The Need to Belong Drives People to Affiliate, Commit, and Remain

Essay

The need to belong drives people to affiliate, commit, and remain together, and it makes them reluctant to live alone. People usually form relationships easily and readily, such as with neighbors and work colleagues. They are reluctant to let relationship send, even if they do not see any clear purpose in continuing the relationship. For example, when workers at a corporation go through a training group exercise in which they meet regularly for a set period of time, the group typically resists its impending breakup, such as by promising to remain in touch with each other and even planning reunions. The group's purpose will be over, and in fact most of these planned reunions never take place, but nobody wants to admit that the interpersonal connections are coming to an end. By the same token, when people break off a romantic relationship, they usually say they want to preserve some parts of their intimate connection despite terminating the romantic connection. "Let's just befriends" is the common breakup line, though in reality most ex-lovers do not sustain close friendships with each other. Promising to remain friends is usually just a way to avoid the fact that a social bond is being broken.