Belongingness is the human emotional need to be an accepted member of a group. Whether it is family, friends, co-workers, a religion, or something else, some people tend to have an ‘inherent’ desire to belong and be an important part of something greater than themselves. This implies a relationship that is greater than simple acquaintance or familiarity.
Belonging is a strong feeling that exists in human nature.[1] To belong or not to belong is a subjective experience that can be influenced by a number of factors within ourselves and our surrounding environment.
Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary argue that belongingness is such a fundamental human motivation that we feel severe consequences for not belonging. Were it not so fundamental then lacking a sense of belonging would not have such dire consequences for us. This desire is so universal that the need to belong is found across all cultures and different types of people.
Active listening can help create the feeling of belonging.
Psychological needs
Abraham Maslow suggested that the need to belong was a major source of human motivation. He thought that it was one of five human needs in his hierarchy of needs, along with physiological needs, safety, self-esteem, and self-actualization. These needs are arranged on a hierarchy and must be satisfied in order. After physiological and safety needs are met an individual can then work on meeting the need to belong and be loved. According to Maslow, if the first two needs are not met, then an individual cannot completely love someone else.
Other theories have also focused on the need to belong as a fundamental psychological motivation. According to Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary, all human beings need a certain minimum quantity of regular, satisfying social interactions. Inability to meet this need results in loneliness, mental distress, and a strong desire to form new relationships.[2] Several psychologists have proposed that there are individual differences in people’s motivation to belong. People with a strong motivation to belong are less satisfied with their relationships and tend to be relatively lonely. As consumers, they tend to seek the opinions of others about products and services and also attempt to influence others’ opinions.
According to Baumeister and Leary, much of what human beings do is done in the service of belongingness. They argue that many of the human needs that have been documented, such as the needs for power, intimacy, approval, achievement and affiliation, are all driven by the need to belong. Human culture is compelled and conditioned by pressure to belong. The need to belong and form attachments is universal among humans. This counters the Freudian argument that sexuality and aggression are the major driving psychological forces. Those who believe that the need to belong is the major psychological drive also believe that humans are naturally driven toward establishing and sustaining relationships and belongingness. For example, interactions with strangers are potential first steps towards developing non-hostile and more long-term connections which can satisfy one’s attachment needs. Certain people who are socially deprived can exhibit physical, behavioral, and psychological problems, such as stress or instability.
Attachments
In all cultures, attachments form universally. Social bonds are easily formed, without the need for favorable settings. The need to belong is a goal-directed activity that people try to satisfy with a certain minimum number of social contacts. The quality of interactions is more important than the quantity of interactions. People who form social attachments beyond that minimal amount experience less satisfaction from extra relationships, as well as more stress from terminating those extra relationships. People also effectively replace lost relationship partners by substituting them with new relationships or social environments. For example, individuals with strong family ties could compensate for loneliness at work.
Relationships missing regular contact but characterized by strong feelings of commitment and intimacy also fail to satisfy the need. Just knowing that a bond exists may be emotionally comforting, yet it would not provide a feeling of full belongingness if there is a lack of interaction between the persons. The belongingness hypothesis proposes two main features. First, people need constant, positive, personal interactions with other people. Second, people need to know that the bond is stable, there is mutual concern, and that this attachment will continue. So, the need to belong is not just a need for intimate attachments or a need for connections, but that the perception of the bond is as important as the bond itself. Individuals need to know that other people care about their well-being and love them.
Baumeister and Leary argue that much of the research on group bonds can be interpreted through the lens of belongingness. They argue that plenty of evidence suggests that social bonds are formed easily. In the classic Robber’s Cave study, stranger boys were randomly grouped into two different groups and almost immediately, group identification and strong loyalty developed to their specific group. Initially, the two groups were asked to compete with one another, and hostility between the groups ensued[4] However, when the two groups were combined to form one big group and were given the opportunity to bond by working together to accomplish superordinate goals, behaviors and emotions accommodated quickly to that new group. In an attempt to understand causes of in-group favoritism, researchers formed a group so minimal and insignificant that one would expect that no favoritism would be found, yet in-group favoritism appeared immediately.[4] Researchers agree that banding together against a threat (the out-group) and sharing rewards are primary reasons groups form and bond so easily. Mere proximity is another powerful factor in relationship formation. Just like babies form attachments with their caregivers, people develop attachments just because they live near one another. This suggests that proximity sometimes overcomes the tendencies to bond with others who are similar to us. Positive social bonds form just as easily under fearful circumstances, such as military veterans who have undergone heavy battle together. This can be explained by either misattribution (interpreting feelings of anxious arousal as feelings of attraction for another person) or reinforcement theory (the presence of another person reduces distress and elicits positive responses). Baumeister and Leary argue that the reinforcement theory explanation provides evidence for the importance of belonging needs because these learned associations create a tendency to seek out the company of others in times of threat. The formation of social attachments with former rivals is a great indicator of the need to belong. Belonging motivations are so strong that they are able to overcome competitive feelings towards opponents.
