29-2 What evidence points to our human affiliation need—our need to belong?

We are what Greek philosopher Aristotle called the social animal. Cut off from friends or family—alone in prison or at a new school or in a foreign land—most people feel keenly their lost connections with important others. This deep need to belong—our affiliation need—seems to be a central human motivation (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Although people vary in their wish for privacy and solitude, most of us seek to affiliate—to become strongly attached to certain others in enduring, close relationships. Human beings, contended personality theorist Alfred Adler, have an “urge to community” (Ferguson, 1989, 2001, 2010). Our psychological needs drive our adaptive behaviors and, when satisfied, enhance our psychological well-being (Sheldon, 2011).

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Social bonds boosted our early ancestors’ chances of survival. Adults who formed attachments were more likely to reproduce and to co-nurture their offspring to maturity. Attachment bonds motivated caregivers to keep children close, calming them and protecting them from threats (Esposito et al., 2013). Indeed, to be “wretched” literally means, in its Middle English origin (wrecched), to be without kin nearby.

Cooperation also enhanced survival. In solo combat, our ancestors were not the toughest predators. But as hunters, they learned that six hands were better than two. As food gatherers, they gained protection from two-footed and four-footed enemies by traveling in groups. Those who felt a need to belong survived and reproduced most successfully, and their genes now predominate. Our innate need to belong drives us to befriend people who cooperate and to avoid those who exploit (Feinberg et al., 2014). People in every society on Earth belong to groups and prefer and favor “us” over “them.”

Do you have close friends—people with whom you freely disclose your ups and downs? Having someone who rejoices with us over good news helps us feel even better about both the news and the friendship (Reis et al., 2010). A stranger’s casual thank-you can warm our heart (Williams & Bartlett, 2015). And close friends can literally make us feel warm, as if we are holding a soothing cup of warm tea (Inagaki & Eisenberger, 2013). The need to belong runs deeper, it seems, than any need to be rich. One study found that very happy university students were distinguished not by their money but by their “rich and satisfying close relationships” (Diener & Seligman, 2002).

The need to belong colors our thoughts and emotions. We spend a great deal of time thinking about actual and hoped-for relationships. Asked, “What is necessary for your happiness?” or “What is it that makes your life meaningful?” most people have mentioned—before anything else—close, satisfying relationships with family, friends, or romantic partners (Berscheid, 1985). Happiness hits close to home.

Consider: What was your most satisfying moment in the past week? Researchers asked that question of American and South Korean collegians, then asked them to rate how much that moment had satisfied various needs (Sheldon et al., 2001). In both countries, the peak moment had contributed most to satisfaction of self-esteem and relatedness-belonging needs. When our need for relatedness is satisfied in balance with two other basic psychological needs—autonomy (a sense of personal control) and competence—we experience a deep sense of well-being, and our self-esteem rides high (Deci & Ryan, 2002, 2009; Milyavskaya et al., 2009). Indeed, self-esteem is a gauge of how valued and accepted we feel (Leary, 2012).

Is it surprising, then, that so much of our social behavior aims to increase our feelings of belonging? To gain acceptance, we generally conform to group standards. We monitor our behavior, hoping to make a good impression. We spend billions on clothes, cosmetics, and diet and fitness aids—all motivated by our search for love and acceptance.

Thrown together in groups at school, at work, on a hiking trip, we behave like magnets, moving closer, forming bonds. Parting, we feel distress. We promise to call, to write, to return for reunions. By drawing a sharp circle around “us,” the need to belong feeds both deep attachments and menacing threats. Out of our need to define a “we” come loving families, faithful friendships, and team spirit, but also teen gangs, ethnic rivalries, and fanatic nationalism.

Feelings of love activate brain reward and safety systems. In one experiment involving exposure to heat, deeply-in-love university students felt markedly less pain when looking at their beloved’s picture (rather than viewing someone else’s photo or being distracted by a word task) (Younger et al., 2010). Pictures of our loved ones also activate a brain region associated with safety—the prefrontal cortex—that dampens feelings of physical pain (Eisenberger et al., 2011). Love is a natural painkiller.

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Even when bad relationships break, people suffer. In one 16-nation survey, and in repeated U.S. surveys, separated and divorced people have been half as likely as married people to say they were “very happy” (Inglehart, 1990; NORC, 2014). Is that simply because happy people more often marry and stay married? A national study following British lives through time revealed that, even after controlling for premarital life satisfaction, “the married are still more satisfied, suggesting a causal effect” of marriage (Grover & Helliwell, 2014). Divorce also predicts earlier mortality. Studies that have followed 6.5 million people in 11 countries reveal that, compared with married people, separated and divorced people are at greater risk for early death (Sbarra et al., 2011).

Children who move through a series of foster homes or through repeated family relocations know the fear of being alone. After repeated disruption of budding attachments, they may have difficulty forming deep attachments (Oishi & Schimmack, 2010). The evidence is clearest at the extremes: Children who grow up in institutions without a sense of belonging to anyone, or who are locked away at home and severely neglected often become withdrawn, frightened, speechless.

