How to Use maladaptive in a Sentence
maladaptive
adjective-
What looks to us like a maladaptive state might be the best of many bad options.
—National Geographic, 4 Oct. 2016
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What looks to us like a maladaptive state might be the best of many bad options.
—National Geographic, 4 Oct. 2016
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Much of excessive drinking and drug use is a maladaptive way of lowering stress in the short term.
—Brennan Barnard, Forbes, 4 July 2022
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If left unchecked, these maladaptive thought patterns can lead to debilitating levels of burnout and stress.
—Mark Travers, Forbes, 22 Feb. 2024
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This gives rise to the other attachment styles: anxious and avoidant, sometimes referred to as maladaptive attachment styles.
—Eve Ettinger, Allure, 28 Nov. 2020
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The other interesting finding was a link between the use the maladaptive coping and the probability that a runner would finish the race.
—Alex Hutchinson, Outside Online, 10 Apr. 2018
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This is known as maladaptive daydreaming and it is accepted as a response to trauma, abuse or loneliness.
—Vicky Spratt, refinery29.com, 12 Sep. 2021
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There seems to be a strong relationship between OCD and maladaptive daydreaming.
—Giulia Poerio, CNN, 9 Jan. 2023
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No surprise, then, that chronic stress often leads to maladaptive coping mechanisms in modern life.
—Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic, 2 Dec. 2021
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Today this form of punishment can easily become abuse, and is a maladaptive habit that most black folk inherited.
—Richael Faithful, The Root, 25 May 2017
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The condition stems from a maladaptive inflammatory response to a systemic infection, which causes blood clots to form throughout the body, blood vessels in the skin to collapse, and tissue to die.
—Beth Mole, Ars Technica, 28 Feb. 2022
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Like arsonists setting fire to a city, malicious actors might seek to inject such maladaptive brain activity in a bid to harm other users.
—Kelly Clancy, Wired, 10 Jan. 2022
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Like a peacock rendered nearly flightless by gaudy tail feathers, the overserved athlete is the product of a process that has become maladaptive, and is now harming the very blue-chip demographic it was supposed to help.
—Ruth S. Barrett, The Atlantic, 17 Oct. 2020
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In Wanda's case, her anguish over Vision's death does not relent and her maladaptive coping has consequences not only for her own healing, but for everyone around her.
—Alia E. Dastagir, USA TODAY, 5 Mar. 2021
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Stuck in a heightened state of alarm, many individuals have developed a sort of happiness anxiety, which is the mind’s maladaptive way of protecting us from being hurt or let down in the future.
—Amy Blankson, Forbes, 9 Sep. 2021
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Like Michelangelo's David emerging from a block of marble, many cognitive advances arise during a sculpting process in which unused or maladaptive brain cell connections are pruned away.
—Jay N. Giedd, Scientific American, 1 May 2016
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This worked well for our evolutionary predecessors, but what was once adaptive is now often maladaptive.
—Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Forbes, 14 Apr. 2022
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But in the case of the allergy patients, that memory apparently becomes maladaptive.
—Quanta Magazine, 12 Nov. 2018
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Nowadays, when fried chicken comes in buckets and can be delivered to your door within the hour, the environment’s ability to stimulate eating can be maladaptive and detrimental to one’s health.
—Holly Barker, Discover Magazine, 23 Sep. 2021
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Their hunger persists as maladaptive coping mechanisms cannot be satisfied.
—Hazlitt, 27 Sep. 2023
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Psychedelic therapy enabled me to see maladaptive patterns that had formed since childhood, and in combination with talk therapy, enabled me to change them.
—Louis Metzger Iv, Forbes, 26 Apr. 2022
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Taking pleasure in negative emotions might seem morally suspect or maladaptive, a case of pointless narcissism.
—Charlie Tyson, The Atlantic, 30 Jan. 2022
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When justice is sought in the wake of a scam, skepticism is positioned as the norm, while gullibility is treated as a maladaptive, pathological, deviant form of socioeconomic being.
—Hannah Zeavin, Harper’s Magazine , 22 June 2022
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These maladaptive neurological changes can persist long after the alcohol use stops.
—Jamie Smolen, chicagotribune.com, 23 Dec. 2017
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Through that lens, vampire bats’ relentless congregating might seem maladaptive.
—Katherine J. Wu, Smithsonian Magazine, 13 Mar. 2020
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Pond’s group, these 13 individually maladaptive changes might be adaptive when present all together.
—Sarah Zhang, The Atlantic, 29 Jan. 2022
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Researchers believe that kleptomania may be a maladaptive response to a depressive mood state and the feelings of guilt and shame that follow instances of compulsive stealing can intensify these feelings of depression.
—Mark Travers, Forbes, 27 Feb. 2024
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A possible maladaptive behavior according to Joyce, this loud trumpeting has the adverse effect of attracting passerby males.
—Sarah Gibbens, National Geographic, 2 May 2017
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Studies suggest that maladaptive daydreaming first appears in youth and is more likely to affect individuals exposed to childhood trauma.
—Mark Travers, Forbes, 10 Sep. 2021
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Complicated grief can be defined as a more persistent form of intense grief in which maladaptive thoughts and dysfunctional behaviors emerge, along with continued yearning and sadness or preoccupation with thoughts of the person who died.
—Jacqueline Howard, CNN, 16 May 2018
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'maladaptive.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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