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When it comes to our thoughts and emotions, everything feels extremely personal. That sadness? Our fault. This anxiety? Our responsibility. However, back in the 1970s, a social scientist named Urie Bronfenbrenner suggested that the world around us has an enormous effect on our mental health.
Our society typically views mental health in a vacuum. Cultures throughout history– and many still to this day– viewed individuals living with mental illness as ensnared in some sort of spiritual crisis, like being possessed by a demon. More recently in Western communities, people see psychiatric symptoms as weakness, laziness, or insanity.
Nowadays, there is more understanding that mental illness is a condition, not a personal failing. A medical model emerged over the last century to see these symptoms as an illness like diabetes or cancer. An illness can be treated.
But is mental illness exactly like cancer? There are certainly biochemical aspects. A lack of the neurotransmitter serotonin can lead to depression. But anybody with depression will tell you that’s not all of it. They may instead point to feeling isolated from loved ones, directionless in their career, or hopeless that a better future awaits them. Over the past several decades, experts and advocates alike have pointed out how reductive it is to look at mental illness as nothing more than a biochemical problem that must be solved. If you’re interested, here’s an academic paper on the evolution of that debate.
So wait. If mental illness isn’t caused by demonic possession or moral weakness, and if it’s not just a chemical imbalance, then what exactly is creating all this discomfort?
Bronfenbrenner’s View on Mental Health
Bronfenbrenner was a Russian-American psychologist. He deserves a great deal of credit for Americans’ modern view of child development. For example, he co-founded the famous Head Start program, which prioritizes learning, health, and well-being for infants, toddlers, and pre-school aged children of low income families.
This work emerged from his conviction that people are profoundly affected by the world they live in. He called this the “Ecological Systems Theory.”
Bronfenbrenner acknowledged biology affects human development and our general mental health. However, he believed that our social environment has the biggest influence.
He divided and named these social structures. Check out this diagram.
There’s you, enveloped in all these layered systems. The innermost category represents the smallest, most intimate social setting. Moving to the outer rings we see increasingly broad and cultural forces. These layers represent the social environments we live in.
Let’s put it in concrete terms. A person in a healthy, supportive family is statistically more likely to achieve their potential than a toxic family. If confronted with a problem, somebody living in an affluent gated community probably has more resources to turn to than an individual living in a public housing unit.
Family matters. So do friends. As does, race, gender, class, government, history…
When it comes to mental health, everything matters. Sadness, anxiety, and other symptoms do not come from being innately broken or flawed.
To use a metaphor, imagine your general well-being as a finite resource, like a bank account. Some social structures may protect you, adding to your savings. Others might drain your account.
Fight the stigma and recognize the friction you face navigating through the world.
The Individual
- Age
- Health
- Identity
The innermost circle in the above diagram– the “you”– focuses mostly on personal factors. On the one hand, age affects us. Once upon a time, I could push through a day on just four hours of sleep. That time is long gone– my biology now requires I get rest if I want to be able to think and form coherent sentences. Furthermore, I’ve moved into a different developmental stage. I’m not as interested in all-nighters watching Lord of the Rings or playing video games like I once was. Where we are in life matters.
As does our physical health. If somebody is physically ill, that will absolutely affect how they interact with the world. For example, somebody living with leukemia must overcome persistent fatigue. They have to worry more about avoiding illness, because getting sick is that much more devastating. This stressor piles onto the others.
How one sees themselves comes into play, too. A person’s identity encompasses SO MANY THINGS. Gender, race, ethnicity, occupation, role in the family… all of these factors and more determine which systems they interact with.
The Microsystem
- Immediate family members
- Friends
- Coworkers
- Classmates
The microsystem is the layer closest to the individual, the people they have the most contact with. Bronfenbrenner suggests this level has the most directly observable impact on a person’s mental health.
It’s important to have a good family. There are oodles of articles out there laying out the importance of a child’s relationship with their parents. Having a strong connection with a mother, father, or guardian sets the stage for building relationships later in life. It also helps people achieve greater emotional, social, and occupational success.
But family matters even after becoming an adult. It’s important to have somebody to talk things out with. They might not always be able to solve our problems, but maybe they can give us a sense of purpose and happy memories.
Unfortunately, not everybody has family that can help with these things. Friends and other close community members also serve important roles in our lives.
The Mesosystem
- Extended family
- School
- Workplace
The mesosystem is a connection between microsystems. For example, a supervisor’s relationship with your coworkers gives a certain tone to the office, thus impacting your own work. If your boss is on good terms with everybody, people will generally be more motivated, effective, and fulfilled.
The inverse is true, too. If a teacher rules their classroom with an iron fist and grades papers unfairly, students might not get along well with one another. When these microsystems don’t play nicely, there’s more potential for drama to unfold.
The Exosystem
- World of work
- Mass media
- Neighborhood
- Government agencies
The exosystem is an extension of the mesosystem. This social structure affects and/or manages the settings that a person might be found in.
Government policy comes into play quite a bit here. To show why, I’ll turn to education again as an example. In 2002, George W. Bush signed the “No Child Left Behind Act” into law. This meant states now had to test children’s math and reading skills in elementary, middle, and high school. Poor passing rates means that states and their schools receive less federal money.
