Humans have a natural desire to belong. This need will affect their daily behavior in many ways. How the Need to Belong Influences Human Behavior and Motivation by Kendra Cherry explains why people feel the need to belong, what it means, and how it will impact someone. She starts off by giving a definition as to what it means to belong. It’s when a person is involved in a group, and receives attention, time, and energy from the people, and equally gives the same things to others in the group. Then, she explains that the need to belong in a group will change people’s social behaviors, attitudes, and even their beliefs. Then, she provides an example, talking about a new member of a football team changing the way he acts and the way he dresses. He will change these things to fit the standard of the other members on the team. Kendra then explains that some people pick what group they want to be in based on a point of commonality. This means there is something in common of everyone in the group. Let’s say they all love animals, or like similar music, and other things similar to these. She explains to us that the need to belong is very important because it keeps our relationships with the rest of society, and we feel more important than when we’re just by ourselves. However, we must ask ourselves, is the human need to belong necessarily a good thing?
In her writing, Kendra explained many benefits of the human need to belong. She explained that it will make us feel more together, and we must maintain our relationships with people, and being in a group can help us be more connected. Also, the need to belong can actually help us adapt in situations when we are not in a familiar surrounding. For example, if someone is going to a new school, their human need to belong will help them make friends easily, therefore making their school life much easier. Not only that, sometimes changes are good. If we were originally bad people, sometimes the need to belong can make us change to be better people, so that we would be accepted. Although we should never change who we truly are, sometimes, it’s good to go out of our comfort zone and talk to people more often, or make nicer comments. These changes help us to be more accepted into various communities. Being alone is much less fun than being in a group. The human need to belong will put us in groups almost immediately and instinctively. All of these benefits show that the human need to belong can be a good thing, but we must still think, what happens if it goes wrong? What happens when people feel the need to belong in the wrong group? This brings me to my next paragraph.
As many good things as there are for the human need to belong, there are also many bad things. There are millions of possible situations in which a human need to belong goes wrong. For example, what if someone wants to belong with the Mean Girls? They will change their attitude and the way they dress, but it doesn't improve who they are. We know that mean girls are known for being ruthless and generally bad people. Also, if we change who we are just so we can belong, we won't be ourselves anymore. We'll start dressing differently, start acting differently, and even start thinking differently, and when it becomes too extreme, we'll just be like any other person, not unique at all. We won’t be who we actually are anymore, and that should never be our goal in life. This need to belong can be often toxic, for example, if we push people away just to be with other, cooler people, so we can ‘belong’. Many people mistake belonging to being popular, and that can impact their lives negatively. Also, we should learn to be independent, so the need to belong is only getting in the way. What happens when we’re lost, or alone? We have to survive on our own, and always being in a group will not help our independence at all.
We know that there are pros and cons of the human need to survive, but which side is more impactful? Now, we see which arguments are more impactful. Of course, the sense of belongingness and togetherness that we feel when we belong is amazing, but is it as important as being independent? The only person who is there for us every single moment of our lives is ourselves, and we will realize that we trust ourselves the most, because we will be the ones to solve our own biggest problems. The need to belong can help us adapt quickly thanks to the help of friends, and adapting by ourselves in this situation is not really ideal. Here’s the most controversial topic. Is changing who we are worth belonging? Sometimes, we can change to be better, but the chances of change being good in this situation are very slim. Therefore, I believe change is a con. Let’s just imagine someone is trying to not be a ‘nerd’ anymore and wants to be popular. Well, how will they change? They will pay less attention to their studies, and they will do worse in school, just so they won’t be called a nerd. They will most likely obsess over how to be popular to the point where they’re forgetting to prioritize what’s actually important. In the future, we might find new groups to belong to, and it’s not worth sacrificing significant things over the need to belong.
For all of these reasons, I believe the human need to belong is a negative trait. Of course, there is no right answer, because we all have different opinions on the topic, it really depends on whether we’re pessimistic, realistic, or optimistic. Pessimists will assume the worst, and give the example that when someone wants to belong, so they wear too much makeup and have a bad attitude, it will not benefit them at all. Realists would rather say that there is a chance for someone to change for good, and for the need to belong to sometimes be a good thing, but will most likely not benefit someone. Optimists would say that someone changing from being a mean girl to a kind person is the kind of good change. Also, the sense of togetherness is good. Usually, it is preferred to be realistic or optimistic, but in cases like this, we have to analyze the situation fairly. The cons clearly overweight the pros, because the cons are thinking much more precisely and are more likely to happen. I believe that the first thing to do when we want to answer if something is positive or negative is to see what kind of context it’s in. For example, if it’s someone trying to change into a popular person by wearing crop tops and makeup, the human need to belong is a bad thing, but if someone is trying to be nicer, then of course, it’s a good thing.
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