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Belongingness

Belongingness is the human emotional need to be an accepted member of a group. No matter what type of group, good or bad, people have the engrained desire to belong and be part of something greater than themselves, which implies a need for deeper acquaintance or familiarity. Belonging is the need to give and receive attention to and from others; a strong and inevitable feeling that exists in human nature. To belong or not to belong is subjective and can be influenced by factors within ourselves and our surrounding environment.

Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary argue that belongingness is a fundamental human motivation, and we feel severe consequences for not belonging. If belongingness was not crucial, then there would not be severe consequences when it is lacking. The desire is universal and found across all cultures and all people.

Psychological Needs

Abraham Maslow saw the need to belong as a major source of human motivation and included it in his hierarchy of needs. There are five human needs which are physiological, safety, love and belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization. This hierarchy must be satisfied in order. Once physiological and safety needs are met a person can work on meeting the need to be loved and belong. According to Maslow, without meeting the first two needs then an individual cannot completely love another.

Other theories recognize belonging as a fundamental psychological motivation. Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary believe people require a minimum number of regular, satisfying social interactions to counteract loneliness, mental distress, and an overwhelming desire to form new relationships. Loneliness can also develop when the motivation to belong is high.

According to Baumeister and Leary, belongingness drives people's actions and documented human needs such as power, intimacy, approval, achievement, and affiliation

Human culture is compelled and conditioned by pressure to belong. The need to belong and form attachments is universal among humans. This counters the Freudian argument that sexuality and aggression are the major driving psychological forces. Those who believe belonging is the major psychological drive also believe humans are naturally driven toward establishing and sustaining relationships and belongingness. For example, interactions with strangers are possible first steps toward non-hostile and more long-term interactions with strangers that can satisfy the need for attachments. Social deprivation can be found in physical, behavioral, and psychological problems, such as stress or instability. Another theory is the self-determination theory which focuses on three main needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Though the most important need is relatedness where a person longs to feel close, connected, and cared for by another human.

Attachments

Attachments are found in all cultures. Social bonds are easily formed without the need of favorable conditions. Belonging is a goal-directed activity that people try to satisfy with a minimum number of social contacts. The quality of interactions is more important than the quantity. Therefore, social attachments exceeding the minimal amount find the extra relationships less satisfying and experience more stress from terminating these bonds. Also, old relationships are effectively substituted with new relationships or social environments. For example, individuals with strong family ties could compensate for loneliness at work.

Relationships lacking regular contact but characterized by strong feelings of commitment and intimacy also fail to satisfy the need of belonging. Just knowing that a bond exists may be emotionally comforting, yet it does not provide a sense of full belongingness if there is a lack of interaction between the persons. The belongingness hypothesis proposes two main elements:  1) People need constant, positive, and personal interactions with other people. 2) people need to know that the bond is stable, there is mutual concern, and that this attachment will continue. The need to belong is not just a need for intimate attachments or a need for connections, but the perception of the bond is as important as the bond itself. Individuals need to know that other people care about their well-being and love them.

Research on group bonds can be interpreted through the lens of belongingness according to Baumeister and Leary. Evidence suggests that social bonds are formed easily.

The Robbers Cave Study: Unacquainted boys were divided into two groups and almost instantly group identification and strong loyalty developed. When asked to compete with one another, hostility between the groups ensued Then the two groups were combined to form one big group which bonded by working together to accomplish superordinate goals, behaviors and emotions tailored to the new group. Researchers agree that banding together against a threat (the out-group) and Belongingness is the human emotional need to be an accepted member of a group. No matter what type of group, good or bad, people have the engrained desire to belong and be part of something greater than themselves, which implies a need for deeper acquaintance or familiarity. Belonging is the need to give and receive attention to and from others, a strong and inevitable feeling in human nature. To belong or not to belong is subjective and can be influenced by factors within ourselves and our surrounding environment.

Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary argue that belongingness is a fundamental human motivation, and we feel severe consequences for not belonging. If belongingness were not crucial, then there would not be severe consequences when it is lacking. The desire is universal and found across all cultures and all people. sharing rewards are primary reasons groups form and bond so easily. Mere proximity is another powerful factor in relationship formation. Just like babies form attachments with their caregivers, people develop attachments just because they live near one another. Thus, proximity sometimes overcomes the tendencies to bond with others who are similar to us. Positive social bonds form just as easily under fearful circumstances, such as military veterans who have undergone heavy battle together. This can be explained by either misattribution (interpreting feelings of anxious arousal as feelings of attraction for another person) or reinforcement theory (the presence of another person reduces distress and elicits positive responses). Baumeister and Leary believe 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 formation of social attachments with former rivals is a great indicator of the need to belong. Belonging motivations are so strong that they are able to overcome competitive feelings towards opponents.

People form such close attachments with others that they are hesitant to break social bonds. Universally, people distress and protest over ending social relationships across all cultures and age spans. Even temporary groups, such as training groups, struggle with the idea that the group may eventually dissolve. The group may have fulfilled their purpose, but the participants want to cling on to the relationships and social bonds that have been formed. 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. For example, two people may not speak for an entire year, but continue exchanging holiday cards. People do not want to risk damaging a relationship or breaking an attachment because it is distressing.

People are hesitant to break social bonds in many cases. They are hesitant to dissolve even bad relationships that could be potentially destructive. Many women are unwilling to leave their abusive spouses or boyfriends with excuses ranging from liking the abuse to economic self-interests that are more important than physical harm. This unwillingness to leave an abusive partner, whether mentally or physically, is just another indicator of the strong need to belong. Breaking off an attachment causes pain that is deeply rooted in the desire to belong.

People experience a range of emotions; however, the strongest are linked to attachment and belongingness. Empirical evidence suggests that people who are accepted, welcomed, or included feel positive emotions such as happiness, elation, calm, and satisfaction. If the person is rejected or excluded, they feel negative emotions such as anxiety, jealousy, depression, and grief. Psychological pain caused by social rejection involves the same brain regions involved in experiencing physical pain. Social attachment changes the emotional response to the actions of a partner and emotions can intensify.

Lack of constant, positive relationships is linked to multiple consequences. People lacking belongingness are prone to behavioral problems such as criminality and suicide and suffer from mental and physical illness. Based on this, it seems appropriate to regard belongingness and attachments as a need rather than a want.

Interpersonal relationships are important in the way people think. The belongingness hypothesis suggests that people devote their cognitive thought process to interpersonal relationships and attachments. Researchers found that people store information related to their social bonds, such as having more information on a marriage partner than an acquaintance. Characteristics, traits, and duties sort out-group members while in-group members are sorted by person categories. Cognitive processing organizes information about people based on personal connections. Researchers had a group of people take turns reading out-loud and found the members of the out-group had the greatest recall for the words they personally spoke or were spoken by dating partners or close friends. Cognitive merging of the self with specific people followed by the need to belong. Flattering words from a spouse can positively affect a person. People believe that nothing bad can happen to themselves or others close to them.

Positive affect is linked to increases in belongingness while negative affect is linked to decreases in belongingness. Positive emotions, such as falling in love, are associated with forming social attachments. forming bonds, especially when there is permanence, such as a wedding. Weddings signify permanent commitment and complete the social bond, solidifying the spouses need to belong. Positive experiences shared emotions increase attractions. personal attachments, rich network of friends, and high levels of intimacy lead to happiness..