What came of this policy? Successful schools revamped their curriculum to focus on passing these tests. Subjects that did not contribute to these goals– like the arts– got pushed to the side. Furthermore, schools that got more failed tests lost money, and were thus less able to fund new programs.
Media is crucial here, too. Film and television often ignite conversation and exchange of ideas. They also wield extraordinary influence over how people frame social issues. Remember how often sitcoms made fun of homosexuality in the 90’s? This contributed to people making the same kind of jokes at a workplace.
Of course, both corporate and independent news agencies also direct the public narrative. Need proof? Ask a Fox News viewer to describe the 2020 election. Then ask a MSNBC viewer. For better or (much more likely) for worse, the way these programs present news stories can affect how people vote or participate in social movements.
The Macrosystem
- Legal System
- Politic landscape
- Economic system
- Education
The macrosystem is the deepest, most intrinsic feature of society. I’m talking about cultural values, customs, and laws. In the view of Bronfenbrenner, this is one of the most basic systems affecting our mental health.
You may think of exosystems as expressions of the broader macrosystem. How many famous movies revolve around the quintessentially American “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” idea? Consider Rocky. A poor boxer trains incredibly hard to then be able to beat champion Apollo Creed.
Education systems provide an understanding of the world around us, as well as cultural language to use to communicate with each other. Legal systems establishes what is acceptable human behavior. An economic system dictates how resources, services, and goods get distributed across the country.
Also, as just about any American can attest, the political landscape also impact all these different systems. I don’t just mean in a policy sense. Hatred and violence intermingled with politics is a bad mix. Political anxiety in the United States got so bad that a recent study suggested they might’ve contributed to an increase in heart disease.
Racism, sexism, and other -isms also fester in the macrosystem. These profound biases don’t just rear their ugly heads in awkward conversations at the dinner table. They distort economic, education, health, and justice systems to give advantage to particular groups.
The Chronosystem
- Patterns of events
- Lived history
The chronosystem refers to the passage of time in relation to all these systems. It’s easiest to see with microsystems. Having loving romantic partner is a wonderful thing. But being with somebody for four months is not the same as sustaining a relationship for four years.
Bronfenbrenner suggests timing matters for a person’s mental health, too. A parent dying is always difficult. Still, there’s a big difference between losing a parent at age 5 and age 65. The order in which events happen over a person’s life changes the narrative.
Time has a way of cascading into every aspect of our lives.
This holds true across broader groups, too. For example, one major influence in baby boomers’ belief system was the Cold War. Bomb shelter drills in school led to ongoing anxiety of nuclear annihilation. The Vietnam War and all the trauma and loss that brought also imprinted upon this generation.
For millennials, the destruction of the World Trade Center came during a sensitive developmental period. The 2008 housing crisis and the Great Recession also occurred as members of this generation entered into adulthood.
These events had distinct effects on the cultural, political, and emotional realities for each generation. While everybody agrees these moments were significant, the timing plays a big role.
That’s Not to Say Bronfenbrenner’s View on Mental Health is Perfect
Human beings are infinitely complex, and there isn’t one single theory that explains our experiences perfectly.
For one, the lines between each category can get blurry. The difference between a mesosystem and an exosystem can be hard to explain. Does proper labeling actually matter here? Maybe, maybe not.
This concept is also difficult to test. Psychology is a science, and true to the scientific method, researchers try to disprove each theory. I think everybody can agree our social environments affect us. But where does one begin to test how much a mesosystem impacts their anxiety?
Also, how does this theory explain the extraordinarily resilient people who thrive in the face of familial and social adversity? Everybody loves underdog stories. If a person’s well-being and success totally depended on their social environments, explain Oprah Winfrey. An African American female, born to a single mother working as a maid, survived horrific sexual abuse and went on to become one of the most influential people in the world.
Instead of taking Bronfenbrenner’s ideas as the gospel truth, I’d like you to think of them as a tool to make sense of the world’s impact on you.
Bronfenbrenner, Mental Health, and What This Means for You
A professor once told me that humans and relationships are like fish and water. We live, thrive, and struggle in our social environments.
Bronfenbrenner painted a picture on how our social environment affects our mental health. The people and relationships that make up our innermost circles determine what kind of support we can get. Cultural values, customs, and laws cascade through every facet of our lives. The problems we face– or even our very identity– may be judged or minimized.
So what does one make of all this? I’ll leave that up to you. For my part, I hope that this perspective alleviates any shame you might have around your difficulties. Social issues create enormous stress. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying there’s no such thing as personal responsibility. Rather, if a house is built with an unstable structure, we shouldn’t blame the brick for cracking.
There’s also a degree of control that you have. We can’t control every system we operate in. Nobody decides to be born into a dysfunctional family. Nobody is itching to be a marginalized minority. However, some systems are voluntary. Feel like you can’t share anything personal without friends judging you? Then it might be worth finding new, supportive friends that recognize your value and worth. If you find yourself dreading going into work, consider finding a job with more supportive culture.
Changing your social environment transforms your life in profound ways.
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