The Need to Belong (Midterm #2) Flashcards
The Fundamental Need to Belong
Humans have a “pervasive drive to form and maintain at least a minimum quantity of lasting, significant interpersonal relationships (e.g. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs). “A great deal of human behaviour and thought is caused by this fundamental interpersonal motive”
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Bottom to top:
1. Basic needs:
Physiological needs (food, warmth, water)
Safety needs (security, safety)
2. Psychological needs:
Belongingness and love needs (intimate relationships, friends)
Esteem needs (prestige and feeling of accomplishment)
3. Self-fulfillment needs:
Self-actualization (achieving one’s full potential, including creative activities).
To satisfy our fundamental need to belong we need
- Frequent pleasant interactions
- Long-lasting caring relationships
If Fundamental Need, then…
- Need satisfaction / not met should influence emotions
- Unmet need should motivate behaviour to satisfy it
- Satiation and substitution
- Chronic need satisfaction / frustration should be related to health outcomes
- Universal
Status of Need to Belong affects Emotions
Creating new social bonds is strongly associated with positive feelings: E.g. Making new friends, falling in love. Life satisfaction is strongly correlated with having some close relationships.
The loss of social bonds is strongly associated with negative feelings: Highly upsetting when separation / loss happens. Reluctance to end bad relationships
Social Reconnection Hypothesis
Social rejection is one indicator of an unmet need to belong: associated with negative feelings. Social reconnection hypothesis: Feeling rejected motivates us to seek out new bonds and strengthen existing ones (thus, negative feelings associated with rejection are adaptive).
Evidence for Social Reconnection Hypothesis Study (Maner et al., 2007)
Does rejection lead to a desire for social contact? Method: “Future alone” paradigm. Participants complete personality test and receive fake feedback. Future alone vs. future belong vs. future misfortune (control). “To what extent would you prefer doing the next task with a few other people?
Evidence for Social Reconnection Hypothesis Study (Maner et al., 2007) - Future alone
“You’re the type that will end up alone later in life. You may have friends and relationships now, but by your mid 20s most of these will have drifted away. You may even marry or have several marriages, but these are likely to be short-lived and not continue into your 30s. Relationships don’t last, and when you’re past the age where people are constantly forming new relationships, the odds are you’ll end up being alone more and more.”
Evidence for Social Reconnection Hypothesis Study (Maner et al., 2007) - Future belonging
“You’re the type who has rewarding relationships throughout life. You’re likely to have a long and stable marriage and have friendships that will last into your later years. The odds are that you’ll always have friends and people who care about you.
Evidence for Social Reconnection Hypothesis Study (Maner et al., 2007) - Results
“Rejected” participants showed strongest desire to work with others. “Rejected” (vs. accepted) participants also showed: Greater interest to meet and connect with new friends. Greater desire to join student groups to connect with others. Rate others as more attractive and sociable (i.e. perceive attributes in others make them seem more approachable and are consistent with their own needs).
But rejection is also associated with withdrawal and aggression sometimes… (Twenge et a., 2001)
Majority of school shooters in the US had experienced chronic rejection. In the lab, rejected people: evaluated another person more negatively, delivered longer and louder blasts of aversive noise to the rejector, gave rejector hot sauce knowing that they hate spicy food.
Intensity of Rejection as a Moderator Study (DeWall et al., 2010)
Does intensity of rejection moderate rejection-aggression link? Method: Manipulated intensity of rejection using Cyberball paradigm. Believed they were playing with 3 other people. 4 conditions: Excluded by all 3 players, excluded by 2, excluded by 1, or included by all. Prepared food for another participant (confederate) not involved in Cyberball: This other person hates spicy food. How much hot sauce do they give this other person?
Intensity of Rejection as a Moderator Study (DeWall et al., 2010) - Results
Being accepted by even one person greatly reduces likelihood of rejected person lashing out. Additional acceptance had decreasing incremental effect.
Rejection Sensitivity as a Moderator
Rejection sensitivity: disproportionate fear to being rejected. Associated with: Hyper vigilance to signs of rejection. Very accommodating of others when rejection is not perceived (attempt to prevent rejection). Over-interpreting neutral, ambiguous cues as rejection. Aggressive (especially passive aggressive) behaviour when rejection is perceived (attempt at self-protection).
Rejection Sensitivity as a Moderator Study (Ayduk et al., 2008)
Does degree of rejection sensitivity moderate reactions to rejection? Method: Study on “how people choose partners in dating services”. Wrote a short biosketch: told it would be emailed to a person (potential partner) that would have to choose between the participant or someone else to have e 15-minute chat with. Completed a self-report measure of rejection sensitivity. Experimental manipulation: Rejection: Not chosen by potential partner. Control: Internet down so email wasn’t sent. Participant asked to help experimenter with different study examining link between personality and food preferences. Participant prepared food for potential partner who hates spicy food. Measure of aggression: How much hot sauce do they give the potential partner?
