurs when the environment that produced an evolved mechanism changes more rapidly than the time it takes for the mechanism to adapt to the change. This theory posits that many of the phys