Biological needs serve the body. Achievement needs fuel activity on challenging physical, intellectual, and professional tasks. But people live in a social world. Thus, they also are motivated by social needs, that is, desires that motivate us to interact with others and to achieve a meaningful role in society.

You often can feel your own social needs. You might be sitting at home, perfectly safe, snacks in the refrigerator, after a week of work. Your biological needs are met. Your work achievements are complete. Yet you want more. You want to hang out with your friends; to see a movie; to start a new relationship; to be involved in your community. These are your social needs.

Many psychologists have, over the years, tried to develop a comprehensive list of social needs (e.g., Murray, 1938). The job is difficult, especially because the needs that people experience may vary from culture to culture. Despite these difficulties, many contemporary psychologists (e.g., Fiske, 2009; Ryan & Deci, 2000) judge that five social needs are universally important to human motivation: needs for (1) belonging, (2) understanding, (3) mastery and control, (4) enhancing the self, and (5) trusting. (These needs overlap somewhat with the ones proposed by Maslow, discussed earlier. However, unlike Maslow, most contemporary psychologists do not think that the needs are arranged in a fixed hierarchy.)

“No man is an island.” The poet John Donne’s sentence is one of the most famous phrases in English literature, and for good reason. Donne captured an essential fact of human life: Psychologically, people need to live among others. Loneliness can be unbearable. A social need for belonging motivates people to spend time with other individuals and to become part of social groups.

Research suggests that this need is universal. People in all societies and cultures experience the need for belonging. To fulfill this need, people the world over form enduring social relationships and try to maintain the relationships they have established (Baumeister & Leary, 1995).

The need for belonging is so powerful that failing to fulfill it is painful—literally. When people become disconnected from others—for example, when a relationship breaks up— they often describe the experience using words that describe physical pain: The breakup “hurt,” “broke my heart,” “was emotionally scarring,” and so forth. One reason for the choice of words is that the pain of the breakup is literal pain; that is, the bodily systems active during physical pain are the same ones that are active during “painful” social experiences (MacDonald & Leary, 2005). Brain research reveals this. Participants were exposed to either physical pain (a hot stimulus on their forearm) or social pain (looking at a picture of a former partner who had rejected them) while researchers obtained images of brain activation. The different types of painful experience activated the same brain regions (Kross et al., 2011). Rejection—a failure to fulfill the need to belong—thus is truly painful.

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Many argue that our contemporary need to belong is rooted in our evolutionary past. Tens of thousands of years ago, early humans faced harsh living conditions, such as ice ages that threatened the species’ survival. To cope, people banded together into groups. Rather than living as isolated individuals or small families, they formed larger units that, through group efforts, were better able to battle the elements (Morris, 2010). A desire to belong to such groups was therefore an evolutionary advantage. People who felt a need to belong benefited from the advantages of group living. Individuals who were not motivated to live in social groups missed out on these benefits, and thus were less likely to survive. Thanks to evolution through natural selection, then, we contemporary humans inherit a need to belong (Hogan, 1983).

A second social need is a need for understanding, that is, a motive to comprehend why events occur and to predict what the future might bring.

If you reflect on your own thoughts, you’ll quickly recognize this need in yourself. What sorts of thoughts tend to run through your head? If you’re like most people, many of them are efforts at understanding. Suppose a friend cancels plans to get together. You want to understand why. If your parents say they want to visit you next weekend, you want to understand why. We’re like detectives: When things happen, we put together clues, think about other people’s thoughts, and try to find out what causes the events of our lives.

The need for understanding is a social need in that we rely on others for knowledge. We gain information and figure out the meanings of events by interacting with other people in person and electronically (Kruglanski et al., 2006). In fact, one of the major topics explored in social psychology (see Chapter 12) is a form of thinking fueled by the need for understanding: attributions, or thoughts about the causes of people’s social behavior.

People often seek a particular type of understanding. They want to achieve not merely a vague grasp of events, but cognitive closure: a firm, definitive understanding grounded in information that resolves ambiguities and eliminates confusions about events (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996). Although some people are more bothered by uncertainty than others, people generally prefer to reach closure on issues, that is, to resolve puzzles, get missing information, and gain a firm understanding of the world around them.

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Who should decide what clothes you wear, how long your hair is, and who your friends are? Most people would say “I should.” You may not mind if others offer some opinions, but you want to be the final decision maker. People have a need for control.

The need for control is a desire to select one’s life activities and to have the capacity to influence environmental events (Leotti, Iyengar, & Ochsner, 2010). Some suggest that two distinct needs are at play in the overall need for control: (1) a need for autonomy, that is, a need to direct and organize one’s own activities so they are consistent with one’s inner sense of self (Ryan & Deci, 2000); and (2) a need for mastery, that is, to be competent and able to influence events.

You may have felt your own need for autonomy in school. Did you ever have a teacher who issued a lot of commands, set a lot of deadlines, and thus gave students little choice in what to do, and how and when to do it? Teachers who reduce students’ autonomy in this way may lower motivation. Students are found to be more interested in school material when they have more choices and options—more autonomy—in the classroom (Tsai et al., 2008).

The need for mastery is evident in many areas of life. One is coping with health problems. Studies of cancer patients, for example, reveal that after receiving their diagnosis, people differ in how they respond psychologically. Those who respond with strong feelings of mastery—feeling that they can overcome their illness by working closely with their physician—are better able to battle the disease (Taylor, 1983). For instance, in a study of patients whose cancer had reached an advanced stage, those who believed they still could influence their health outcomes reported less pain and less fatigue during treatment (Kurtz et al., 2008).

