essay about not belonging

The State of Not Belonging Essay

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Introduction

The state of not belonging, benefits to be reaped, the host country reactions.

Immigrants are always faced by state of fear and impermanence because the host country and it citizenry never want to accept them as their own. This paper analyses the work of two writers on the issue; Rites of Passage and Rights in Citizenship in Post Millennial Ireland , authored by Dianna Shandy, and Female Literature of Migration in Italy , which has been authored by Lidia Curti, which paint to us a picture of what it is like to be a refugee immigrant.

The two authors draw to us a very clear image of the plight of African immigrants to foreign countries. The immigrants are in a state of lost owing to the fact that they are unwelcome in their host countries while at the same time they cannot go back home owing to the conditions of life back from which they were running from. This leaves them foreigners in their host countries as well as in their home African countries.

Shandy tells us of pregnant African women who run away from home to Ireland so that they can acquire rights and privileges of an Irish Citizen. The Irish Jus ….Policy which guaranteed citizenship to every individual born on Irish soil attracted many women to Ireland.

They were seeking a sense of belonging to a country which will provide them with an improved condition of life both for themselves and for their babies. For them, the right to citizenship of the babies they were carrying to be acquired upon birth would see them acquire various rights too in the country as the mothers of those baby, something they were willing to risk for if only for a better future for themselves as well as for their children.

Curti on the other hand presents to us a case of young African writers who are refugees in Italy. Their narrations tell us of how they got married to Italian men who became the fathers of their children but later abandoned them leaving them in a situation of loss and feelings of insecurity on their nationality.

Their marriage and subsequent bearing of children with Italian men had made them acquire a sense of belonging, unknown to them it was short-lived and soon they would be haunted by an everyday question of ‘where is home for me?’ Others were born within Italian families by Italian citizens and that must have given them hope that they belong in their host country.

But the only mistake was that they were born in black skins and still carried the ‘black blood’ in their veins. And as they grew up, they realize that they, just like all the others, are still foreigners.

In their new ‘home’, the immigrants will get everything that their original country could never have offered them. To start with, they are assured of a peaceful political stability as opposed to the scourge of war that persists in most African countries.

They can therefore relax knowing that they are not under the immediate danger of being mercilessly slaughtered by their neighbor next door and therefore their children will also be safe. They are also safe from harmful community practices which are performed back at home such as Female Genital Mutilation, (Curti, P.72), and Early marriages which are very common.

Further, the host countries have all the facilities necessary. The health facilities are inexpensive as they are availed by the state. Their babies will therefore be born safely as compared to Africa where mortality rate is very high. Further, their basic needs of food shelter and clothing will be easily satisfied since the standards of living are quite high so their children can say goodbye to hunger.

They will also get access to the highest educational facilities which will not be found back at home and they will take on degrees and other tertiary education something they would not have been able to do.

Moreover, when they are in the host country, it will be an opportunity to help those people back home by sending them some help. Most of them will send money and material items to help ease out the poor situation their kinsmen are encountering at home. They will even try to smuggle in some of their relatives to come and share in enjoying this vast benefits within the countries they would want so much to call home.

But underlying all this is the hostile reaction and rejection they encounter from the people they live with on a day to day basis. The people they so much want to identify themselves with as their brothers and sisters.

The people they work with, school with, rent houses from and live with, the people they are seeking acceptance from. Instead, they will call them niggers, abuse them and assault them, both physically and emotionally, (Shady, P.820). They refuse to have anything to do with them.

They overwork them and underpay their services and only want them working as underdogs not as honorable people, (Curti, P.70). They do not want to get into contact with them, they humiliate them and they want them to go back to Africa.

They do not want to be the one to grant them asylum as, they claim, they pollute their population and they are afraid they may out-reproduce them. The same individuals looked at as helpless and harmless, in need of care and protection, are now viewed as posing a social security issue to elicit legal measures from the state, aimed at driving them out.

Shandy hits the nail on the head in explaining this situation in Ireland, through the 2004 referendum which saw the Irish population unanimously seek to limit foreigners acquisition of citizenship, through what they called ‘unprecedented births’, namely births by non-national citizens, (Shandy, P.809), and mostly, Africans. Even the courts are making decisions to show a situation where black mothers may be deported back to Africa.

In Italy on the other hand, they are faced with incessant immigrant’s law and the bureaucracy that one has to go through just to “pass from the status of illegal immigrants to that of ‘non-EU citizens with work permit’ and to the long wonderings on the streets in Rome to escape police visits at home, (Curti, P. 70). The same state that was supposed to offer them protection and care has turned to be the one nightmare for them.

In the end, the immigrants are left in the middle not knowing whether to go back to their country of origin or to remain in their host countries. They do not know which culture or language to adopt, where their national loyalty falls and most importantly, the place to call home.