The breaking of social bonds and threats to those bonds are primary sources of negative effect. The loss of important relationships causes feelings of anxiousness, depression, guilt, and loneliness. Social exclusion causes anxiety, a natural consequence of separation from others. One example is separation anxiety. Memories of past rejection and imagining social rejection elicit negative emotions. Loss of attachments leads to anxiety. People excluded from social groups experience anxiety, while social inclusion anxiety vanishes. Failing to feel accepted can lead to social and general depression. Depression and anxiety correlate. Social exclusion causes jealousy, a common reaction when relationships are threatened. Belongingness needs can only truly be met with social causes, social contact does not stop feelings of loneliness. Loneliness appears more with lack of intimacy versus lack of contact. Another negative affect is guilt, which causes the person to want to maintain the relationship more, such as giving a person more attention.

Divorce and death are two negative events that spoil the need to belong. Divorce causes distress, anger, loneliness, and depression. Death of oneself and others are the most traumatic and stressful events people experience. Death can cause severe depression because of the loss of the attachment with the other person. Death is linked to anxiety and fear of loneliness. The idea of being separated from friends and family is what causes the anxiety.

Evolutionary perspectives
The theory of evolution is one reason for belongingness. In the past, belonging to a group was essential to survival: people hunted and cooked in groups. This allowed tribe members to share the workload and protect each other. Individuals ensured their own survival along with others' survival because of the important roles each person had in the group. Today in Western society, people no longer belong to tribes, yet they still desire to protect others and belong to a group.

Belonging is rooted in evolutionary history. Humans are social animals. Humans have matured in dyadic and group contexts. Humans evolved in small groups depending on close social connections to fulfill survival and reproductive needs. Humans receive the majority of needs from their social group instead of their natural environment, suggesting that survival depends on belonging. Evidence suggests that people are happier and healthier when experiencing social belonging. Lacking belonging and being excluded is painful and has negative effects including shame, anger, and depression. Since belongingness is important to human functioning, social exclusion influences many behavioral, cognitive, and emotional outcomes. To avoid negative consequences, people have developed traits that prevent rejection and encourage acceptance.

Self-presentation
Self-presentation, convey or conceal certain parts of their personalities to be accepted within a group. Self-presentation, or impression management, attempts to control images of the self in front of audiences. It is a conscious and unconscious goal-directed action to influence audiences to see the actor as someone who belongs. Aspects of one's personality may not be desirable or essential to the group, so people portray traits believed to be valuable to the group.

Group membership
Individuals seek out and join groups that are most similar to them, whether it is sense of humor, clothing style, socioeconomic status, or career goals. People with similarities gives the feeling that they can relate to others and also gravitate to those who they can understand or who can understand them.

Social connections
Desires to form and maintain social bonds is among the most powerful human motives. Self-regulation suffers when an individual's sense of social connectedness is threatened. Multiple studies focus on how social relationships affect personal interests and motivated behavior because social relationships are important for human functioning and well-being. Walton, Cohen, and Spencer believed that only a sense of social connectedness causes one to internalize goals and motivations of others. It shapes people's motivated behavior which suggests achievement motivation and self-identity are extremely sensitive to minor cues of social connection. Belongings is an entryway to a social relationship, represented by a small cue of social connection to an individual or group. Social belonging is a sense of relatedness connected to a positive, lasting, and significant interpersonal relationship. Belonging is a small or a chance social connection, factors of social belonging are social feedback, validation, and shared experiences. Sharing like goals and interests with others builds positive social bonds and can strengthen the feeling of self-worth.

Walton and Cohen also examined stigmatization and its link to belonging uncertainty. This idea suggests academic and professional settings, members of socially stigmatized groups are uncertain of the quality of their social bonds, making them more sensitive to issues of social belonging. Belief in domains of achievement, belonging uncertainty leads to effects on the motivation of ones challenged with a threat to social identity.

Conformity

Group membership can involve conformity, which is the act of changing one's actions, attitudes, and behaviors to match the norms, the unsaid rules shared by a group, of others. Tendencies to conform come from social pressures from society and small groups. Informational social influence and normative social influence are two types of conformity motivations. Information social influence is the desire to obtain and form accurate information about reality. This influence occurs in certain situations, such as a crisis. When a situation arises where one does not know how to behave, they turn to others' cues to correct their behavior. Group interpretations are normally more accurate than individual interpretations causing conformity. Normative social influence is the desire to gain social approval from others when conforming to be accepted by members of a group since belonging is a human desire. Without conforming, people are less liked by a group and considered atypical. Normative influence can lead to public compliance, fulfilling requests, or doing something one does not believe in yet the group believes in. 

