Lecture 21 - The Need to Belong Flashcards
The (Fundamental) Need to
Belong
Humans have a “pervasive drive to form and maintain at least a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, significant interpersonal relationships
This is the third level on Maslow’s hierarchy
Humans have a “pervasive drive to form and maintain at least a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, significant interpersonal relationships”
“A great deal of human behavior and thought is
caused by this fundamental interpersonal motive
The (Fundamental) Need to
Belong
What 2 things make these relationships
Because this is a need and not a want, what do you do?
- Frequent interactions
- Persistent caring
Characterized by frequent, affectively pleasant interactions with people and marked by care for each others welfare
Because this is a Need (not a want)
(1) Unsatisfied needs should lead to pathology
(medical, psychological, behavioral)
(2) Substitution and satiation (hallmark of motivation)
Once satiated there is no longer any motivation to do it
If there is the loss of relationships, there is a motivation to replace them or substitute them for another
(3) Fundamental-universal
- Not limited to certain people or circumstances (e.g., transcends cultural boundaries
The Need to Belong
If people need to belong…
they should form new relationships readily and it should be easy
People should readily form new relationships
- Robbers Cave study, -minimal group paradigm,
- “mere proximity” (EASY & AUTOMATIC)
…People should resist relationship dissolution, and
feel bad when it occurs
People feel:
-Distress upon separation, reluctance to dissolve bad
relationships, distress when they do
-Grief, jealousy, anger, sadness, despair all common
reactions to the threat of separation
-“function of emotions is to regulate belonging need” - once the need becomes a need again, emotions motivate us to meet it
Rejection should be upsetting and set in motion
efforts to form new bonds, and strengthen existing ones (feeling bad is adaptive)
Emotional consequences of rejection
Fairly large effect (~+/1 1SD)
Emotional:
-Anxiety and sadness
-self-esteem*
*affects sociometer theory
But effects on mood inconsistent
Rejection can numb us (like physical pain)
Rat pup excluded from litter show loss of sensitivity to
physical pain
Sociometer Theory
Self esteem: liking + respect
People strive to maintain self esteem
Why so important?
-Self esteem is related to belonging
-Functions as a ‘sociometer’ that indicates when
one’s belonging needs are/not being met
-“Inner gauge” of social ties
-Do you believe you have traits that garner social
acceptance?
¡ Acceptance increases SE and rejection lowers SE
Social consequences of
rejection
Aggression
General reduction in prosocial behaviors like:
- Generosity (charitable giving)
- Favor (drop pencil)
- Cooperation (SD)*: Less likely to cooperate in the prisoner’s dilemma
Rejection should be upsetting and set in motion
efforts to form new bonds, and/or strengthen
existing ones
This is sort of surprising, why is this adaptive?
“Cautious interest”
What happens when rejected
Animacy
-greater interest in reading about another’s social life
-Seek out smiling/accepting faces
-Spot a face in a crowd faster and look longer at
faces
-Interest in social connection services
-Bestow rewards on future interaction partners
-Conformity (e.g., Asch)
These are all low-risk social behaviors. You want to socialize but do not want to risk rejection again.
So maybe aggression does not increase OVERT social behaviour but rather, cautious intent behaviors
-Animacy threshold decreases
Re-establishing social connection requires being
able to efficiently detect targets in environment
capable of social connection (i.e., a living human)
-High motivation, less evidence to detect “life”
If you do an XP to ask people to determine if photo is a face or a doll, the rejected one’s have a lower threshold for animacy and so choose more dolls as living.
Study 1: Socially rejected Need to belong (“I want other
people to accept me”)
Threshold for animacy was lower in higher motivation for social connection ptps.
Study 2: manipulate need to belong (“future alone” paradigm)
H: Need to belong should lower threshold that ps
detect life/animacy…
In the future alone group the standard was lower
Other ways to fulfill the need to belong
Looking to “para-social
relationships”…
Media figures
+ Study
When need to belong thwarted, do people look to media figures as relationally compelling targets, These offer emotional attachments that are uncomplicated by the ambivalence that chartecterises real relationships
Study
1 Present media figures
2 ask if they endorse this: “In this relationship, we would understand each other. In other words, we would know things about the other such as what is important to the other, and why the other does things the way he or she does…”
3 Rate: Absolutely uncharacteristic (1) to absolutely characteristic (9)
People in rejected group engaged in these para-social relationships more
Meeting the need to belong in clever ways
anthropomorphism
What do they do it wioth?
Gadget study
When belonging is thwarted, they ascribe non-human stuff with human characteristics
e.g.
Sasha is so thoughtful,
considerate, sympathetic
They do this with pets but also with GADGETS
Study 1
¡ Evaluate: -“Clocky,” “Cleaver Charger “Pure Air” and “Pillow Mate” -Lonely (and anxiously attached) people more likely to say object has, e.g., “free will,” “a mind of its own,” “intentions,” etc.
