Social Affiliation and Attraction

Question 1

The Need to Belong
Baumeister & Leary, 1995

Answer 1

WHY are relationships important and WHY do we study them?

In 1995, an important groundbreaking paper was published that really set the stage and really helped to legitimise the scientific study of relationships.

This paper proposed that “Human beings have a fundamental need to form and maintain a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, and significant interpersonal relationships.”

“We need relationships to survive and thrive”

Question 2

Evolutionary perspective:
- who lived in small groups, what environment?
- what would people who were social and caring be more likely to do?
- as a result, how did our species become characterised?

Answer 2

• 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 characterised by people who were close to others, caring, and sought acceptance.

Question 3

The Need to belong:
- what is the evolutionary perspective?
- but.. large accumulation of evidence supporting what?

Answer 3

Evolutionary perspective is speculative

But large accumulation of evidence supporting the idea of a fundamental, profound need to belong: better health and wellbeing.

Question 4

• what do people have a fundamental need for?
• what are the 4 broad pieces of evidence for the fact that our need to belong is a fundamental human need?

Answer 4

social connection

1. Relationships are easy to form and difficult to break.
2. Without close connections, we suffer.
3. Our need to belong can be satiated.
4. The need to belong is innate and universal- we see it across cultures

Question 5

Explain social bonds are easy to form & difficult to break (1)

Answer 5

• Babies instantly form attachments
• Difficulty ending relationships
  (e.g., Bowlby, 1969)

Question 6

Explain without relationships, we suffer (2)

Answer 6

• Rejection hurts: pain, reduced wellbeing, intellectual functioning
• Lack of social network is a strong predictor of illness and mortality

Question 7

Relationships and mortality:
- what are the strongest predictors of how long people live?
- what did these effects outweigh?

Holt-Lunstad et al. 2010

Answer 7

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!

Question 8

Relationships and mortality:
subjectivity- what mattered the most
Holt-Lunstad et al. 2010

Answer 8

These results were obtained mostly so for indicators of how socially integrated and supported people reported themselves to be, so how they perceived their social connections themselves. It didn’t matter as much whether people were living alone or not, or whether they were married or not; what mattered was that they felt socially connected, in other words, their need to belong seemed fulfilled.

Question 9

Relationships and Mortality:
What did Coyne et al. 2001 do?

Answer 9

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%). Large effect.

Question 10

2. Without Relationships, We Suffer
   Together, what do these findings show?

Answer 10

• Need to feel socially connected is a matter of life or death
• Especially important that relationships are highly satisfying (can truly fulfil need to belong)

Question 11

3. The Need to Belong can be Satiated
   1- what do we have a limited number of?
   2- when do people spend less time with friends?
   3- what can it be beneficial to do?
   4- what is the main point here?

Answer 11

1) We have a limited number of friends:
~6 friends in college

2) People spend less time with friends when in romantic relationship

3) It could be beneficial to expand social network

4) People can feel connected with others in a way that is “enough” to survive or get by

Question 12

4. The need to belong is universal
   1) what do people everywhere need?
   2) what does reviewed evidence not seem + explain
   3) what does this universality suggest?

Answer 12

1) People everywhere need (close) relationships

2) Reviewed evidence does not seem culture-specific:
- relationships everywhere are easy to form & difficult to break. Losing people we feel connected to hurts, especially when we’re very close to them like in romantic relationships.

3) This universality suggests belonging is a basic need, that we share worldwide

Question 13

Surviving or thriving:
What promotes surviving & thriving?

Answer 13

Relationship quality promotes surviving & thriving

Question 14

Surviving or thriving:
The quality of relationships-
1) _____ associated with ______
2) what are the top 10% happiest people
3) what do those that are thriving have?

Answer 14

1) Pleasant daily social interactions associated with greater life satisfaction (Sun et al., 2020)

2) Top 10% happiest people are highly social and have the strongest, most satisfying and fulfilling relationships: romantic relationships but also other types of relationships. (Diener & Seligman, 2002)

3) Those that are thriving have the most satisfying relationships

(even shown to be true for introverts)

Question 15

Social Interaction: Quantity & Quality
2 benefits

Answer 15

• having at least a good number of social interactions
• Importance of high-quality relationships

Question 16

List types of relationships

Answer 16

• Friends
• Family
• Colleagues, fellow students
• Romantic partner
• Strangers!

Question 17

• What are “Weak” Ties?
• How can they be considered?

Answer 17

def= we can have brief social interactions with people we don’t know.

These could be considered an untapped resource to benefit our health wellbeing

Question 18

Findings to support “weak” ties idea?
(Sandstrom & Dunn, 2014)

Answer 18

Participants instructed to engage with barista (vs. efficient interaction) felt happier, due to greater sense of belonging

Question 19

Even weak ties…

Answer 19

Even weak ties – strangers we can meet anywhere – contribute to our belonging and wellbeing

“Weak” ties are not so weak!

So perhaps the term “weak”-ties is not really appropriate as it may undermine the importance that these relationships hold in our lives

Question 20

“Weak” Ties
What did the similar study by Gunaydin et al. (2021) do and find?