Baumeister and Leary claim group conformity improves one's chances of acceptance by a social group; thus it serves belongingness needs. Conforming happens for approval, relationships and enhances self-esteem. Individuals are more likely to conform to groups that describe out-group members with stereotype traits. The desire for approval causes one to conform to others. Others' beliefs and how one responds to those beliefs often correspond with ones' view and degree of agreement for their beliefs. Researchers are interested in informational and normative motivational influences of conforming to majorities and minorities. Objective consensus theory shows that the majority influence of a group is informational. Yet conversion theory sees it as normative, the underlying motivations for certain conformities; however, researchers believe after time, informational influences positively correlates with prominent levels of compromise.

The chameleon effect is conformity by behavioral mimicry beyond the conscious mind. Behavioral mimicry is when one mimics the behaviors and mannerisms of others. Researches found that subconsciously people conform to their partner and friends' mannerisms and preferred partners that mirrored them. This aspect is vital for building rapport and forming relationships. People gain social approval and guard their self-esteem by being motivated to conform. However, people not wanting conformity and the need to belong with the majority group can focus on their self-worth or drift from others' attitudes and norms, which can cause a sense of uniqueness. Yet, most individuals keep positive assessments of themselves and still conform to groups.

Self-regulation
Wilkowski and colleagues (2009) suggest that self-regulation is used to fulfill one's need to belong. Self-regulation theory is the process of regulating oneself or changing one's behavior to manage short-term desires. Self-regulation occurs in multiple ways. One way uses other individuals' gazes for referencing and understanding how attention should be divided. This effect is commonly seen in one's with low self-esteem. Without acceptance of self, people self-regulate by looking to others regarding where to focus their attention. Belongingness contributes to this level of self-esteem. Baumeister, Dewall, Ciarocco, and Twenge found that self-regulation is less likely when people are socially excluded from a group,. Evidence shows that a lack of belongingness inhibits people's ability to self-regulate. Self-regulation includes impulse control, allows the management of short-term impulses, and have a higher sense of belongingness within a ingroup. An ingroup is a social group that psychologically defines itself by being a member of a specific group, leading to a better ability to self-regulate.

Peer networks[edit source]
Changes in relationships from childhood into adolescence, a sense of peer group membership develops. Adolescent girls value group membership more and identify with their peer groups more than boys. Girls seem to have more friends than boys, and they want and desire to nurture behavior from their friends. They experience more self-disclosure, empathy, and less hostility. Girls use ruminative coping based on a study, dwelling on negative feelings and unpleasant situations associated with problems. Boys tend to be less intimate and base friendships on activity. Boys do not benefit as much from the surfaces of belonging that come from close companions. They are less at risk of emotional distress that comes with co-rumination and disclosure.

Peer groups positively reinforce approved behaviors when individuals engage in a group's approved activity. Positive reinforcement is motivational for an individual to repeat the exercise or engage in other approved activities. Adolescents usually choose friendships based on commonalities in each activity, giving the individual more chances to engage in the activity. Peer groups may influence how often individuals engage in the activity. To belong and fit in, adolescents conform to actions in a group by partaking in peer-group activities.

Newman and colleagues found three aspects of adolescents' perceptions of group membership:


 * Peer group affiliation
 * Peer group membership importance
 * Peer group belonging to behavioral problems

To know adolescents' self-perception of group affiliation, they are asked to identify themselves as a group member or discuss if they belong to a group. Affective group belongingness includes feelings of being proud of one's group and being a valued member. A sense of group belonging is the most internally consistent. Not all adolescents are concerned about being part of a group. Often adolescents with a strong desire to be part of a group yet do not have a sense of group belonging have the most significant social distress and behavioral problems.