Africa is not so much of a home for them because the situation back there is unbearable and the host country is not a home either since the rejection and feeling of ‘foreignty’ is too great and so consciously incessant to ignore. They are now left in a state of fear, fear of not knowing what will happen tomorrow not just to them but also to their children.

Whether they will still be doing their normal activities or they will be forced to be on the move, like the nomads they have always been. Only they know they do not belong anywhere, they lack identity and are in what Curti calls, a state of impermanence.

Curti, Lidia. Female Literature of Migration in Italy . Feminist Review, No. 87, Italian Feminisms. 2007 pp. 60-75.

Shandy, Dianna. Irish Babies, African Mothers: Rites Passage and Rights in Citizenship in Post-Millennial Ireland , Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 81, No. 4, Kids at the Cross Roads: Global Childhood and the Role of the State, 2008, pp. 803-831.

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IvyPanda. (2019, May 8). The State of Not Belonging. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-state-of-not-belonging-essay/

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IvyPanda . 2019. "The State of Not Belonging." May 8, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-state-of-not-belonging-essay/.

1. IvyPanda . "The State of Not Belonging." May 8, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-state-of-not-belonging-essay/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The State of Not Belonging." May 8, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-state-of-not-belonging-essay/.

More From Forbes

Missing your people: why belonging is so important and how to create it.

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Belonging is a fundamental human need.

The pandemic has played havoc with our mental health, and a significant factor in our malaise is that we’re missing our people—terribly. We long for friends, family and colleagues. We are hardwired for connection, and with the need for social distancing and the reality of being away from the workplace—and everything else—for such a long period of time, we are struggling.

It’s all about our need for belonging—but belonging is more than what you might have thought. Understanding it can help contribute to our emotional wellbeing and it can pave the way toward a more fulfilling year ahead. Here’s what to know and how to create it.

Engagement and Social Identity

Belonging is, of course, that feeling of connectedness to a group or community. It’s the sense that you’re part of something. You feel attached, close and thoroughly accepted by your people. But belonging is more than just being part of a group. Belonging is also critically tied to social identity—a set of shared beliefs or ideals. To truly feel a sense of belonging, you must feel unity and a common sense of character with and among members of your group.

In his book, the Happiness Hypothesis , Jonathan Haidt calls this ”vital engagement.” It is a web of relationships and a sense of community in which you feel connected with activity, tradition and the group itself. Jeanine Stewart, senior consultant with the Neuroleadership Institute, whom I had the chance to interview, says when we share a sense of social identity with a group, we can lean in, use our strengths and be authentically who we are. “Being surrounded by other human beings doesn’t guarantee a sense of belonging. Belonging actually has to do with identification as a member of a group and the higher quality interactions which come from that. It’s the interactions over time which are supportive of us as full, authentic human beings.” All of these are important to fulfillment and to the success of the organization as a whole.

A study published in PlosOne found belonging was more than just about having friends. Group membership was also important, and it contributed to self-esteem. A large group of friends didn’t predict self-esteem but belonging to multiple groups did. Says Jolanda Jetten, the lead researcher, "Groups often have rich value and belief systems, and when we identify with groups, these can provide a lens through which we see the world.” One of the reasons work is such a powerful source of belonging is because we typically share identity and goals with our team.

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Best 5% interest savings accounts of 2024, a fundamental need.

Belonging is a fundamental part of being human: We need people and this need is hardwired into our brains. A recent MIT study found we crave interactions in the same region of our brains where we crave food, and another study showed we experience social exclusion in the same region of our brain where we experience physical pain. Work at the University of British Columbia found when we experience ostracism at work, it can lead to job dissatisfaction and health problems. In a similar vein, a study at the University of Michigan found when people lack a sense of belonging, it is a strong predictor of depression. In fact, it is an even stronger predictor than feelings of loneliness or a lack of social support.

It’s also telling to look at animal examples. According to Stewart, “When something is conserved across species, it’s an indication that some elements of our behavior are driven by things that are more basic, and which we can witness.” Research from Florida Atlantic University provides a telling example in beluga whales. Their study found these whales form complex social relationships with close kin, but also with distantly related and unrelated whales. This is mirrored in human behavior as well, in our connections with close friends and family as well as with those who are more distant.

The Impact on Habits and Performance

The human desire for connection also drives behavior. Smartphone design and addiction are a case in point: A study published in Frontiers in Psychology found smartphones are compelling because they tap into fundamental needs to connect. According to the research, humans have a deep desire to monitor others and to be monitored by them—to be seen and heard and considered by others. It is this alignment with our social needs which makes smartphones especially hard to put down. Separate research related to teams at work found when people felt a great level of cohesion with their colleagues, they performed better and the desire for acceptance from the group was a greater motivator than money. People have a clear need to identify with a group and be accepted as a vital member of a community.

