In ‘Bowling alone’ Robert Putman highlighted the decline in social capital – the benefits of participating in social networks (Gilligan et al, 2018). Putnam demonstrated that civic organisation and social institutions (family, school, religious organisations) that once created the bonds to hold a society together have been weakened and alienation and individualism has grown. A scientific basis for this consensus has begun to emerge over the last four decades in a wide range of disciplines from neuroscience to evolutionary anthropology and primatology. These collective insights have created the newly emerging ‘science of human connection’. There has been a ‘paradigm shift’ in the sciences which now sees humans as inherently relational and responsive.
Putnam’s work argues that happiness is best predicted by the ‘breadth and depth of one’s social connections’ (McGilChrist, 2010). The difference in rates of depression between cultures seems to be linked with the level of interconnectedness within a culture. Migrants who take with them the mindset of their own socially integrated cultures are protected from the more fragmented western culture they enter, as evidenced by a large study showing the longer Mexican immigrants spent in the US the greater the prevalence of mental disorder. Globalisation and the destruction of local, traditional cultures has led to a rise in the prevalence of mental illness in the developing world. A massive study from around the world found that depression is being experienced more often, younger, with more frequent and severe episodes generation after generation.
In modern societies, community life has broken down and these webs of connections are critical to our survival (Bloom, 2013). It has been claimed that we are in a ‘crisis of connection’ (Gilligan et al, 2018). People are more disconnected from each other with “a state of alienation, isolation and fragmentation characterising much of the modern world” (p.1). The ‘we’ that symbolises community or a collective consciousness has lost all meaning. This is evidenced by decreasing levels of empathy and trust, increases in depression, anxiety, loneliness and social isolation. The impact of this can be seen in rising levels of suicide, addiction and mass violence, as well as high rates of incarceration, hate crimes, domestic violence and sexual assault. There is also huge inequality in income, education, health care and housing. As the bonds of solidarity weaken, we are less able to address these problems.
Throughout human history there has been a struggle to create an inclusive ‘we’, but it is the disconnection within and across communities that has increased in the 19th and 20th centuries (Gilligan et al, 2018). In modern societies we value ‘self over relationships, individual success over the common good, the mind over the body, and thinking over feeling’. This mindset devalues core aspects of our humanity and lead to a decline in familial and communal bonds. Disconnection leads to lower levels of trust and empathy, rising rates of depression and anxiety and increasing levels of loneliness and social isolation. Lower trust and empathy, according to the data, brings increasing educational and income inequality, mass imprisonment and hate crimes. Rising anxiety, depression, loneliness and isolation bring increased suicide rates, drug addiction, violence, health problems and decreasing life expectancy for alienated groups. Emile Durkheim, the French sociologist, described the ‘anomie’ and alienation that sets in when there is a mismatch between what people need and the values of the society in which they live.
Western psychological theories depict human development as a trajectory from dependence to independence (Jordan, 2017). The task of parenting is to turn the dependant baby into an autonomous adult. Relational-cultural theory (RCT) is based on the premise that human beings grow through and towards connection throughout the lifespan. We need connections to flourish and survive while isolation is understood, at a personal and cultural level, as a source of suffering. Seeing connection as the ‘ongoing organiser’ and source of motivation changes socialisation into helping children develop relational skills. This view implies the need to change the socio-political forces of disconnection that create pain for people. We need a culture that supports our need for others rather than demeans it. When we over-emphasise the need to ‘stand on our own’, we are siding against our neurobiology and create chronic stress. Our culture encourages us to be separate and compete with each but the message of healing connections has resonated with educators and policy-makers. The RCT model of development puts connection at the centre of growth. We develop relational competence and efficacy through being on the receiving end of empathic interactions.
Science often studies the isolated individual but social animals like ourselves can only be understood in terms of the relational webs in which we develop and live (Cozolino, 2013). Social animals are linked through social brain networks, regulating each other’s emotion, biochemistry and behaviour. An example of this comes from elephant cultures where hunters tried to decrease elephant stampedes by killing the largest elephant in the herd. The herd became much more dangerous as a result – the presence of the largest member, the matriarch, down-regulated aggression and testosterone in adolescent males in the herd. In primate troops, safe, older males enable boys to practice aggression and learn how to regulate it. Human boys with fathers and other males in the home tend to adapt better socially. When families and communities break down, adolescents become more aggressive and gravitate towards gangs. Positive relationships support the development of self-esteem, optimism, cognitive and emotional development while bad relational experiences impede their development. The link between health and positive social connection are the most ‘consistent and robust’ findings in psychoneuroimmunology. Social support reduces risk of illness, buffers against stress, and improves health and longevity.
In traditional cultures, the multi-family, multi-generational atmosphere provide opportunities for continuous social interactions which are a source for emotional regulation, reward and learning (Perry and Winfrey, 2021). The typical college age adult today is 30% less empathic and more self-absorbed than 20 years ago. One study has shown a 40% increase in psychopathology in US college students over the last 30 years. All the problems seem to have a common source in our level of connectedness and belonging. Feeling like we belong regulates our stress response systems; connectedness helps us manage transitions in life. Isolation and loneliness can create sensitisation of the stress response and therefore ‘relational poverty’ can be considered an adversity which can disrupt normal development and create mental health problems. An irony lies in the fact that the modern world has marginalised the very cultures that have the wisdom to heal our modern ills.
References
Bloom, S. L. (2013). Creating sanctuary: Toward the evolution of sane societies. Routledge.
Cozolino, L. (2013). The social neuroscience of education: Optimizing attachment and learning in the classroom (The Norton series on the social neuroscience of education). W. W. Norton & Company.
Jordan, J. V. (2017). Relational-cultural therapy. Theories of Psychotherapy Seri.
McGilchrist, I. (2019). The master and his emissary: The divided brain and the making of the western world (2nd ed.). Yale University Press.
Way, N., Ali, A., Gilligan, C., & Noguera, P. (2018). The crisis of connection: Roots, consequences, and solutions. NYU Press.
Winfrey, O. (2021). What happened to you?: Conversations on trauma, resilience, and healing. Pan Macmillan.