Schooling
Academic achievements are enhanced by peer group belonging. Early adolescence group membership is associated with greater interest and enjoyment of school. Adolescents without social groups seem less engaged with school. Studies show a link between a positive sense of belonging and better academic motivation, lower rates of school dropout, better social-emotional functioning, and higher grade point average. A better understanding of belonging is linked to professors' caring and greater involvement in organizations during college. Blum and Libbey characterize school connectedness as students' perception that teachers and other adults in the school community are concerned for the pupils' learning, pay attention to individual students, and have high academic expectations. Also, school connectedness includes safety at school and positive student-teacher relationships. Pittman and Richmond's study found that college students who reported a greater sense of belonging did better academically, felt more competent scholastically, had higher self-worth, and had lower levels of problems. However, students struggling with their relationships with friends experienced more internalizing behaviors and felt less connected to the college.

School environments are essential for children and adolescents and influence their socio-emotional and academic development. Social cognitive mapping (SCM) studies naturally occurring peer groups. The SCM strategy asks students in a peer system to identify who they have seen "hanging out" together, determining patterns of observed social affiliations. Interactions and associations within peer networks theorize experience validation, acceptance, and affirmation of early adolescents in school. Classroom belonging is the sense of connection within a classroom. Students feel they are being valued, accepted, included, and encouraged by others in the classroom. They see themselves as an essential part of the setting and activity of the class. School belonging has been used by the Psychological Sense of School Membership (PSSM) scale. School belonging is associated with overall well being and happiness along with academic achievements.  

Goodenow and Grady (1993) define school belonging as "the extent to which students feel personally accepted, respected, included, and supported by others in the school social environment" (p 80). School belonging is a complex multidimensional concept. In a two-dimensional model Finn explored student engagement, noting engagement as having two components participation (behavior) and identification (affect or sense of belonging). School attachment involves a student's connection to the school. School community incorporates belonging. To be a part of any community, one needs to have feelings of belonging. School connectedness has been used to describe "school belonging," a student's attachment to their school. However, some scholars believe these terms to be interchangeable while others view them as different. School bonding, student engagement, school attachment, school community, school climate, orientation to school, and school connectedness are similar concepts to school belonging. Despite the differences in meaning, these terms include three aspects: school-based relationships and experiences, student-teacher relationships, and students' feelings about the school. Research into school belonging has been disjointed and weakened because of inconsistent terminology. 

A large number of variables are significantly associated with school belonging. These variables have made it challenging to present a theoretical model of school belonging. Allen and colleagues (2018) conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis that discovered that teacher support and positive personal characteristics are the strongest predictors of school belonging. They uncovered ten themes that influence school belonging during adolescence in educational settings:


 * Academic motivation
 * Emotional stability
 * Personal characteristics
 * Parent support
 * Teacher support
 * Peer support
 * Gender, race, and ethnicity
 * Extracurricular activities
 * Environmental/school safety

General theories of belongingness apply to school belonging. Ideas of belonging show that individuals are motivated to achieve the need to belong and achieve meaningful relationships. However, school belonging is also affected by the school's organizational culture as well as connections between students, and their personal characteristics. Schools help develop student's sense of belonging because of protocols that produce social networks, which allows magnifying student belonging. Bronfenbrenner's ecological framework for human development and the bio-ecological framework is supported by school belonging being affected by the environment. These frameworks claim that children's development appears in social systems and that the systems interact. Every child is at the center of multiple levels of influence. The social-ecological lens is the most efficient lens to view school belonging with its multiple variables and unique nature of school belonging for the individual and school.

Both formal and informal groupings influence students, and standard overarching systems are typically represented in all schools. School belonging is seen as a multi-layered, socio-ecological phenomenon, with several interacting layers depicted in the socio-ecological model of school belonging described by Allen, Vella-Brodrick, and Waters (2016). See figure below.