No matter how secure our early years were, we all experience anxiety, loneliness, jealousy, or guilt when something threatens or dissolves our social ties. Much as life’s best moments occur when close relationships begin—making a new friend, falling in love, having a baby—life’s worst moments happen when close relationships end (Jaremka et al., 2011). Bereaved, we may feel life is empty, pointless. Even the first weeks living on a college campus can be distressing. But our need to belong pushes most of us to form a new web of social connections (Oishi et al., 2013).

For immigrants and refugees moving alone to new places, the stress and loneliness can be depressing. After years of placing individual families in isolated communities, U.S. immigration policies began to encourage chain migration (Pipher, 2002). The second refugee Sudanese family settling in a town generally has an easier adjustment than the first.

Social isolation can put us at risk for mental decline and ill health (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009). Lonely older adults make more doctor visits (Gerst-Emerson & Jayawardhana, 2015). But if feelings of acceptance and connection increase sufficiently, so will self-esteem, positive feelings, and physical health (Blackhart et al., 2009; Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010; Smart Richman & Leary, 2009). A socially connected life is often a happy and healthy life.

Can you recall feeling excluded or ignored or shunned? Perhaps you received the silent treatment. Perhaps people avoided you or averted their eyes in your presence or even mocked you behind your back. If you are like others, even being in a group speaking a different language may have left you feeling excluded, a linguistic outsider (Dotan-Eliaz, 2009). In one mock-interview study, women felt more excluded if interviewers used gender-exclusive language (he, his, him) rather than inclusive (his or her) or neutral (their) language (Stout & Dasgupta, 2011).

All these experiences are instances of ostracism—of social exclusion (Williams et al., 2007, 2009). Worldwide, humans use many forms of ostracism—exile, imprisonment, solitary confinement—to punish, and therefore control, social behavior. For children, even a brief time-out in isolation can be punishing. Asked to describe personal episodes that made them feel especially bad about themselves, people will—about four times in five—describe a relationship difficulty (Pillemer et al., 2007).

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Being shunned—given the cold shoulder or the silent treatment, with others’ eyes avoiding yours—threatens one’s need to belong (Wirth et al., 2010). “It’s the meanest thing you can do to someone, especially if you know they can’t fight back. I never should have been born,” said Lea, a lifelong victim of the silent treatment by her mother and grandmother. Like Lea, people often respond to ostracism with initial efforts to restore their acceptance, with depressed moods, and then finally with withdrawal. Prisoner William Blake (2013) has spent more than a quarter-century in solitary confinement. “I cannot fathom how dying any death could be harder and more terrible than living through all that I have been forced to endure,” he observed. To many, social exclusion is a sentence worse than death.

To experience ostracism is to experience real pain, as social psychologists Kipling Williams and his colleagues were surprised to discover in their studies of exclusion on social media (Gonsalkorale & Williams, 2006). (Perhaps you can recall the feeling of being unfriended, ignored, or having few followers on a social networking site, or of having a text message or e-mail go unanswered.) Such ostracism, they discovered, takes a toll: It elicits increased activity in brain areas, such as the anterior cingulate cortex, that also activate in response to physical pain (Eisenberger, 2015; Rotge et al., 2015). When viewing pictures of romantic partners who caused our hearts to break, our brains and bodies begin to ache (Wager et al., 2013). That helps explain another surprising finding: The pain reliever acetaminophen (as in Tylenol) lessens social as well as physical pain (DeWall et al., 2010). Across cultures, people use the same words (for example, hurt, crushed) for social pain and physical pain (MacDonald & Leary, 2005). Psychologically, we seem to experience social pain with the same emotional unpleasantness that marks physical pain.

Pain, whatever its source, focuses our attention and motivates corrective action. Rejected and unable to remedy the situation, people may relieve stress by seeking new friends, eating calorie-laden comfort foods, or strengthening their religious faith (Aydin et al., 2010; Maner et al., 2007; Sproesser et al., 2014). Or they may turn nasty. In a series of experiments, researchers told some students (who had taken a personality test) that they were “the type likely to end up alone later in life,” or that people they had met didn’t want them in a group that was forming (Baumeister et al., 2002; Gaertner et al., 2008; Twenge et al., 2001, 2002, 2007).¹ They told other students that they would have “rewarding relationships throughout life,” or that “everyone chose you as someone they’d like to work with.” Those who were excluded became much more likely to engage in self-defeating behaviors and to underperform on aptitude tests. The rejection also interfered with their empathy for others and made them more likely to act in disparaging or aggressive ways against those who had excluded them (blasting them with noise, for example). “If intelligent, well-adjusted, successful … students can turn aggressive in response to a small laboratory experience of social exclusion,” noted the research team, “it is disturbing to imagine the aggressive tendencies that might arise from … chronic exclusion from desired groups in actual social life.” Indeed, as Williams (2007) has observed, ostracism “weaves through case after case of school violence.”

