Jonathan Haidt argues that children raised in conservative, religious, and community-rooted homes show stronger mental health and greater resilience than their secular or liberal peers, and contemporary incidents of radicalization and violence highlight the social costs when community ties fray and misinformation fills the gap.
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has been tracking trends in youth mental health for years, and his takeaway is clear: kids who grow up embedded in real communities tend to fare better. He told economist Tyler Cowen that there is “a lot of data on this,” and he linked happier outcomes to rootedness and social stability. That argument directly challenges the notion that political ideology is irrelevant to parenting outcomes.
Cowen asked Haidt, who’s written multiple books about kids’ mental health and anxiety: “Who makes better parents? Left-Wingers or Right-Wingers?
Haidt responded: “ There’s a lot of data on this. There’s long been a slight gap where conservatives are a little happier than liberals and it’s not clear. Is that parenting? Who knows.
But what I found in doing research for the book is that the gap between Left and Right became a chasm after 2012… The bottom line is that when kids are rooted in communities, they don’t get washed out to sea by the phone-based childhood, living by the virtual world. So over and over again, whether we look at Left-Right, whether we look at religion, what we find is it’s the secular kids and the liberal kids who got washed out to sea, got really depressed after 202. And much less effect on the conservative and religious kids, because I think they’re more rooted.”
Haidt’s point is not about scoring political points so much as about pointing to a social reality: stable institutions and daily face-to-face ties protect young people. Conservative and religious families often maintain rituals and expectations that tether children to a community and to shared values. That tethering limits the isolating effects of endless smartphone scrolling and the curated anxieties of social media.
The broader culture has allowed virtual life to swallow up ordinary community anchors, and when that happens children become more vulnerable to anxiety and depression. This is especially noticeable in places and groups that have drifted from traditional supports and where school, church, and neighborhood bonds are weak. The data Haidt references show a divergence that became sharper in the last decade.
Real-world consequences of ideological isolation are visible in recent violent incidents that commentators say were fueled by radical ideas and online echo chambers. Cole Allen, the 31-year-old man from California who tried to assassinate President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April, appears to have been pulled into a false narrative. The manifesto he sent before the attack, and footage of the event, suggest a person radicalized by partisan rage and conspiratorial thinking rather than anchored civic life.
He believes the talking points spouted by the mainstream media to the point that he traveled across the country in an attempt to assassinate Trump and his cabinet members. He attended a “No Kings” rally and was radicalized to the point where, instead of living his life, he tried to kill others because he has Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Allen’s academic credentials, including an engineering degree from Caltech University, show that education alone doesn’t inoculate someone from radical narratives when social supports erode. A bright mind detached from steady relationships can still be swept up in destructive ideas if they lack grounding institutions and responsibilities. That reality undercuts the notion that cultural elite training automatically produces stable citizens.
Another incident cited in these conversations involves Luigi Mangione, the man who allegedly shot and killed United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City in December 2024, and whose path toward violence was reportedly shaped by online misinformation. Observers say he, too, was drawn into an intellectual deadzone of lies on Reddit and in the mainstream media. Those patterns repeatedly point back to the same social diagnosis Haidt describes: when community ties fray, radicalized narratives move in and young people are at greater risk of harm.
The takeaways are straightforward for anyone who wants safer, steadier childhoods: strengthen family life, revive local institutions, and reduce the time children spend adrift in virtual spaces. Returning to a culture that prizes duty, neighborhood, and religious or civic practice would not be a partisan stunt. It would be a practical response to mounting evidence that rootedness protects young minds.
Conservatives can point to these findings as validation of long-held practices of neighborliness, church involvement, and firm household expectations that create durable children. Critics will argue over causes and remedies, but the correlations Haidt raises deserve a clear-eyed response. If policymakers and parents want to reverse trends in youth mental illness, rebuilding community is a logical place to start.