Conversely, a lack of control can reduce well-being. People who feel that they can’t control life events are prone to learned helplessness, a psychological state in which they give up trying and become depressed (Seligman, 1975; see also Chapter 7, which discusses learned helplessness in greater detail).

A fourth social need is the need to enhance the self, that is, to grow as a person, to develop a life that is psychologically meaningful and potentially beneficial to others, and to realize your true potential. Personality theorists such as Carl Rogers (see Chapter 13) and, as you saw earlier, the motivation theorist Abraham Maslow referred to this need as a motive for self-actualization.

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The desire to enhance, or actualize, the self explains behavior that otherwise would be puzzling. Consider the effort that billions of people, throughout world history, have invested in religious practices. In medieval Europe, for example, most citizens lived in relative poverty, yet societies spent hundreds of millions of dollars (in contemporary currency) building each of Europe’s great cathedrals (Scott, 2003). If people were driven solely by biological needs, this behavior would be inexplicable; you’d expect societies to expend money exclusively on food and shelter. The psychologist Carl Jung suggested, however, that people’s desire to understand themselves and their place in the universe motivated these vast, costly efforts (Jung, 1964). In the contemporary world, people’s personal goals in life frequently include aims that are directly or indirectly related to spiritualism (e.g., “live my life at all times for God,” “approach life with mystery and awe”; Emmons, 2005, p. 736). Spiritual goals, Robert Emmons (2005) suggests, provide a sense of meaning in life, and thus contribute to an integrated, coherent sense of self.

Needs to enhance the self can be a source of motivation that benefits others. People can attain meaning in their own life by contributing to others’ welfare—including others who will make up future generations (Erikson, 1963). Our opening story about the achievements of Emmanuel Ofusu Yeboah illustrates the motivational power of concern for others; Mr. Yeboah was motivated to improve the welfare of other Ghanaians who faced physical challenges. Although Mr. Yeboah’s achievements are extraordinary, this source of motivation is relatively common. Psychologist Dan McAdams finds that, when people discuss their lives, their stories often contain a commitment to improving the lives of future generations (McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1992). Teachers helping their students grow, or environmentalists helping our planet do the same, attain a more meaningful sense of self by benefiting humanity’s future.

A fifth social need is trust. Many psychologists argue that people have a basic need to trust in their fellow humans beings (Fiske, 2009; Kosfeld et al., 2005).

IN STRANGERS WE TRUST. At first, the idea that trust is a universal need might sound puzzling. When a car salesman says he has “a great deal” for you or a dating partner says he has a “good excuse” for showing up an hour late, you feel suspicion rather than trust. Nonetheless, much of everyday social life does rest on trust. If you go to a restaurant, you’re served food before you pay: The owner trusts that you won’t bolt out the door after downing his cuisine. If someone in a police uniform indicates where you should drive your car, you follow the instruction: You trust that it’s a police officer, not someone who rented a uniform from a costume shop.

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The economist Paul Seabright (2004) explains that the trust displayed by humans is unique in the animal kingdom. In other species, individuals exchange food only with others to whom they are genetically related. By contrast, humans exchange food and other value items with complete strangers. Grocery store workers hand you sacks of food; stores trust that your scribbled signature on a piece of paper will bring them money in exchange. You hand money over to bank tellers, trusting that they will keep it safe for you. Human societies have advanced through social systems that rest on trust.

The need to convey a sense of trust may have contributed to the evolution of emotional reactions. Smiles and laughter indicate that people are not a threat; genuine expressions of positive emotion indicate that people are cooperative individuals who can be trusted. Smiles and laughter, then, may have evolved to promote human cooperation and trust (Owren & Bachorowski, 2003).

TRUST AND OXYTOCIN. Some research suggests that trust has a biochemical basis: oxytocin. Oxytocin is a hormone that is released into the body and the brain. One of its primary functions involves birth and the survival of children; oxytocin activates muscles necessary for childbirth and stimulates the release of milk for breastfeeding. In the brain, it may stimulate feelings of trust.

In research on oxytocin and trust (Kosfeld et al., 2005), participants played a game in which they were financial investors; they received money and, across a series of trials, chose how much to invest. To invest, they gave money to a second individual who had the power to decide, at a later point in time, how much money (the initial sum plus a portion of profit from investment) to return to the investor. The amount invested, then, revealed participants’ level of trust in the other person. Before the game, researchers manipulated oxytocin levels. Participants received a nasal spray containing (a) oxytocin or (b) a placebo (i.e., no oxytocin).

Results indicated that oxytocin increased trust. Investors who received the oxytocin spray invested more money (i.e., displayed more trust) than those receiving the placebo spray (Kosfeld et al., 2005). The effects were substantial; more than twice as many people in the oxytocin condition made the maximum investment; they fully trusted the other individual.

The results suggest that oxytocin is like a “switch” that flips on a biological system that generates feelings of trust and good will. If true, the implications are significant; they suggest that people’s behavior could be controlled—by investment professionals, sales persons, or others seeking their trust—merely by spraying some oxytocin. Recent results, however, have begun to provide a more nuanced understanding of the exact effects of oxytocin on motivation and behavior (see This Just In).

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THIS JUST IN

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