Evolutionary traps are scenarios in which wild animals are fooled by rapidly changing conditions into preferring poor-quality resources over those that better improve survival and reproductive success. Yet, this type of severely maladaptive behavior are also well-known and studied in the field of human psychology, clinical medicine and education. Sociologists, too, have demonstrated that group behaviors in the context of resource management can have major costs for individuals, possibly at the level of entire societies and in ways that can lead to their collapse. I bring together concepts and case studies from these diverse topical areas under the conceptual framework of evolutionary traps to discuss its efficacy and utility in describing, and addressing the causes of human maladaptive behavior.