Creating Belonging

Since belonging is so important—and since the pandemic has exacerbated the need for belonging—we must be intentional about creating it with and among others. We can do this in tangible ways.

• Embrace groups . Build your friendships with individuals, but also consider joining personal or professional groups with which you feel a common sense of purpose and solidarity. Remind yourself of the identity you share with co-workers and consider joining or creating additional groups with your work colleagues. Join the running club at your company or start a readers group with others who work for your organization. Being part of something—and the coherence and alignment between your goals and the group’s purpose will help you feel a greater sense of belonging.
• Be authentic . According to some experts, trust is built when you are authentic, empathetic and perceived as competent. You can create the conditions for belonging when you are open and vulnerable as well as when you are empathetic toward others. Researcher John Cacioppo also found when people interacted more effectively with others, it tended to mitigate loneliness and pave the way toward belonging.
• Signal acceptance . When people lack a sense of belonging, they may feel threatened or alone, causing them to withdraw or hold back. On the other hand, Stewart points out, “When we are feeling a sense of comfort, we are in the best state physiologically to engage.” Colleagues can signal acceptance and help ensure the people around them feel safe, by asking questions, listening and demonstrating focused attention. The start of a meeting can be an opportunity according to Stewart, “Choose to take a moment, if you’re leading a meeting, to ask how people are doing and then really listen. Listening is the new super power,” she says. “If we can’t create belonging through physical closeness in the ways we used to, we can and must think about how we might create that through focused attention and listening.” Creating these kinds of conditions will contribute toward our collective willingness to invest ourselves.

Belonging is a necessary ingredient for our performance—individually, in teams and for our organizations—because we can more effectively engage and bring our best selves to work. And even more importantly, belonging is good for our wellbeing as humans. It’s important for individual physical, mental and emotional health and it’s critical to the health of our communities. The pandemic has brought belonging into sharpened focus and our opportunity is to find a way to create it for ourselves and others.

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How to Increase Your Sense of Belonging

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Sense of Belonging in Action

Effect of the sense of belonging, increase your sense of belonging.

The sense of belongingness, also known as the need to belong, refers to a human emotional need to affiliate with and be accepted by members of a group. Examples of this may include the need to belong to a peer group at school, to be accepted by co-workers, to be part of an athletic team, or to be part of a religious group.

What do we mean by the sense of belonging? A sense of belonging involves more than simply being acquainted with other people. It is centered on gaining acceptance, attention, and support from members of the group as well as providing the same attention to other members.

The need to belong to a group also can lead to changes in behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes as people strive to conform to the standards and norms of the group.

In social psychology , the need to belong is an intrinsic motivation to affiliate with others and be socially accepted. This need plays a role in a number of social phenomena such as self-presentation and social comparison .

What inspires people to seek out specific groups? In many cases, the need to belong to certain social groups results from sharing some point of commonality. For example, teens who share the same taste in clothing, music, and other interests might seek each other out to form friendships. Other factors that can lead individuals to seek out groups include:

• Pop culture interests
• Religious beliefs
• Shared goals
• Socioeconomic status

People often present themselves in a particular way in order to belong to a specific social group. For example, a new member of a high school sports team might adopt the dress and mannerisms of the other members of the team in order to fit in with the rest of the group.

People also spend a great deal of time comparing themselves to other members of the group in order to determine how well they fit in. This social comparison might lead an individual to adopt some of the same behaviors and attitudes of the most prominent members of the group in order to conform and gain greater acceptance.

Our need to belong is what drives us to seek out stable, long-lasting relationships with other people. It also motivates us to participate in social activities such as clubs, sports teams, religious groups, and community organizations.

In Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs , the sense of belongingness is part of one of his major needs that motivate human behavior. The hierarchy is usually portrayed as a pyramid, with more basic needs at the base and more complex needs near the peak. The need for love and belonging lie at the center of the pyramid as part of social needs.

By belonging to a group, we feel as if we are a part of something bigger and more important than ourselves.

While Maslow suggested that these needs were less important than physiological and safety needs, he believed that the need for belonging helped people to experience companionship and acceptance through family, friends, and other relationships.

A 2020 study on college students found a positive link between a sense of belonging and greater happiness and overall well-being, as well as an overall reduction in mental health outcomes including:

• Hopelessness
• Social anxiety
• Suicidal thoughts

How do we create a sense of belonging? There are steps you (or a loved one who is struggling) can take to increase the sense of belonging.

• Make an effort : Creating a sense of belonging takes effort, to put yourself out there, seek out activities and groups of people with whom you have common interests, and engage with others.  
• Be patient : It might take time to gain acceptance, attention, and support from members of the group.
• Practice acceptance : Focus on the similarities, not the differences, that connects you to others, and remain open to new ways of thinking.