Rejection Sensitivity as a Moderator Study (Ayduk et al., 2008) - Results
Rejection elicited aggression only in those high in rejection sensitivity.
Implications of rejection sensitivity
Rejection promotes affiliation only if we see connecting with others as a realistic, and viable option: E.g., need to feel at least minimally accepted by others, need to not generally fear rejection/expect others to reject us (low rejection sensitivity).
Satiation
People seek out new relationships until they need to belong is met. Less motivated to seek out relationships once they feel like they have a sufficient number of satisfying relationships.
Evidence for Satiation
Average student’s meaningful interactions happen with the same 6 people. People generally prioritize having a few close friends over having many, less close friends.
Substitution
Need to belong can be satisfied by different relationships. Relationships are “substitutable”.
Substitution Evidence
As a romantic relationships 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 have ended with new ones. What if we’re “hungry” for belonging and there’s no one to connect with?
Creative Substitutions to Meet Need to Belong
When people don’t see viable connections in real life they look to: Para-social relationships (e.g. obsessions with celebrities), ascribing human characteristics to non-humans (anthropomorphism): pets, technology, objects.
Seeing Life Where There Isn’t Study (Powers et al., 2014)
Study: Does unmet need to belong make us willing to lower bar for what we accept as social connection? Method: Manipulated feelings for connection/disconnection using future alone paradigm. Created animacy judgement task. Animacy threshold: point at which participant detects animacy. Lower threshold: accept face with less human features as animate.
Seeing Life Where There Isn’t Study (Powers et al., 2014) - Hypothesis
Feelings of social disconnection (future alone) should be associated with lower animacy threshold.
Seeing Life Where There Isn’t Study (Powers et al., 2014) - Results
People who received “future alone” had a lower animacy threshold than those who received “future back” feedback. Suggests that social disconnection makes us lower the bar for acceptable social contact.
Consequences of Chronic Belonging Deprivation
Poorer mental health: Lack of adequate supportive relationships associated with increased stress. Children who grew up not receiving adequate emotional attention from caregivers have poorer mental health. Poorer physical health and immune response: Lonely people tend to take longer to recover from stress illness, injury. Earliermortailty.
Belonging Lowers Mortality Risk Study (Holt-Lundstad et al, 2010)
Meta-analysis of 148 studies looking at effects of social connection on physical health. Results: People who have stronger social relationships are 50% more likely to survive in a given time frame than those who have weaker relationships (controlling for age, sex, initial health status, cause of death, and follow-up period). The influence of social relationships on mortality is comparable, and even exceeds, the effect of well-established risk factors for mortality.
Evolutionary Basis of Need to Belong Study (Nelson & Panksepp, 1998)
Social connection critical for survival. Attachment system’s function is to ensure infants; proximity to caregivers so that they survive. Connection to group: fend of predators, share labor, food, care for young. Led to development of biological mechanism to motivate us to seek belonging to social groups and lasting relationships. Hypothesis: Pain systems as biological mechanism underlying need to belong (Evolutionarily older physical pain system appropriated to prevent separation from others).
Shared vocabulary between physical and social pain
“They hurt my feelings”
“She broke my heart”
“Im cut to the core”
Neural Correlates of Physical Pain
Activation in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) associated with emotional aspect of physical pain.
Neural Correlates of Social Pain Study (Eisenberger et al., 2003)
Is social pain also processed in dACC? Method: Participants played Cuberabll while undergoing fMRI scan (either included or excluded in game). Assessed degree of distress. Results: dACC activity associated with feelings of distress. Evidence that physical and social pain are processed in the same brain region. Physical pain and sensitivity associated with sensitivity to social exclusion (reported feelings of distress in Cyberball).
Curing Heartache with Pain Killer Study (DeWall et al, 2010)
Does physics pain also easy social pain? Method: Double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Experimental group: daily dose of Tyler for 3 weeks. Control group: Placebo for 3 weeks. Feelings of social exclusions assessed via: Daily evening self-report of feeling being hurt that day. Cyberall with fMRI after 3 weeks. Hypothesis: Tylenol would reduce feelings of social exclusion.
Curing Heartache with Pain Killer Study (DeWall et al, 2010) - Results
Tylenol group reported fewer hurt feelings (vs. placebo group). Tylenol group showed less dACC activation after exclusion in Cyberball game.
