Hardwired to Connect:
Making the connection between adolescent well-being and authoritative communities

Comments delivered on September 9, 2003

W. Bradford Wilcox*

This report argues that the psychological well-being of adolescents has declined in the last half-century to the point where approximately 20 percent of all adolescents report some type of psychological malady—from depression to anxiety. It is also argues that our response to this crisis should not focus primarily on pharmacological or therapeutic responses to this crisis; rather, we need to strengthen the institutions that provide our adolescents with a sense of meaning and belonging, both of which buffer against psychological distress.

The report's insight that there is a connection between psychological well-being and social integration can be illustrated by discussing adolescent suicide trends from 1955 to the present. From 1955 to 1995, the suicide rate for adolescents aged 15 to 19 more than quadrupled from 2.7 per 100,000 to 11.1 per 100,000. (In the last five years of the last decade, the suicide rate for this age group fell slightly to 8.1 per 100,000 in 2000.)

I mention suicide trends for two reasons. First, these suicide trends are a good indication of the trajectory of trends in the psychological well-being of American adolescents over the last half-century. The bottom-line: adolescent psychological well-being fell dramatically for much of the last half-century but has stabilized in many ways since the mid-1990s; nevertheless, psychological well-being has stabilized at a level that should give us cause for concern. To paraphrase the report, the waiting lists of mental health professionals remain way too long. Teens are suffering from mental illness, emotional distress, and behavioral problems at rates that far exceed those at mid-century.

Second, I spoke about suicide trends because suicide, as Emile Durkheim argued a century ago, is often an excellent barometer of the health of our social life. When adolescents are integrated into what this report describes as authoritative communities, they have a sense of meaning and belonging that makes their lives worth living. When adolescents have no ties, or only attenuated ties, to authoritative communities, they lose hope and become vulnerable to a range of psychological maladies, including suicide.

Now, in my view, it is no accident that the two institutions that most captured Durkheim's imagination when it came to thinking about authoritative communities were religion and family. These institutions are uniquely qualified to provide individuals with the meaning, social support, spirit of sacrifice, and discipline they need to truly feel at home in the world. Indeed, research on adolescent suicide indicates that children who grow up apart from intact families or with no religious ties are more likely to consider or commit suicide. So this report is very Durkheimian in making a connection between the quality of an adolescent's integration into an authoritative community and his or her psychological well-being.

So what are authoritative communities and how do they differ from other sorts of organizations or institutions?

The report argues, and I agree, that authoritative communities have a long-term focus and a conception of the good life that allows them to treat children as ends, not means. Thus, for instance, authoritative communities can be contrasted from corporations in their effect on children. Think of the YMCA versus the Fox Entertainment Group (owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation). The Y is committed to fostering the moral and physical well-being of children and they are in their communities for the long haul. Rupert Murdoch and his executives are committed to the bottom line and have no connection to the adolescents affected by their shows. Thus, Fox is willing to sponsor shows like Boston Public and Skin that serve the bottom line at the expense of the welfare of adolescents.

The report also argues, correctly, that adolescents are moral and spiritual beings. In working with adolescents, youth groups often sell them short by appealing only to their self-interest or self-esteem. The anti-drug program DARE, for instance, tries to motivate teens by telling them about the dangers of drug use but eschews talking about the moral implications of drug use. By contrast, authoritative communities recognize that youth crave meaning and purpose in their lives. Adolescents will respond to communities that set high ideals, demand sacrifice for the sake of a higher good, and provide their lives with structure and direction. One thinks, for instance, of Metro Achievement Center for Girls in Chicago, which is extremely effective in tutoring inner-city girls precisely because it integrates moral education into the fabric of its educational program. In other words, calculus goes with character.

Finally, this report points out that authoritative communities are not dominated by social workers, psychologists, or sociologists. Authoritative communities are not governmental or nonprofit agencies staffed by professionals who see their members as ``clients." They are not single-issue advocacy groups. Instead, these communities are dominated by volunteers—especially people with ties to the local community. They see their fellow community members as friends, brothers, sisters, and neighbors. Take Azusa Christian Community in inner-city Dorchester, Massachusetts, which draws gang-bangers off the streets with a heady mix of faith, friendship, and political activism. Azusa's Rev. Eugene Rivers doesn't drive from Brookline to Dorchester to provide these youth with programs. Rivers fathers these young men by living deliberately in their community, by keeping his home open to them at virtually every hour of the night, and by embodying a message of hope and renewal to them.

So, how are authoritative communities faring in the United States? The sobering reality is that the decline of authoritative communities in American life over the last 50 years accounts for much of the increase in psychological pathology we saw from the 1950s to 1990s. In terms of the family—the primary authoritative community for children—the last 50 years have witnessed dramatic declines in the strength and stability of American family life. For instance, in the 1950s, almost 80 percent of children spent their entire lives in an intact family, whereas in the 1990s only about 50 percent of children spent their entire lives in an intact family. Likewise, Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone suggests that other authoritative communities in civil society—e.g., houses of worship, PTAs, etc.—declined markedly over the last half-century. For instance, religious attendance among high school seniors fell from 40 percent a week in the late 1970s to 31 percent in 1991. (High school religious attendance stabilized in the 1990s, as did trends in family stability for children.)

Thus, given the fact that a growing body of research connects adolescent well-being to the health of families and civil society, the weakening of authoritative communities over the last 50 years has probably played a central role in accounting for increases in adolescent psychological pathology.

These trends are especially sobering because declines in familial and civic life have been concentrated in lower-income neighborhoods. Authoritative communities are weakest among the poor. Ironically, my work and the work of Byron Johnson at the University of Pennsylvania indicates that these communities are especially valuable in promoting good outcomes among at-risk youth, precisely because these youth do not enjoy the material and social resources that youth in middle- and upper-class communities do.

Let me close on a positive note. The good news is that adolescent well-being seems to have stabilized in the 1990s. This trend parallels stabilizing trends in family structure and an uptick in volunteering among adolescents over this period. In other words, insofar as adolescent well-being is connected to the strength of authoritative communities, recent declines in adolescent well-being appear to have come to halt as authoritative communities have stopped losing ground. This report suggests we must build on these trends to strengthen our families, youth organizations, and other civic organizations if we seek to address adolescents' fundamental needs for belonging, moral purpose, and transcendent meaning.