A Word From Verywell

A sense of belonging is a crucial for good physical and mental health. If you continue to struggle with loneliness or the sense of not fitting in, talk to your doctor or mental health professional. They can help you to identify the root of your feelings and provide strategies for achieving belongingness.

Schneider ML, Kwan BM. Psychological need satisfaction, intrinsic motivation and affective response to exercise in adolescents .  Psychol Sport Exerc . 2013;14(5):776–785. doi:10.1016/j.psychsport.2013.04.005

Pillow DR, Malone GP, Hale WJ. The need to belong and its association with fully satisfying relationships: A tale of two measures . Pers Individ Dif . 2015;74:259-264. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2014.10.031

Kenrick DT, Griskevicius V, Neuberg SL, Schaller M. Renovating the pyramid of needs: Contemporary extensions built upon ancient foundations .  Perspect Psychol Sci . 2010;5(3):292–314. doi:10.1177/1745691610369469

Moeller RW, Seehuus M, Peisch V. Emotional intelligence, belongingness, and mental health in college students .  Front Psychol . 2020;11:93. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00093

Fisher LB, Overholser JC, Ridley J, Braden A, Rosoff C. From the outside looking in: sense of belonging, depression, and suicide risk .  Psychiatry . 2015;78(1):29-41. doi: 10.1080/00332747.2015.1015867

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Embarrassment

Stop trying to fit in, aim to belong instead, don't waste time and energy fitting in when you could truly belong..

Posted October 17, 2013 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

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• "Fitting in" means changing oneself to be part of a group, whereas "belonging" means showing up as oneself and being welcomed.
• Acting intentionally in order to facilitate connection is not the same as changing oneself to "fit in."
• Giving up the effort to "fit in" leaves more energy for things that truly matter.

I confess that I haven't read Brene Brown's books yet, though I have seen the TED videos. Her books get bought most frequently together with mine on Amazon, so I really should learn more about her work. What I know of it, I have enjoyed reading.

Fitting in is not belonging

I recently read an article she wrote for Oprah.com , and was struck by her description of the concept of fitting in versus truly belonging. In Brene's words, fitting in is not belonging:

"In fact, fitting in is the greatest barrier to belonging. Fitting in, I've discovered during the past decade of research, is assessing situations and groups of people, then twisting yourself into a human pretzel in order to get them to let you hang out with them. Belonging is something else entirely—it's showing up and letting yourself be seen and known as you really are—love of gourd painting, intense fear of public speaking and all. "Many of us suffer from this split between who we are and who we present to the world in order to be accepted. (Take it from me: I'm an expert fitter-inner!) But we're not letting ourselves be known, and this kind of incongruent living is soul-sucking."

She says so well what I know to be true. During various seasons of my life, I have not fit in. I was too smart, too awkward, and too much of a "goody-two-shoes" in high school, plus I didn't have the right clothes. As you can probably guess, I felt different from the other docs-to-be in med school. I still feel a bit awkward when I'm around other medical doctors; it's hard to explain why.

My whole life I've known, usually painfully so, that I'm not very "normal" (even if I might appear to be, at first glance).

Are you aware that you spend a significant amount of energy trying to fit in? Have you noticed when you do it? Are you ready to give it up?

Committing to belonging

I've been in one social situation in the couple of days since reading Brene's article. I was meeting a new group of people, and something someone said triggered a response from me based on something I learned at a Harvard course last month. I mentioned Harvard in my comment, and noticed the person's face tighten a bit. At least I thought so; I'm pretty good at reading people and excessively aware of facial expressions and body language .

I cringed inside and felt that familiar shame . Darn. I probably looked like I was bragging or name-dropping when really I was just so excited about the information. To me, where I learned the information I referred to makes it more credible.

This brought up all my usual "shut up and try to act more normal" feelings, but because of Brene (and admittedly with some effort) I dismissed them. So what? I'm an info nerd and going to Harvard to learn stuff about mind-body medicine is more exciting to me than going to Disneyland.

If I don't spend so much energy worrying about what others think of the real me (or trying to hide the real me), I'll have lots more left over for dancing flamenco.

(Note: There is a difference between the wisdom of choosing words wisely in order to facilitate connection and real relationship versus feeling "not good enough" and trying to be something you're not in order to gain acceptance. The two feel very different, and I am writing about the latter.)

So will you take on this challenge? Will you commit to belonging based on who you really are, and give up the soul-sucking goal of always trying to fit in?

Copyright Dr. Susan Biali, M.D. 2013

Susan Biali Haas, M.D. is a physician who speaks and writes about stress reduction, burnout prevention, mental health, wellness and resilience.

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Poet and Philosopher David Whyte on Belonging and How to Be at Home in Yourself

By maria popova.

