the need to belong

Question 1

the fundamental need to belong

Answer 1

humans have a pervasive drive to form and maintain at least a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, significant interpersonal relationships

this need can be satisfied through…
- frequent pleasant interactions
- long lasting caring relationships

much of our behaviour and thought is caused by this fundamental interpersonal motive

Question 2

evidence that belonging is a fundamental need

Answer 2

1. when need satisfaction is not met it negatively influences emotions
2. unmet need motivates behaviour to satisfy it
3. satiation and substitution
4. chronic need satisfaction/frustration is related to health outcomes
5. need to belong is universal

Question 3

need to belong and emotions

Answer 3

creating new social bonds is associated with positive feelings
- falling in love
- celebration of life events - weddings
- life satisfaction correlated with having close relationships

loss of social bonds is strongly associated with negative feelings
- highly upsetting when separation/loss happens
- reluctance to end bad relationships

Question 4

social reconnection hypothesis

Answer 4

social rejection motivates us to seek out new bonds and to strengthen existing ones - means that negative feelings associated with rejection are adaptive

Question 5

future alone paradigm

Answer 5

experiment method where ps are told they’ll end up alone later in life

tested if this feedback led to increased social contact - found that ps who received future along feedback showed the strongest desire to work with others, connect with friends, join student group, rates people higher in attractiveness and sociability

Question 6

intensity of rejection

Answer 6

online game of ball toss
- excluded by everyone
- excluded by two players
- excluded by one player

then allowed to add spice to food for someone who hates spice

found that rejection elicited aggression only in those high in rejection sensitivity

being accepted by even one person greatly reduces likelihood of rejected person lashing out - additional acceptance had decreasing incremental effect

Question 7

when does rejection promote affiliation

Answer 7

when we see connecting with others as a realistic viable option

Question 8

satiation and need to belong

Answer 8

most student’s meaningful interactions happen with the same 6 people

people generally prioritize having a few close friends over having many, less close friends

Question 9

substitution and need to belong

Answer 9

as a romantic relationship develops, people generally spend less time with other people, including old friends

people are more likely to cheat in relationships in which they feel lonely/rejected - indication that need to belong is not met

we replace relationships that have ended with new ones

Question 10

when need to belong is not met

Answer 10

• para social relationships -celebrities etc
• anthropomorphism (ascribing human characteristics to non humans)
• pets, tech, objects

Question 11

animacy judgement task

Answer 11

blended a doll face and a human face together
- at what point do people identify animacy?

found that a higher need to belong meant that people had a lower threshold for detecting animacy (saw animacy where other people tended not to)

Question 12

animacy judgement task and future alone paradigm

Answer 12

ps who received future alone feedback had a lower animacy threshold than other ps

suggests that social disconnection makes up lower the bar for acceptable social contact

Question 13

consequences of belonging deprivation

Answer 13

• increased stress
• poorer mental health
• weaker immune response - take longer to recover from stress, illness, injury
• mortality

Question 14

mortality risk and belonging

Answer 14

people who have stronger social relationships are 50% more likely to survive in a given time frame than those who have weaker relationships

the influence of social relationships on mortality is comparable, and even exceeds, the effect of well established risk factors for mortality

Question 15

evolutionary basis of the need to belong

Answer 15

social connection is critical for survival - attachment system’s function is to ensure infants’ proximity to caregivers so that they survive
- connection to group - fending off predators, sharing labor, food, caring for young

led to the development of biological mechanism to motivate us to seek social groups and lasting relationships

Question 16

social pain system

Answer 16

pain system as a biological mechanism underlying the need to belong
- evolutionarily older pain system appropriated to prevent separation from others

Question 17

neural correlates of pain

Answer 17

activation in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) - associated with emotional aspect of physical pain

studies have shown that social pain is also processed in this region

Question 18

physical and social pain overlap

Answer 18

are people that are more sensitive to physical pain also more sensitive to social pain?

• pain sensitivity associated with sensitivity to social exclusion

Question 19

does easing physical pain also ease social pain

Answer 19

ps given a daily dose of tylenol for 3 weeks
feelings of social exclusions assessed via:
- daily evening self report of hurt feelings
- cyberball with fmri after 3 weeks

found that the tylenol group reported fewer hurt feelings and showed less dACC activation after exclusion

Question 20

evidence for the fundamental need to belong (5)

Answer 20

1. presence of close relationships is closely tied to happiness and absence of relationships triggers intense distress
2. support for social reconnection hypothesis after rejection (moderated by intensity and personality)
3. we don’t seek out social connection when this need is satiated, and we have many ways of different ways of meeting need (substitution)
4. close relationships have a profound impact on mental and physical health, including mortality
5. overlap in neural pathways between physical and social pain indicates innateness and universality