The center of the construct is the individual lever. Showing the unique student characteristics that contribute to belonging, personality, and mental health. An informal network of family, friends, teachers, peers, and others that a student interacts with is the micro-system. Organizational factors, including school resources, processes, policies, rules, and practices, depict the mesosystem. Broder school community is the exosystem. Then the macro-system includes legislation, history, and social climate of society. Empirical studies developed the socio-ecological framework and gives direction to schools in which to foster school belonging. School belonging is all about perception. Social belonging interventions suggested by Walton and Brady is helpful. These interventions give students an adaptive lens to make sense of adversities in school. Minority students can have feelings of not belonging when faced with school challenges. Walton and Brady through one social intervention where difficulties at school are portrayed as a regular part of education. Instead of attributing challenges as a sign of not belonging, they acknowledge group-based difficulties yet show that these experiences are not a barrier to belonging and succeeding.

For racial minorities, challenges can lead to feelings of non-belonging. Students in minority groups see link challenges -both academic and otherwise to their racial identity. Social support improves belonging for students with minority backgrounds. Pro-social behavior and a positive attitude towards school is enhanced with acceptance by peers, teachers, and parents.

Sports
A study of 402 adult recreational sports enthusiasts explored the link between passion and belongingness in sport settings. The results showed that harmonious passion-positive emotion was linked to belongingness. People want to connect and form meaningful relationships. Studies have also found that higher feelings of belonging create more positive emotions. Belongingness is seen in sports because of the social bonds created contributing to the pleasure and fulfillment one experiences. However, obsessive passion does not have a link with belongingness. Obsessive love focuses on oneself being better than others; therefore, one does not create social bonds resulting in low belongingness.

Workplace
Belongingness is evident in the workplace, and employees want to fit in at work. They are seeking the approval and acceptance of leaders, bosses, and other employees. Charismatic leaders show organizational citizenship behaviors, activities that benefit a group without an individual directly helping. Also, when they have a sense of belonging, they can influence workers by bringing awareness to the collective unit and strengthening the feeling of belonging. These leaders set an example on organizational behavior by reinforcing specific rules and values. They inspire others to exceed expectations for the group instead of their self-interest. One prominent aspect of organizational citizenship behaviors is helping. Helping is voluntarily assisting others with problems and preventing other issues from arising, which enhances task performance. Charisma and belongingness increases cooperative behavior among employees, according to researchers.

A person's willingness to help others in a group increases with a sense of belonging. Belongingness and group membership motivate social groups to comply, cooperate, and support. Cohesive workgroups show more consideration, report positive relationships, have more organizational citizenship behaviors, and more readily comply with workplace rules. A well-received leader provides a clear sense of direction and inspiration for a better future. Isolation in the workplace has more longing for belongingness than those not isolated because they do not feel unity. A workplace functions better as a collective whole.

Acceptance/rejection
Belongingness is one of the most basic of all personality processes. People develop traits to encourage acceptance so they can avoid the consequences of social rejection. If the need to belong evolved to the point of meeting their basic needs for survival and reproduction without belongingness, it would change multiple outcomes. Belonging is the basis of human functioning, causing a solid response to social exclusion.

Interpersonal rejection and acceptance are psychologically powerful events. Negative emotions can come from feeling disliked, excluded, unappreciated, or devalued. Lower self-esteem, aggressive actions, and antisocial behavior are examples of negative emotions. The belief that you are liked included, appreciated, or valued creates higher self-esteem and confidence. Acceptance vs. ostracized by a group, adored vs. abandoned by a romantic partner, or elected vs. defeated in an election shows the power of interpersonal acceptance and rejection. However, people form feelings from the perceived relational evaluation, which is the degree one perceives how much others value having a relationship with them. One has higher feelings of acceptance when the other person regards the relationship as accurate and as vital to them as it is to the other person. Suppose the connection is unimportant to the other person. In that case, they feel rejected and negatively respond. Buckley, Winkel, and Leary found the effects of rejection are more potent than the effects of acceptance since negative feelings cause feelings of hurt and pain, which can lead to aggression and negative behaviors. Findings of reactions from extreme and moderate rejection were similar, concluding that once rejected, the severity of the rejection is less critical.