“Sit. Feast on your life,” Nobel-winning poet Derek Walcott exhorted in his breathtaking ode to being at home in ourselves . “We feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home,” Maya Angelou observed in Letter to My Daughter , “a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do.” But how do we find that place to make a home in, to set the table at which we can feast on our lives?

That’s what English poet and philosopher David Whyte — who has written beautifully about what maturity really means , how to break the tyranny of work/life balance , and the true meaning of love and friendship — explores in this soulful, lo-fi short monologue on the essence of belonging and what it means to come home to ourselves:

To feel as if you belong is one of the great triumphs of human existence — and especially to sustain a life of belonging and to invite others into that… But it’s interesting to think that … our sense of slight woundedness around not belonging is actually one of our core competencies; that though the crow is just itself and the stone is just itself and the mountain is just itself, and the cloud, and the sky is just itself — we are the one part of creation that knows what it’s like to live in exile, and that the ability to turn your face towards home is one of the great human endeavors and the great human stories. It’s interesting to think that no matter how far you are from yourself, no matter how exiled you feel from your contribution to the rest of the world or to society — that, as a human being, all you have to do is enumerate exactly the way you don’t feel at home in the world — to say exactly how you don’t belong — and the moment you’ve uttered the exact dimensionality of your exile, you’re already taking the path back to the way, back to the place you should be. You’re already on your way home.

Complement with Vonnegut’s magnificent commencement address on belonging , Hermann Hesse on what trees teach us about belonging , and Tove Jansson’s philosophical vintage Moomin comics on our quest for belonging , then revisit Whyte’s wisdom on anger and forgiveness .

— Published June 29, 2015 — https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/06/29/david-whyte-belonging/ —

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On Belonging

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• January 19, 2022
• By john a. powell & Stephen Menendian

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Introduction

“Belonging” is both a powerful and ambiguous concept.  It reflects something essential to the human experience — a core need — but is not as tangible or easily comprehensible as shelter, nutrition, and rest. Appropriately, belonging rests in the middle of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. 1 This suggests that belonging is both tremendously important and central to the human condition. Yet exactly why that is so is less obvious. Defining belonging is no simple task.

This essay serves as a backdrop to the papers submitted for this volume. These papers cover topics ranging from  motherhood-driven civic engagement by migrant mothers in Sweden, to “togetherness” oriented childhood education in Denmark, to refugee-led Covid-19 responses in Berlin and their impact on the experience of integration. As these papers draw upon a conception of belonging presented or prompted by us, we wish to describe the contours of our understanding of the term so the papers make sense in context. Our presentation is not exhaustive, but should be sufficient to the goal of making the papers comprehensible in their own terms.

Defining Belonging in the Negative

Perhaps the best way to understand belonging is through the light of contrast, by defining what it is not. Let’s start with Equity and Inclusion. Equity and Inclusion refer to how social groups are stratified across society and critical institutions. Inclusion is a concept that demands institutions and communities open themselves to members of formerly excluded social groups. For example, in the 1960s Yale University finally admitted women onto its campus as undergraduate students, decades after most public universities had done so. 2 Inclusion is a powerful regulative ideal, as well as a strategy or mechanism for reducing social inequality.

Equity moves beyond simple or formalistic notions of equal treatment. When groups are situated differently in society with respect to status, resources, and opportunities, then equal treatment can perpetuate rather than ameliorate social, economic, legal, or political inequality. This is where ‘equity’ comes in. Equity is a recognition that sometimes fair treatment requires differential treatment. Most European constitutional systems recognize equity in this form, as captured by the Spanish expression: “ igual a los iguales y desigual a los desiguales ”, also known as equal treatment.

This is obvious in some cases, as when we prioritize vulnerable groups for vaccines or create special accommodations for people with disabilities or pregnant women. But it is denied in other contexts in which formal equal treatment can lead to significant disparities.

While important concepts, neither equity nor inclusion guarantee belonging. It is possible for institutions to become accessible to formerly excluded groups, and for social or economic disparities to be ameliorated or even eliminated, even as social stigmas or feelings of exclusion persist. Women, for example, were admitted into Yale, but excluded from the social life of the university, from its social clubs to its dining halls. Tangible resources and measurable disparities can be equalized even as certain social stigmas persist, such as caste or gender associations. In India, for example, affirmative action programs can guarantee employment opportunities for lower caste social groups, but that does not mean that cultural assumptions have been extirpated. 3

In this sense, belonging goes beyond Inclusion and Equity, yet includes them in meaningful ways. It would be difficult to imagine that belonging can fully manifest in a society where social groups are excluded from key institutions or large disparities exist between those groups. Yet, belonging calls for something more.

