This post and accompanying video provide a quick summary and overview of the need to belong. The need to belong is the central topic of a classic paper from 1995 that was written by psychologists Baumeister and Leary. The basic hypothesis of their paper is that “a need to belong is a fundamental human motivation” (p. 497).
Table of Contents
The Belongingness Hypothesis
So what is the need to belong? The need to belong refers to the basic need of people to belong to other people. This need is so strong that belongingness can be almost as important as food. Of course, there are differences between people and cultures in the extent to which they seek belongingness, but overall, it is found in all people and in all cultures. According to Baumeister and Leary, all “human beings have a pervasive drive to form and maintain at least a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, and significant interpersonal relationships” (p. 497).
The need to belong is such a strong drive, that people often resist ending social relationships, even very short ones. For example, if people attend a course or training together, they seem to be unwilling for the group to dissolve, sometimes promising to stay in touch, even if there’s no reason to do so. People also sometimes seem unwilling to let go of bad or destructive relationships, for example when they’re abused by their spouse.
Where does the Need to Belong come from?
So the need to belong is something that underlies a lot of human behavior. But where does it come from? According to Baumeister and Leary, it has a basis in evolution, because forming and maintaining social bonds can help humans survive and reproduce. People in groups can share food, provide mates, help care for children, and defend themselves. On the other hand, people who are alone and are confronted with groups are clearly at a disadvantage, so it’s better to be in a small group than alone.
Now, the idea is that this evolutionary basis is something that people have internalized, meaning that they’re naturally guided towards groups and relationships. As a result, people have developed certain tendencies, such as wanting to affiliate with other humans, feeling distressed when they don’t have social relationships, and feeling good when they do.
The Criteria for Interpersonal Relationships
But not all relationships satisfy people’s need to belong. According to the authors, interpersonal relationships need to fulfill two criteria:
First, the relationship needs to involve frequent interactions with the same person. It’s not enough to interact with the other person only infrequently.
And second, the relationship needs to have certain qualities, namely some degree of stability, a bond of caring, and mutuality. In other words, there needs to be an ongoing relationship and people have to care about each other. That can easily be seen in cases of unrequited love; love can be very satisfying, but only if it’s mutual.
So these two features of interpersonal relationships need to both be present in order for the need to belong to be satisfied. In other words, it’s not enough to have frequent interactions with someone who doesn’t care about you. People seem to prefer a few close relationships over a lot of more superficial relationships. Baumeister and Leary provide the example of prostitutes here. During their work, prostitutes have physically intimate relationships with many people, but they’re temporary, and so they have to look for bonds of mutual caring outside of work.
It’s also not enough to have an intimate relationship with someone you don’t have regular contact with. An example of this is people who are in prison. They often have family but can’t interact with them very often, which can cause a lot of suffering. So these relationships offer only a partial sense of belonging.
Emotions, Health, and the Need to Belong
The central importance of the need to belong ultimately shows in people’s feelings. Some of the strongest emotions that humans feel, both positive and negative, have something to do with belongingness. When people form new relationships, this generally brings out positive emotions, such as joy and happiness. This happens, for example, with childbirth, a new job, new friends, and falling in love, at least if it’s mutual. On the other hand, when relationships dissolve, people often feel distressed. An extreme case of this happens, of course, when someone dies.
On the other hand, if people have no close social bonds, they tend to feel unhappy, depressed, and lonely. According to Baumeister and Leary, “Social isolation is practically incompatible with high levels of happiness” (p. 506). It’s not the mere absence of social contacts that is crucial; it’s the lack of belongingness, the lack of intimate connections.
But the effects of not belonging are even more wide ranging, going beyond unhappiness. They can include decreases in health, like a less well functioning immune system, physical illness, mental illness, and even more criminal behavior. For example, having a good marriage and a stable job can help people stop committing crime.
Satiation and Substitution
There are two more aspects to the belongingness hypothesis to cover, and these are the principles of satiation and substitution. Satiation refers to the lower motivation of people to want relationships when they already have enough of them. Once people have reached a certain minimum number of social contacts that have a minimum quality level, their motivation to seek new relationships diminishes. When they lose relationships, though, they may want new ones.
Which brings us to the idea of substitution. Substitution means that social bonds can actually be replaced. For example, Baumeister and Leary give the example of female inmates, who are deprived of contact with their families. While incarcerated, they commonly form substitute families with other inmates. That may include romantic relationships with other inmates, but also playing the part of parent, child, and still other family members for each other, so as to experience belongingness even while incarcerated.
This idea of substitution is very important because it means that losing one relationship can, at least to some extent, be replaced with another, even though it takes time to build that level of intimacy. But on the whole, relationship partners can be replaced and also, relationships in one domain of life can be replaced by another. For example, if you’re alone at work or school, you can still feel belongingness if you have strong family ties.
In sum, the need to belong involves having relationships with frequent interactions of a certain quality and forms a fundamental motivation underlying human behavior, feelings, and thoughts.
You can read the original article here.