Social Affiliation Flashcards
Evolutionary Perspective for the need to belong
Early humans lived in small groups surrounded by a difficult environment. Adaptive to be social and caring: more likely to survive, mature, and reproduce. Our species evolved and became characterized by people who were close to others, caring, and sought acceptance. Although evolutionary theory is speculative!
The need to belong
Relationships are easy to form and difficult to break. Without close connections, we suffer. Our need to belong can be satiated.
The need to belong universal.
Belongingness hypothesis:
A first prediction of the belongingness hypothesis is that social bonds should form relatively easily. First, babies instantly form attachments (before able to calculate benefits, be convinced of utility). And people also often have difficulty ending relationships, even when they are toxic or abusive. Without Relationships, we suffer.
Negative consequences of social isolation
Rejection hurts: pain, reduced wellbeing, intellectual functioning
(e.g., DeWall & Bushman, 2011)
Lack of social network is a strong predictor of illness and mortality.
(Coyne et al., 2001; Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010)
Relationships and Mortality
In a large meta-analysis, analyzing findings across many studies that have been conducted on this topic, researchers found that aspects of social relationships are among the strongest predictors of how long people live. These effects outweighed other well-established factors that affect illness and mortality, such as smoking, alcohol consumption, and a lack of physical activity. So, a lack of social connection seems even worse for our survival than these objective, physical indicators!
Heart attack in social relationships
In another example of this—one study followed people for 48 months after they had a heart attack.
And as you can see here, many more people in happy relationships (~70%) were still alive 48 months later, as compared to those in unhappy relationships (~45%).
Need to belong can be satiated
We have a limited number of friends: 6 friends in college. A third prediction of the belongingness hypothesis is that our desire for belonging is, like our desire for food and water, satiable – that is, it is a need we can fulfill. For example: We tend to have a limited number of friends. In western cultures, college students tend to restrict their meaningful interactions to, on average, about six friends, showing that once satisfied, our desire for friendship is fulfilled and we don’t have a great desire to seek other friends.
People spend less time with friends when in romantic relationship. Thus, our need to belong can be satisfied, which should reduce our motivation to seek out further connections with others. However, as we will see later, that doesn’t mean that there’s no benefit to expanding our social network and having a diverse set of relationships. But the point I want to make here is that people can feel connected with others in a way that is “enough” to survive or get by.
The need to belong is universal
People everywhere need (close) relationships. Reviewed evidence does not seem culture-specific:
* Relationships everywhere are easy to form and difficult to break.
* This universality suggests belonging is a basic need, that we share worldwide.
Quality of relationships
Pleasant daily social interactions associated with greater life satisfaction (Sun et al., 2020). Top 10% happiest people (compared to average and unhappy people) are highly social and have the strongest, most satisfying and fulfilling relationships (not per se romantic) (Diener & Seligman, 2002). Those that are thriving have the most satisfying relationships.
Weak ties
Interactions with weak ties may be untapped resource for well-being.
We can have brief social interactions with people we don’t know, or barely know, also called “weak ties”, and these could be considered an untapped resource to benefit our health and wellbeing!
Participants instructed to engage with barista (vs efficient interaction) felt happier, due to greater sense of belonging.
In one study that took place in a coffee shop, she instructed half of the Pp to engage with the barista (e.g., greet, smile, make small talk), while the other half was instructed to have an efficient interaction (just “pay and go”). She found that the participants who engaged with the barista felt happier, and this was due to greater feelings of belonging. So even “weak ties”, strangers we can meet anywhere we go, contribute to our sense of belonging and, in turn, promote our wellbeing. So perhaps the term “weak”-ties are not really appropriate as it may undermine the importance that these relationships hold in our lives.
Weak ties bus study
Similar study replicated this idea.
* Participants were instructed to engage with bus driver: greet, expressing thanks (vs no such instruction) felt happier.
* Engaging with and being kind to others benefits well-being.
Why? – Positive interactions help us recognise value of others, feel connected. Others typically feel happy and respond positively.
We tend to underestimate
How happy target will feel (Epley & Schroeder, 2014). How much people like us after a conversation (Boothby et al., 2017)
Positive effects of our kind acts and expressions of gratitude (Kumar & Epley, 2022)
Relational Diversity
Captures: How many different relationship types. How evenly interactions distributed among types. And what they mean with this is that relational diversity, at least as they defined and measured it, captures how many different relationships types an individual interacts with (so the richness), and also how evenly their interactions with others are distributed among those different relationships. These researchers replicated the wellbeing benefits of having a greater amount of social interaction. Additionally, even when controlling the amount of interaction, they also found that people were healthier and happier the more that their interactions were with different people.
What is attraction?
- Evaluating another person positively (not just romantic)
- We are often attracted to people whose presence is rewarding (Clore & Byrne, 1974)
What forces that attract?
- Reciprocity
- Similarity
- Familiarity (Proximity)