Manifesting Belonging

In our conception, Belonging is both objective and subjective.  It can be quantified and measured, but it is also perceptual, laying in the eye of the beholder. In this respect, Belonging, unlike both Equity and Inclusion, contains a psychological component — an affective component, which shapes the way social groups regard whatever it is they are regarding, an institution, a city, or even society writ large.

If members of a social group feel as if they belong, then belonging exists.  But if they do not, despite being included and having little tangible resource inequities or other disparities between groups, then belonging is lacking. Thus, in biographies of women such as Sonia Sotomayor and Michelle Obama, they report a feeling of “not belonging” on Princeton’s campus of the 1970s. 4 Both women came from vastly different social and economic milieus — the Bronx and the south side of Chicago, respectively — than that which they encountered on that Ivy League campus.

Belonging can be measured by campus climate, and climate surveys, but these surveys must reflect both objective and subjective experiences. 5 This also explains the development of so-called “mindset” interventions, messages designed to signal or express greater belonging, and hopefully engender it in the process. 6

This reveals a core element of belonging: the expressive or communicative message that a group belongs. It can be expressed explicitly, through representation or by signaling that members of a particular group are welcome in a particular space, institution, or community. It can also be expressed implicitly, as when accommodations are made, such as when special food or holidays are provided for. For example, the French Military created accommodations for Muslim cultural traditions by having halal foods served in the military, and providing space for prayer and worship. 7 The absence of accommodations or sensitivities is an equally simple way to signal that members of certain groups do not belong.

Illustration by Peter Wood

Realizing Belonging

As important as these components are to belonging, there is still a missing component to a full manifestation of belonging. Belonging is perceptual and tangible; it is a feeling and a practice. But belonging requires more than accommodation; it also demands agency.

A board or council may be diverse and inclusive, but if members of socially marginalized groups are included without the ability or agency to re-shape and redesign the institution, then inclusion is realized without full belonging. In this model, members of the socially marginalized group are brought in as guests rather than as members. Simply revisiting holiday schedules or respective food traditions can help members of social groups feel more welcome, but they do not create a sense of ownership or control over the mission, values, or core operation of the institution.

Belonging is realized fully when included groups have more than a voice — they are actually able to reshape the institution together with existing stakeholders. Thus, hospitals and other anchor institutions are not just responsive to elite sensibilities, but oriented to serve communities’ needs.  In the process, some institutions may need to be redesigned or their mission rethought. Efforts toward realizing this conception of belonging are already underway in examples like Germany’s requirement for employees to comprise a third of supervisory board seats in companies of at least 500 employees, and half in companies of 2000 or more. Research shows that this measure to provide a decision making role to employees broadens the issues and concerns companies give attention to while simultaneously increasing profits and productivity. In another instance of co-creative belonging, the organization Participatory City worked with the council of the Borough of Barking and Dagenham in the United Kingdom to address the area’s high levels of homelessness, violence, and unemployment. They worked with community members to create a welcoming committee for newcomers, plant community gardens together, and collaborate on community improvement projects. These activities have fostered a sense of togetherness and shared destiny among the residents of Barking and Dagenham, as people have overcome prejudices and isolation to strengthen bonds and deepen community. This kind of agency — co-creation — is the most radical and potentially transformative aspect of true belonging. 

How, then, can these ideas be brought into practice? This digital volume makes significant headway into answering this question. Because Europe and America, and indeed, much of the world, are struggling with many of the same issues, we seek to transport the frame of belonging into the European context to explore models and exciting case studies, as well as to deepen our collective understanding of the problems that impede a sense of belonging. This volume is one fruit of this emerging work.

Toward Belonging

The papers brought together for this online publication illuminate our understanding of the nuances of belonging and model how we can realize it in practice. Exploring topics and themes such as refugee integration, civic engagement and mutual aid, human development and well-being, motherhood and race, as well as much more, this volume is a major step toward deepening our understanding of inter-group dynamics and processes, interventions, and case studies that can promote or lead toward greater belonging. What follows is a brief introduction to a few of the papers included in this digital collection.

Jessica Joelle Alexander’s paper on “Obligated Togetherness” or “ Fællesskab ” is a fascinating exploration of holistic cultural values and practices that emphasize well-being and inclusion in Denmark. Drawing upon a major national survey conducted in 2016, the author demonstrates how certain cultural practices, namely, intentionally and specifically incorporating lessons on social connection and wellbeing into parenting and education, contribute to societal well-being and belonging. She explores, in local terms, how the focus on togetherness and connectedness may lead to a correlation with happiness — in a country that is consistently described as one of the happiest in the world. 

In his essay, Tom Crompton, the Director of the Common Cause Foundation, brings to the fore the role that values — and especially our perception of fellow-citizens’ and neighbors’ core values — plays in community cohesion, well-being, and a sense of belonging. Unsurprisingly, he finds that recognising our mutual core values and value commitments can bridge understanding and build community. Looking at programming his organization has conducted in Manchester, England, the author describes community based interventions work in the real world.