Procedural justice
Van Prooijen and colleagues (2004) see procedural justice, about belongingness, as the process of how people judge their level of belongingness based on their ability to contribute to a group. Higher levels of procedural justice is noticed in how individuals that have high levels of inclusion respond in extreme manners to decisions made by members of the ingroup than decisions made by members of an outgroup. A person is more likely to believe and support decisions made by a group they are a part of than a group in which they are not strongly connected. De Cremer and Blader (2006) found the more a person feels like they belong, they process procedural justice more carefully and in a thorough manner than if they do not feel as if they belong.

Fairness
When belongingness is met, fairness principles are applied. According to Van Prooijen and colleagues (2004), fairness maintains ones' sense of inclusion in groups and can be a maintenance tool for inclusion. Groups find fairness cues to help understand highly valued relationships within the groups. De Cremer and colleagues (2013) show individuals with a high need to belong care more about procedural fairness and pay closer attention to incoming information. Also, Cornelis, Van Hiel, De Cremer, and Mayer (2013) show that group leaders are likely to be fair when they know that group followers have a high need to belong versus a low need to belong. Leaders are more fair coinciding with the amount of empathy they feel towards followers. Empathetic leaders pay more attention to differences among followers, and during decision making consider their need for belongingness. In 2012 Cornelis, Van Hiel, and De Cremer found leaders who are attracted to their followers or a group will allow them a voice more fairly if the leader is aware of their need to belong.

Culture
The need to belong spans all cultures. Cultures cannot eliminate the need to belong; however, there are differences individually in the intensity and strength of the need's expression and satisfaction. Collectivist countries conform and comply more readily with the majority group than in individualistic societies. Collectivist societies emphasize conformity to the point that nonconformity represents deviance in Circum-Mediterranean cultures, yet in Sinosphere culture represents uniqueness. People in other countries view being exiled or shunned as the greatest dishonor because they strive to belong.

Motivations to belong change culture to culture. It affects student achievements in specific ways. One study comparing 15-year-old students from 31 countries found differences between Eastern and Western cultures. It argued that Eastern cultures are collectivist and Western cultures are individualistic. Peer influence is dominant in Western cultures, but the familial influence is dominant in Eastern cultures. In school, Eastern cultured children are more competitive and focused on themselves. They have high motivation to excel and outperform others, making their need to belong less critical. Western cultures are influenced by peers, which causes them to be less competitive with their peers. Studies show that Eastern and Western cultures have one of the most significant achievement gaps, with Eastern cultures scoring higher. It shows that the individualistic drive in Eastern cultured classrooms leads to higher success. Whereas Western culture may hinder classroom success with the need to belong. Since cultures vary, the response to belongingness also varies.

Global uncertainty about the quality of one's social bonds, caused by stigmas, can affect academic and professional areas. Two experiments by Walton and Cohen tested how belonging uncertainty undermines the achievement and motivation of racial groups negatively characterized in academics. In the first experiment, students believed they might have a few friends in a field of study. White students were unaffected; however, academically stigmatized black students had a drop in potential and belongingness. Minority students respond this way because they know they are underrepresented and stigmatized, which causes them to see their worlds differently. The second experiment was an intervention designed to de-racialize the meaning of hardships in college by focusing hardships and doubts as a commonality among 1st-year students rather than due to race. This showed students benefit from an assumed sense of social belonging.

