The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation.

TLDR

The study evaluates the hypothesis that humans have a need to form and maintain strong, stable interpersonal relationships. The need is defined as requiring frequent, nonaversive interactions within an ongoing relational bond, and is evaluated against empirical literature. People readily form social attachments, resist dissolving bonds, and belongingness strongly influences emotions, cognition, health, and well-being; evidence also supports satiation, substitution, behavioral consequences, and counters counterexamples, confirming the need to belong as a powerful, pervasive motivation.

Abstract

A hypothesized need to form and maintain strong, stable interpersonal relationships is evaluated in light of the empirical literature. The need is for frequent, nonaversive interactions within an ongoing relational bond. Consistent with the belongingness hypothesis, people form social attachments readily under most conditions and resist the dissolution of existing bonds. Belongingness appears to have multiple and strong effects on emotional patterns and on cognitive processes. Lack of attachments is linked to a variety of ill effects on health, adjustment, and well-being. Other evidence, such as that concerning satiation, substitution, and behavioral consequences, is likewise consistent with the hypothesized motivation. Several seeming counterexamples turned out not to disconfirm the hypothesis. Existing evidence supports the hypothesis that the need to belong is a powerful, fundamental, and extremely pervasive motivation.