Jonelle Twum’s essay explores the grassroots activities of migrant mothers in the suburbs of Sweden.  Making use of  her fieldwork and interviews, she helps us understand processes of racialization, integration, and gender-informed interventions in Sweden’s exurban areas. In particular, she illuminates strategies employed by these women to thrive and to imagine spaces of greater belonging — even as official institutions and municipal leadership fail to provide the material resources needed to support their communities.

Daniel Stanley, the CEO and founder of the Narrative Futures Lab, deconstructs our understanding of polarization. Although conventionally understood in simplistic or categorical ways, such as racial or economic polarization, he suggests that polarization is best viewed as a byproduct of deeper forces and dynamics, and related to a number of other disturbing phenomena. This essay challenges assumptions about individual and group psychology and political conformity from the post-war period, while also arguing, more hopefully, that a better understanding of the problem can lead to belonging and social cohesion.

Evan Elise Easton provides a broader perspective on refugee experiences in Germany, as they relate to integration processes and activities that foster a sense of belonging. In particular, their essay describes and elevates the cutting edge work of refugee led organizations in Berlin during the Covid-19 Pandemic — allowing us the opportunity to see how integration relates to belonging and community building in a time of social turmoil.

Building Belonging

Belonging is a broad, encompassing concept, and there is no single prescription for how it can be manifested or realized, as the papers in this volume will amply illustrate. It is also a multi-faceted concept relating to agency, connection, place, identity, and security, among other elements. As a result, belonging can exist in many forms or be expressed or experienced in a myriad of different ways.

Belonging can exist in a superficial sense or a deeper sense. It can be experienced as a social dynamic between people or institutionalized in governance, organizations, and associations. It can become embodied in laws, codes, rules and regulations, or it can exist as norms and cultural values.  Intergroup dialogue projects in the United States and Europe that not only create spaces for exchanging stories, but also teach how to communicate across boundaries of difference or realize shared values, advance belonging.

The pressures and challenges within our societies make the work of building belonging more complicated, but also more necessary. Economic inequality, displacement and migration, social media and technology, ethnic conflict and religious violence, wars and political oppression, are tectonic forces that build pressure under our societies. The pressure is often relieved through social fault lines, such as those of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and religion. If we are to build stronger and more cohesive societies, less susceptible to the dangers of demagoguery and division, then we need to find ways to retrofit our social structures and institutions to survive these pressures.

Art description: “As I read through the introduction for this article, I wanted to understand inside myself what it means to feel a sense of belonging. After some processing, I was drawn to the feeling of sitting around a campfire with friends — an activity that creates, within a foreign space, a sense of home and shelter. In this image the four figures gather around the flame, cradled within a nurturing, open gestured hand.”

Artist bio:  Peter Wood is a British artist who was born in Bedford, England in 1991. He studied in London at Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design, and later at the University of Westminster, where he graduated with a degree in Illustration and Visual Communication in 2014. He has been living in Berlin since 2016 and works as an artist, selling prints at an outdoors art market, and through illustration commissions.  

• 1 Maslow, Abraham. “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Psychological Review 50, no. 4 (1943): 370–96.
• 2 Fetters, Ashley. “The First of the ‘Yale Women.’” The Atlantic , September 22, 2019. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/09/first-undergraduate-women-yale/598216/.
• 3 "Why India Needs a New Debate on Caste Quotas.” BBC News , August 29, 2015. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-34082770.
• 4 Lithwick, Dalia. “Sonia Sotomayor, Outsider.” Slate , September 4, 2015. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/09/sonia-sotomayor-conversation-at-notre-dame-first-latina-doesnt-feel-like-she-belongs-on-supreme-court.html .
• 5 “My Experience Survey 2019: Campus Findings and Recommendations.” UC Berkeley Office of the Chancellor, 2020. ttps://myexperience.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/myexperiencesurvey2019-final.pdf .
• 6 Dweck, Carol. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success . New York: Ballantine Books, 2006.
• 7 Onishi, Norimitsu, and Constant Méheut. “In France’s Military, Muslims Find a Tolerance That Is Elusive Elsewhere.” New York Times , June 26, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/26/world/europe/in-frances-military-muslims-find-a-tolerance-that-is-elusive-elsewhere.html .

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EFT International

Advancing EFT Tapping (Emotional Freedom Techniques) Worldwide Since 1999

The Pain of “Not Belonging”

By: Carna Zacharias-Miller Categories: Anxiety , Core Issues , EFTfree Archives , Fear , Inner Child EFT , Self-Acceptance

Here are some thoughts about the feeling "I don't belong anywhere, and it hurts so much" with a tapping script. This is an issue that almost all of my clients have.

