Belongingness
1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias Belongingness is the human emotional need to be an accepted member of a group.
Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary argue that belongingness is such a fundamental human motivation that people feel severe consequences for not belonging.
According to Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary, all human beings need a certain minimum quantity of regular, satisfying social interactions.
Just knowing that a bond exists may be emotionally comforting, yet it would not provide a feeling of full belongingness if there is a lack of interaction between the persons.
[4] Researchers agree that banding together against a threat (the out-group) and sharing rewards are primary reasons groups form and bond so easily.
Positive social bonds form just as easily under fearful circumstances, such as military veterans who have undergone heavy battle together.
Baumeister and Leary argue that the reinforcement theory explanation provides evidence for the importance of belonging needs because these learned associations create a tendency to seek out the company of others in times of threat.
The group members make promises individually and collectively to stay in touch, plan for future reunions, and take other steps to ensure the continuity of the attachment.
[6] This unwillingness to leave an abusive partner, whether mentally or physically, is just another indicator of the power of the need to belong and how reluctant individuals are to break these bonds.
People who lack belongingness are more prone to behavioral problems such as criminality and suicide and suffer from increasing mental and physical illness.
Close personal attachments, a rich network of friends and high levels of intimacy motivation are all correlated to happiness in life.
In contrast, lacking belonging and being excluded is perceived as painful and has a variety of negative effects including, shame, anger and depression.
[11] Because belongingness is a central component of human functioning, social exclusion has been found to influence many behavioral, cognitive, and emotional outcomes.
Walton, Cohen, and Spencer for example, believed that a mere sense of social connectedness (even with people who were unfamiliar) can cause one to internalize the goals and motivations of others.
Normative social influence occurs when one conforms to be accepted by members of a group, since the need to belong is in our human desire.
Individuals are more likely to conform to groups who describe out-group members with stereotype traits, even though don't publicly express their agreement.
This is important in regard to rapport building and forming new social relationships-we mirror the behaviors we are supposed to, to get to where we want to belong in the group.
However, people who wish to combat conformity and fight that need to belong with the majority group can do so by focusing on their own self-worth or by straying from the attitudes and norms of others.
Baumeister, Dewall, Ciarocco, and Twenge (2005) found that when people are socially excluded from a group, self-regulation is less likely to be than those who have a heightened sense of belonging.
A study found that girls use ruminative coping, which involves perseverating on the negative feelings and the unpleasant situations associated with problems.
The SCM strategy asks students in a peer system, for example in a classroom, to identify which class members they have observed “hanging out” together.
[18] One such social intervention described by Walton and Brady sees stories used, whereby difficulties at school are portrayed as a normal part of education.
Charismatic leaders are especially known to show off organizational citizenship behaviors such as helping and compliance if they feel a sense of belongingness with their work group.
Charismatic leaders influence followers by bringing awareness to the collective unit and strengthening the feeling of belonging, and that enhances employees' compliance.
De Cremer and Blader (2006) found that when people feel a heightened sense of belongingness, they process information about procedural justice in a more careful and systematic way.
Walton and Cohen conducted two experiments that tested how belonging uncertainty undermines the achievement and motivation of people whose racial group is negatively characterized in academic settings.
However, by providing a sense of security and peer acceptance, group membership may reduce the tendency to develop internalizing problems such as depression or anxiety.
Those who are depressed appear to induce negative affect in other individuals, which consequently elicits rejection and the loss of socially rewarding opportunities.
Increased acquired ability refers to a lack of pain response during self-injury, which has been found to be linked to the number of suicide attempts in a lifetime.
[59] Parental displacement would disrupt the parent-adolescent relationship and consequently would diminish both the frequency and quality of interactions between the two, reducing the adolescent's sense of belonging.