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29-3 How does social networking influence us?

As social creatures, we live for connection. Researcher George Vaillant (2013) was asked what he had learned from studying 238 Harvard University men from the 1930s to the end of their lives. He replied, “Happiness is love.” South Africans have a word for the human bonds that define us all: Ubuntu [oo-BOON-too]. A South African Zulu saying captures the idea: Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu—“a person is a person through other persons.”

MOBILE NETWORKS AND SOCIAL MEDIA Look around and see humans connecting: talking, tweeting, texting, posting, chatting, social gaming, e-mailing. Walking across campus, you may see students with noses in their smart phones, making little eye contact with passersby. The changes in how we connect have been fast and vast:

THE NET RESULT: SOCIAL EFFECTS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING By connecting like-minded people, the Internet serves as a social amplifier. In times of social crisis or personal stress, it provides information and supportive connections. For better or for worse, it enables people to compare their lives with others (Verduyn et al., 2015). The Internet also functions as a matchmaker. (I [ND] can attest to this. I met my wife online.) As electronic communication has become an integral part of life, researchers have explored how it has affected our relationships.

HAVE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES MADE US MORE, OR LESS, SOCIALLY ISOLATED? Lonely people tend to spend greater-than-average time online, while social butterflies gravitate toward face-to-face interactions (Bonetti et al., 2010; Pea et al., 2012; Stepanikova et al., 2010). But the Internet also offers opportunities for new social networks. (My [DM’s] connections to other hearing-technology advocates across the world continue to grow.) Social networking is also mostly strengthening our connections with the variety of people we already know (DiSalvo, 2010; Ugander et al., 2012; Valkenburg & Peter, 2010). If your social networking helps you connect with friends, stay in touch with extended family, or find support when facing challenges, then you are not alone (Rainie et al., 2011). Social networks connect us. But they can also, as you’ve surely noticed, become gigantic time- and attention-sucking distractions that interfere with sleep, exercise, and face-to-face relationships. The net result may be an imbalance between face-to-face and online social connection.

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DOES ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION STIMULATE HEALTHY SELF-DISCLOSURE? Self-disclosure is sharing ourselves—our joys, worries, and weaknesses—with others. Confiding can be a healthy way of coping with day-to-day challenges. When communicating electronically rather than face-to-face, we often are less focused on others’ reactions. We are less self-conscious, and thus less inhibited. Sometimes this is taken to an extreme, as when teens send photos of themselves they later regret, or bullies hound a victim, or hate groups post messages promoting bigotry or crimes. More often, however, the increased self-disclosure serves to deepen friendships (Valkenburg & Peter, 2010).

DO SOCIAL NETWORKS REFLECT PEOPLE’S ACTUAL PERSONALITIES? We’ve all heard stories of online predators hiding behind false personalities, values, and motives. Generally, however, social network profiles and posts reveal a person’s real personality. In one study, participants completed a personality test twice. In one test, they described their “actual personality”; in the other, they described their “ideal self.” Other volunteers then used the participants’ Facebook profiles to create an independent set of personality ratings. The Facebook profile ratings were much closer to the participants’ actual personalities than to their ideal personalities (Back et al., 2010). In another study, people who seemed most likable on their Facebook page also seemed most likable in face-to-face meetings (Weisbuch et al., 2009). Twitter posts similarly reveal people’s actual friendliness (Qiu et al., 2012). Your online self may indeed reflect the real you!

DOES SOCIAL NETWORKING PROMOTE NARCISSISM? Narcissistic people are self-important, self-focused, and self-promoting. Personality tests may assess narcissism with items such as “I like to be the center of attention.” Narcissism is self-esteem gone wild. People with high narcissism scores are especially active on social networking sites. They collect more superficial “friends.” They offer more staged, glamorous photos. They retaliate more when people post negative comments. And, not surprisingly, they seem more narcissistic to strangers (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008; Carpenter, 2012).

For narcissists, social networking sites are more than a gathering place; they are a feeding trough. In one study, college students were randomly assigned either to edit and explain their online profiles for 15 minutes, or to use that time to study and explain a Google Maps routing (Freeman & Twenge, 2010). After completing their tasks, all were tested. Who then scored higher on a narcissism measure? Those who had spent the time focused on themselves.

MAINTAINING BALANCE AND FOCUS It will come as no surprise that excessive online socializing and gaming have been associated with lower grades (Chen & Fu, 2008; Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010; Walsh et al., 2013). In one U.S. survey, 47 percent of the heaviest users of the Internet and other media were receiving mostly C grades or lower, as were just 23 percent of the lightest users (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010).

In today’s world, each of us is challenged to maintain a healthy balance between our real-world and online time. Experts offer some practical suggestions:

As psychologist Steven Pinker (2010) said, “The solution is not to bemoan technology but to develop strategies of self-control, as we do with every other temptation in life.”