Need-to-Belong Theory

The motivation to form and sustain at least a minimum amount of social connections is one of the most powerful, universal, and influential human drives. It shapes emotion, cognition, and behavior. It explains self-esteem as an internal measure of one's chances of having good relationships. Different ways of satisfying the need to belong can explain gender differences in personality and roles and even reinterpret the history of gender politics, on the assumption that women emphasize close, intimate relationships whereas men are oriented toward larger networks of shallower relationships. Studies of rejection show that thwarting the need to belong produces drastic and sometimes puzzling effects, including increases in aggression and self-destructive acts, and decreases in helpfulness, cooperation, self-control, and intelligent thought. Lab rejection studies produce an emotional numbness that has pointed the way to question the basic functions of emotion and how emotion affects behavior. Culture, which is the ultimate achievement and form of human social life, depends on belongingness, and that observation offers a powerful basis for understanding human nature and many distinctively human traits.