People form such close attachments with one another that they are hesitant in breaking social bonds. Universally, people distress and protest ending social relationships across all cultures and age spans.[5] Even temporary groups, such as training groups, struggle with the idea that the group may eventually dissolve. The group may have fulfilled their purpose, but the participants want to cling on to the relationships and social bonds that have been formed with one another. The group members make promises individually and collectively to stay in touch, plan for future reunions, and take other steps to ensure the continuity of the attachment. For example, two people may not speak for an entire year, but continue exchanging holiday cards. People do not want to risk damaging a relationship or breaking an attachment, because it is distressing.
People are so hesitant in breaking social bonds that in many cases, they are hesitant to dissolve even bad relationships that could be potentially destructive. For example, many women are unwilling to leave their abusive spouses or boyfriends with excuses ranging from liking for the abuse to economic self-interests that are more important than physical harm.[6] This unwillingness to leave an abusive partner, whether mentally or physically, is just another indicator of the power of the need to belong and how reluctant individuals are to break these bonds. Breaking off an attachment causes pain that is deeply rooted in the need to belong.
People experience a range of both positive and negative emotions; the strongest emotions linked to attachment and belongingness. Empirical evidence suggests that when individuals are accepted, welcomed, or included it leads those individuals to feel positive emotions such as happiness, elation, calm, and satisfaction. However, when individuals are rejected or excluded, they feel strong negative emotions such as anxiety, jealousy, depression, and grief. In fact, the psychological pain caused by social rejection is so intense that it involves the same brain regions involved in the experience of physical pain.[7] Both positive and negative reactions in emotion are connected to status of relationship. The existence of a social attachment changes the way one emotionally responds to the actions of a relationship partner and the emotions have the potential to intensify.
Lack of constant, positive relationships has been linked to a large range of consequences. People who lack belongingness are more prone to behavioral problems such as criminality and suicide and suffer from increasing mental and physical illness. Based on this evidence, multiple and diverse problems are caused by the lack of belongingness and attachments. It therefore seems appropriate to regard belongingness and attachments as a need rather than simply a want.
Relationships that are centrally important in the way people think are interpersonal relationships. The belongingness hypothesis suggests that people devote much of their cognitive thought process to interpersonal relationships and attachments. For example, researchers found that people store information in terms of their social bonds, such as storing more information about a marriage partner as opposed to a work acquaintance. People also sort out-group members on the basis of characteristics, traits, and duties, whereas they sort in-group members on person categories. Cognitive processing organizes information by the person they have a connection with as opposed to strangers. Researchers had a group of people take turns reading out-loud and they found that they had the greatest recall for the words they personally spoke, as well for words spoken by dating partners or close friends. There is a cognitive merging of the self with specific people that is followed by the need to belong. Flattering words that are said to a spouse can enhance the self just as positively. People always believe that nothing bad can happen to themselves, and extend that thought to their family and friends.
There is an emotional implication to belongingness in which positive affect is linked to increases in belongingness while negative affect is linked to decreases in belongingness. Positive emotions are associated with forming social attachments, such as the experience of falling in love, as long as the love is mutual. Unrequited love (love without belongingness) usually leads to disappointment whereas belongingness in love leads to joy. Occasions such as childbirth, new employment, and fraternity/sorority pledging are all associated with the formation of new social attachments surrounded by positive emotions. Forming bonds is cause for joy, especially when the bond is given a permanent status, such as a wedding. Weddings signify permanent commitment and complete the social bond by committing to the spouse’s need to belong. Positive experiences shared emotions increases attraction with others. Close personal attachments, a rich network of friends and high levels of intimacy motivation are all correlated to happiness in life.
The breaking of social bonds and threats to those bonds are primary sources of negative affect. People feel anxious, depressed, guilty or lonely when they lose important relationships. Social exclusion is the most common cause of anxiety. Anxiety is a natural consequence of being separated from others. Examples include children suffering from separation anxiety from being separated from their mothers. Adults act similarly when their loved ones leave for a period of time. Memories of past rejection and imagining social rejection all elicit negative emotions. Losses of attachments lead directly to anxiety. If people are excluded from social groups, people get anxious, yet the anxiety is removed when they experience social inclusion. Failing to feel accepted can lead to social and general depression. Depression and anxiety are significantly correlated. Social exclusion is also a major cause of jealousy, which is a common reaction when one’s relationships are threatened. Jealousy is cross-culturally universal and in all cultures, sexual jealousy is common. It was said earlier that belongingness needs can only truly be met with social contact, but social contact by itself does not shield people against loneliness. Loneliness matters more when there is a lack of intimacy as opposed to lack of contact. Another negative affect is guilt, which is caused to make the other person want to maintain the relationship more, such as paying more attention to that person.
Divorce and death are two negative events that spoil the need to belong. Divorce causes distress, anger, loneliness, and depression in almost everyone. The death of oneself and other people are the most traumatic and stressful events that people can experience. Death can cause severe depression, which is not a reaction to the loss of the loved one, but because there is a loss of the attachment with that other person. For example, a death of a spouse in which there was marriage problems can still elicit in extreme sadness at the loss of that attachment. Death is linked to anxiety and fear of loneliness. The idea of being separated from friends and family, and not the fact that they would no longer exist on this earth, is what brings about this anxiety.