BUT fulfilling need—i.e., reminding people of a close relationship defined by warmth and care
decreases anthropomorphism
(Bartz, Tchalova, Fenerci, 2016)
G1 think about close person
G2 think about acquaintance
G1 does less anthropomorphism
This was an experiment and gives us causality
Consequences of rejection
Mental illness & Physical health issues
Mental illness
- Rejected children, higher incidence of pathology
- Marital status associated with mental hospital admissions (divorced and separated > married)
Morbidity and immune response
- Lonely people take longer to recover from stress, illness, injury
- More high E people have higher immunity when injected with a cold virus
- Cuts heal slower in lonely people
Mortality
- Those w/o strong social ties are at increased risk for mortality and morbidity
- 50% increase in survival at all age ranges/sex etc for those with social ties
- Similar effect size as giving up cigarettes’
- Exceeds health benefit of other well known factors like regular exercise
Biological underpinnings of
the need to belong
Social connection critical for survival
- Mammalian infants are immature for a long time
- We develop attachment to stay close to caregiver
- But this need for social connection does not end in childhood
Infants need to be close to caregivers
- Connection to group:
- fend off predators
- share labor, food, mates, care for young
- Should be internal mechanism that guide individuals into social groups and lasting relationships
They suggest that the evolutionarily older physical pain system has been appropriated to prevent separation from others
Physical & social pain , definitions and
lexicon
Physical pain is due to tissue damage
We experience pain socially too
We use pain words to describe social pain and so do all other languages
“They hurt my feelings”
“She broke my heart”
“I don’t know why they call it heartbreak. It feels like every other part of my body is broken too.”
Physical and social pain:
Shared neurobiology
Mu-opioid receptor
Mu-opioids are neurotransmitters that play a
critical role in pain processing
Mu-opioid related drugs commonly used in
treatment of pain
Mu-opioid system also involved in modulating
separation distress
2 lines of evidence show bio systems used for social and physical pain are the same
Opioids and social motivation
Agonist decreases and antagonist increases distress vocalizations in guinea pigs and chicks (Herman &
Panksepp, 1998)
Antagonist increases social contact in rhesus
macaques (maternal contact and contact with
peers: Martel et al., 1995)
Ant. increases dyadic grooming (Keverne et al
1989)
Increase tail-wagging in dogs when they want to signal social cohesion (Knowles et al., 1989)
Sometimes selective—mom but not peers; no
“rough play
Some effects of disrupting the opioid system are selective;
See more safe targets like mom but not peers
Se more grooming but not more risky play
(sort of analogous to cautious socializing)
OPRM1 gene polymorphism
Evidence from monkeys
G allele (C77G):
nes with minor g allele:
rhesus macaque infants
show increased distress
upon separation and more
time upon reunion (Barr et al 2008)
rhesus macaque mothers
restrain infants (prevent
separation; Higham et al 2011)
OPRM1 gene polymorphism
Humans
Similar in the human mutation
Human differences show change in rejection sensitivity
small g allele:
-higher self-reported rejection sensitivity and greater dACC
activity in response to social exclusion
enacting belonging behaviors and sensitive to rewards of inclusion
Is the biological analogue to the sociometer and in small g it might be more sensitive
OPRM1 & felt-security in
romantic relationships
Intensive repeated measurement to examine within-person changes in felt security as a function of genotype and social threat G-allele carriers expected to be more sensitive to social threat, showing steeper declines in felt security in response to hurtful partner behaviour
Measure behaviour and correlate to variation in G allele
Had data on romantic couples that completed behavioral records
Go back, genotype them
H1 the more sensitive variant will be more responsive to quarrelsome behavior
RESULTS
g allele (more sensitive) showed a quicker decline in felt security with increased quarrelsome behavior in the couple vs. non carriers
Is behavioral evidence for the effects of the polymorphism
Physical and social pain:
Shared neurobiology
Shared neural substrates
Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)
Is associated with the affective part of pain
Neural correlates of physical
pain
-Removal of portions of the dACC in pts with
severe chronic pain alleviates pain (although
they can still feel pain, it doesn’t “bother” them)
-fMRI studies link pain sensitivity to dACC
activation to subjective pain ratings and dispositional pain sensitivity
-Ps hypnotized to increase affective experience of
pain show increased activity in dACC
Neural correlates of social
pain (animals)
dACC damage reduces separation distress
vocalizations in squirrel monkeys
Stimulating the ACC in macaques produces
distress vocalizations
Ablating ACC in macaques decreases affiliative
behavior (no desire)
ACC also associated with maternal behavior
(retrieving pups)
Neural correlates of social
pain (humans)
Cyberball study
You play ball online
G1 Excluded
G2 excluded but told it is a glitch in the machine
Correlate with activation of dACC
RESULTS
More activity in G1
-Individual differences in self-reported social distress was a predictor of dACC activity in the experiment
Therefore might be due to social pain and not an unknown confound
2 Lines of evidence for the social and physical pain systems using the same neural mechanisms
(1) the mu receptor
(2) activity of the dACC
Social rejection in general vs individual rejection
Simon cowel study
American idol
Social rejection in general also activates dACC
Not just personal
Modulating physical and
social pain
If social pain “piggybacks” on the physical pain
system, then factors that influence our experience of physical pain might also influence our experience of social pain
(1) Daily dose of Tylenol for 3
weeks
(2) Evening diary of self-reported hurt feelings
(3) Cyberball with fMRI at the end of the study
RESULTS
Less daily self-reported health feeling over time with Tylenol vs without
On day 1 no sig difference, midway through and after = more
Sign impacts on dACC activation in cybermall task between Tylenol group and control
Summary
Data suggest overlap in the neural substrate supporting physical and social pain
Does neuronal activity reflect the experience of
pain, or threat more generally?
Also, brain regions—like the ACC—have many
other functions (e.g., conflict detection), activity
could reflect operation of those processes
(beware of reverse inference!)
Could be threat detection and not pain but we have a correlate of report of pain with dACC activation
Should we take Tylenol to buffer the effects of
social exclusion?
No, this system is adaptive
Evolutionary perspective on
attachment
Individual differences in attachment increase
fitness to specific environments
If environment safe (probability of dying/child
dying low), future easier to predict = “Slow” strategy
(secure)
BUT secure is not appropriate everywhere
If unsafe, set short-term goals to achieve as much
as possible before early death = “Fast” strategy (insecure, anxious)
Security may not be so adaptive in harsher
environment