Behavior and social problems
Belongingness is a serious risk or predictive factor for depressive symptoms. Evidence shows that personal factors of belongingness are strongly associated with depressive symptoms. Impressions of low relational value are experienced as reduced self-esteem, which is a fundamental element of depressive symptoms. Perceptions of belongingness directly affect depressive symptoms due to innate neurological mechanisms. Multiple studies using the Sense of Belonging Instrument-Psychological, containing 14 items that invoke the social world, have found a strong link between belongingness and depressive symptoms. The SOBI-P measures a persons' sense of belonging.

There are negative and positive behavioral problems associated with group membership. Internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems correlate differently between genders. Girls tend to internalize behaviors such as depression, and boys tend to externalize problems. Internalizing problems like depression or anxiety is reduced through group memberships providing security and acceptance. Behavioral problems cause more externalizing and internalizing problems in adolescents when group membership is lacking. Yet, the need to belong can also lead to bad decisions and activities so that one can fit into a group.

Depression

Connecting and gaining acceptance into social groups is a strong need, so when relationships and social bonds brake individuals may suffer from depressive symptoms. People have lower levels of loneliness and depression when belonging is high. Feelings of disconnect or lack of belonging can negatively affect people depressed individuals are more vulnerable to negative experiences of belonging. The importance of social experiences to peoples' well-being, and to the start and maintenance of depression, it should be noted how well-being is enhanced or inhibited by negative and positive social interactions.

Positive social interactions elicit feelings of belonging. Depressed peoples' social information-processing bias makes cues of acceptance and belonging in social interactions less recognizable. In a study using information-processing tasks assessing attention and memory for sad, physically threatening, socially threatening, and positive stimuli, clinically depressed people gravitated towards sad faces, emotion words, and adjectives. Depressed people are drawn to stimuli associated with sadness and loss.

Depressed people have fewer intimate relationships because they usually fail to satisfy the need to belong. They tend to induce negative affect in others, leading to rejection and the loss of socially rewarding opportunities. Research suggests symptoms of depression has sensitized people to experiences of both social rejection and social acceptance.

Suicide
Studies indicate that low belonging, acquired ability to self-injure, and burdensomeness are associated with suicidal behaviors. The interpersonal theory of suicidal behavior, proposed by Thomas Joiner, explains the association between parental displacement and suicidal behavior. Two elements must be present for suicidal behavior to occur: the desire for suicide and the acquired capability for suicide. The desire for suicide has two parts: hindered belongingness and perceived burdensomeness. Combined, these make a motivational force for suicidal behavior. This theory proposes that adolescents' suicidal behavior results from individuals having a desirer for death and acquiring abilities, the lack of pain response, to self-inflict injuries. The mixture of the two has been linked to numerous suicide attempts.

Adolescents view parental relationships as belonging because parents provide a stable and caring relationship that is the fundamentals of belonging. Positive relationships between parents and adolescents are a protective factor, and high levels of parental involvement that reduce the risk of suicidal behavior. Connectedness and perceived caring of parents is associated with lower levels of suicide attempts and fixation. However, adolescents averaging age 16 experiencing both low levels of belonging and displacement from parents, including the abandonment, divorce, or death of a parent, raises the risk for suicide. Parental displacement disrupts the parent-adolescent relationship and can diminish the frequency and quality of interactions, lowering the adolescents' sense of belonging.

Belongingness theory by Baumeister and Leary claims to desire death is caused by failed interpersonal processes. Due to an unmet need to belong and also feeling burdensome to others causes failed belongingness. All individuals have a fundamental need to belong, which is only met if an individual has frequent positive interactions with others and feels cared about by significant others.

A study examined the frequency in themes of failed belongingness and perceived burdensomeness in suicide notes. This information has helped examine the motivations of suicides. However, this research is limited due to the small proportion of completed suicides that leave notes. They also examined the extent to which failed belongingness and perceived burdensomeness was found in the same note. This study found that suicide notes did not fully support the hypothesis. However, they found that women's suicide notes more frequently contained the theme of perceived burdensomeness and younger people's suicide notes more frequently contained failed belongingness.