Answer 20

Procedure:
Participants instructed to engage with bus driver: greet, expressing thanks (vs. other half of participants who did not receive such instruction)

Findings:
- Participants who engaged with the bus driver reported feeling happier.
- Engaging with & being kind to others benefits wellbeing

Question 21

“Weak” ties
Why are such interactions beneficial?

Answer 21

Positive interactions, even with strangers, may help us recognise or remind us of the value of the people in life, which makes us feel closer and more connected, even when we don’t really know others.

Others typically feel happy and respond positively

Question 22

“Weak” Ties:
What do we tend to underestimate?

Answer 22

• How happy target will feel
• How much people like us after a conversation
• Positive effects of our kind acts and expressions of gratitude

So there are barriers to interacting with weaker ties, despite the powerful benefits of these ties in our lives.

Question 23

Social Interaction sum benefits

Answer 23

• Having at least a good number of social interactions
• Importance of high-quality relationships
• Importance of weak ties

Suggests there are benefits to interacting with a wider variety of relationships in our lives:
Diversity

Question 24

What did Collins et al., 2022 look at?

Answer 24

The relational diversity of people’s social portfolio, which they define as “the richness and evenness of relationship types across one’s social interactions”.

What they mean with this is that relational diversity captures:
- how many different relationship types an individual interacts with (so the richness)
- how evenly their interactions with others are distributed among those different relationships

Question 25

Collins et al., 2022
Study

Answer 25

Relational Diversity & health and wellbeing

4 studies (incl. daily study): ~50,000 participants

Researchers replicated the wellbeing benefits of having a greater amount of social interaction.

Additionally, even when controlling for the amount of interaction, they also found that people were healthier and happier the more that their interactions were with different people.

Looked at the actual interactions that their participants had, but perhaps it matters too, or mostly, how these interactions are perceived as being diverse. Similarly, you could think more about how much time with others is perceived as a little or a lot in filling one’s social cup.

• used surveys and longitudinal methods

Question 26

What is attraction?

Answer 26

Evaluating another person positively (not just romantic)

We are often attracted to people whose presence is rewarding. We may feel good around them and they may help us achieve our goals.

Question 27

What are the forces that attract?

Answer 27

1. Reciprocity
2. Similarity
3. Familiarity (Proximity)

Question 28

Reciprocity
Three things

Answer 28

• We like people who like us
• We like others more after knowing they like us
• They like us specifically (not just everyone)

(So, if you’ve ever wondered whether “Playing Hard to Get” is an effective strategy in dating: the answer is a definite NO! People don’t like to be unsure of others’ liking and risk getting rejected. The better strategy would be to show one’s interest while also making it clear that you’re not interested in other people)

Question 29

Similarity
Who do we like?

Answer 29

We like people who are like us, especially when they have similar backgrounds (e.g., age, race, education), interests, and share attitudes and values.

Question 30

Similarity
Why?

Answer 30

• Trust others more when similar (Singh et al., 2017)
• Feel assured others will like us & enjoy spending time with similar others (Hampton et al., 2019)

Question 31

Does similarity always matter?

Answer 31

Personality: similarity doesn’t really matter

Actual traits (e.g., agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability) matter more than similarity on traits

These traits generally make it more enjoyable to interact with people

Question 32

What seems to matter more than similarity and explain

Answer 32

How similar people perceive the other to be

• Perceived similarity makes people like each other more than actual similarity
• Perceived similarity increases the more relationships progress
• Outside observers may see actual (dis)similarities and wrongly conclude that opposites attract

Question 33

Familiarity (or proximity)
- who are you most likely to become friends/ romantic partners with?

Answer 33

The people who, by chance, you see and interact with the most (more familiar) are most likely to become friends or romantic partners.

This includes people in your city, in your neighbourhood, on your street, and…. on campus.

Question 34

Familiarity: MIT Housing Study
(Festinger, Schachter, & Back, 1950)
Method

Answer 34

Looked at the effects of physical proximity and friendship formation.

• Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), were randomly assigned to one of 17 buildings in a housing complex on campus, isolated from the city.
• virtually none of the students knew each other beforehand.
• the researchers had only one simple question: Who ends up liking whom?
• The researchers asked the residents to name their 3 closest friends in the housing project.

Question 35

MIT Housing Study:
Results

Answer 35

As the proximity effect would predict, whether or not people became friends had a lot to do with how close they lived together.

65% of the residents said that they had at least one friend who lived in their own building, even though those in the same building represented only 5% of the residents in the entire housing complex.

What is even more striking is the pattern of findings WITHIN each building.

Question 36

MIT Housing Study:
Results- within each building

Answer 36

Among the people who had made a friend in their housing complex, most said that they lived next door to them.

People were four times as likely to become friends with someone who lived right next door to them than someone who lived just at the end of the hall.

Question 37

Two major reasons why proximity leads to attraction or liking

Answer 37

1. We have an increased opportunity to meet people who live close to us.
2. We tend to like things more after we have been repeatedly exposed to them and they become more familiar to us.

= mere exposure effect

There’s a limit: initial disliking may breed contempt after further exposure (Norton et al., 2013)

Question 38

Attraction: key points

Answer 38

We like people who reciprocate our liking

We like people who are similar to us and what matters in particular is that others are perceived to be similar.

We like people with whom we’re familiar with, which can be because of physical proximity: literally being close to one and other makes people more likely to become psychological close.