Need to Belong

Definition

The need to belong refers to the idea that humans have a fundamental motivation to be accepted into relationships with others and to be a part of social groups. The fact that belongingness is a need means that human beings must establish and maintain a minimum quantity of enduring relationships. These relationships should have more positivity than negativity and be meaningful and significant to the relationship partners.

Background and History

The psychological history of a belongingness motive has a long history, with psychologists including Sigmund Freud recognizing that humans need to be a part of groups and relationships. Freud believed that the desire for relationships comes from people's sex drive or was connected more to bonds between parents and children. Abraham Maslow, whose great psychological legacy was to create a motivational hierarchy, put belongingness needs in between satisfying physical needs (such as being fed and getting enough sleep) and needs for self-esteem. Thus, these early psychologists recognized that humans strive to be a part of relationships, but they did not place supreme significance on this drive.

John Bowlby was probably the first psychologist to develop the idea that belongingness is a special need and was one of the first to perform experimental tests on the idea. Bowlby is best known for his attachment theory, which says that people's early relationships with their caregivers (e.g., parents) are the foundation for how people will respond to others in close, intimate relationships for the rest of their lives. Bowlby saw that people varied in how they behaved toward people they were close to, and that these variations could be observed among children and their mothers.

The most influential version of the need to belong theory was proposed by Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary, whose theory put relationship needs as one of the most important needs that humans must fulfill. They compared satisfying the need to belong to securing necessities, such as food and shelter, which are needed to survive. Baumeister and Leary said that satisfying the belongingness motive requires that two aspects of relationships be met: The first part is that people need to have positive and pleasant, not negative, interactions with others. The second part specifies that these interactions cannot be random but, rather, should take place as part of stable, lasting relationships in which people care about each other's long-term health and well-being.

The reason that the need to belong is essential for humans is that being a part of groups and intimate relationships helped humans to survive in ancestral history. When enemies would attack, when animals would prey, or when it was difficult to find food or shelter, those people who were part of a group were more likely to survive than was the lone man or woman needing to fend for himself or herself. Reproduction too was much easier with another person, as is fairly obvious, and those people who could get into and start a part of a band of others were more likely to have offspring and thus pass their genes onto future generations of humans. Even if loners can create a pregnancy by having sex during a chance encounter with one another, those children would be less likely to survive to adulthood than would children who grow up supported and protected by a group. In these ways, evolution likely favored early humans with a stronger need to belong, and so today's humans are mainly descended from them—and therefore probably inherited that strong need.

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