Where does this feeling of not belonging come from?

We all feel that way under certain circumstances. However, if it is a very painful feeling that comes up again and again, if it is the theme of one's life, then it originates in childhood (and, possibly, past lives).

It is often mixed with other emotions, like loneliness, deep sadness, feeling different, "what's wrong with me", and abandonment and rejection. As we know, it is a basic need for children to belong, to have a safe place, to be at least validated if not cherished.

There are several childhood scenarios that bring up this ongoing, basic feeling.

Definitely a “missing mother”, which is a mother who was very sick or died, or, more common, a mother who was emotionally not connected to the child. If we don’t belong to our mother, who do we belong to? An absent father who is physically or emotionally not a secure part of a child’s life can have that effect too.

If we did not have a safe, secure place as a child and at least one adult person who gave us that feeling of belonging, we will have this constant yearning to belong somewhere, with someone.

How does it play out in adult life?

In many ways, and all of them are painful and difficult to handle. There are two extremes: We are constantly looking for that place or person that gives us a feeling of belonging, we are needy and a people pleaser. Separation of any kind, like a divorce, the death of a parent, or a job loss is very hard on us, and we are re-traumatized when that happens.

The other extreme is never allowing ourselves to attach to any person or place and always defending our so-called independence, which is no emotional freedom at all. We roam from place to place, from person to person, never finding inner peace.

What is the difference between fitting in and belonging?

We force ourselves to fit in where we don’t belong. It’s the round peg in the square hole, or the swan trying to be a duck. Belonging is natural and organic. It supports who we truly are.

How do we know that we belong, and can we learn to belong?

When that happens with a place or person, or a group of people, we just know. All of a sudden, there appears the right man, woman, child or group, the right spiritual path, or the kind of work that makes us happy. We know when it is just right for us. ("I was born to do this/to belong to this family/to be at this place/to follow this path"). Like the Ugly Duckling who finally found his people, the swans.

How do we get there? Mostly by trial and error, that is why this feeling is especially painful when we are young. However, we have to be able to learn from our painful experiences. It takes awareness and courage. Out of that flows the right action.

Is there an upside, a hidden treasure to this very painful issue?

That is the whole point of my work. Because it is so very painful, we can’t ignore it. The first rule is to avoid being self-destructive, or at least to be aware of it. Like numbing ourselves with food or substances, playing out big emotional dramas that hurt our relationships, or even staying in abusive situations.

The very best way to handle this is to go on a spiritual journey. Finding out want we really want in life, who we really are, what people and places are good and supportive for us. At the end, we'll find out that there is no separation. We are all one and belong to each other and to Source.

Tapping on “I don’t belong”

You agree to take responsibility for yourself during this process. If it is emotionally very intense, please contact and work with an experienced EFT practitioner.

First, tune in to your general feeling of emotional (and/or physical) pain regarding this issue and put your discomfort on a scale 0 to 10. 0 is no pain at all, and 10 is extreme. Write this number down. Start tapping on the KARATE CHOP point (side of the hand), and say out loud:

Even though I feel lost, unsafe, and out of place everywhere, I deeply and completely love and accept myself  Even though I don’t belong anywhere and it hurts so much, I honor and respect myself Even though I have never felt safe when I was a child, I allow myself to feel safe now.

Now tap on the following points while saying out loud:

Eyebrow : Always lost, unsafe, and out of place Side of eye : I don’t belong anywhere Under eye : I just don’t belong! Nose : I am a stranger in this world wherever I go Chin : Nobody wants me anyway Collarbone: Why am I here, what am I doing here? Under arm: This deep, old sadness Top of head: This constant yearning for a place where I belong

Eyebrow : This little kid inside me… Side of eye: …needs a home Under eye: This little kid inside me… Nose: …needs to belong Chin: This pain in my heart Collarbone: I am different, I don’t belong here Under arm: There must be something wrong with me Top of head: I want to go HOME

Take a deep breath.

Now, rate your global pain again on our scale 0 to 10.

If the intensity went down (or up) use Even though I STILL have/am/do… (adjust the grammar) as the new set-up phrase and go though the tapping sequence again. Repeat this process until you feel profound relief (an emotional shift), or as often as it feels right.

If your intensity did not budge at all (or the level gets “stuck” during the follow-up rounds) you have to get more specific.

If you were flooded with memories, thoughts, emotions, or body sensations while you were tapping, you already got more specific.

Since this script cannot be as personal as a private session, you have to adjust parts of it to your needs. The following sequence is a guideline, please fill in the blanks and extend it. There is no right or wrong when it comes to tapping. Often, out of the greatest mental and emotional mess, a gem (or a whole treasure chest) evolves. Trust the process.

Sometimes, you will release an issue in a jiffy. At other times, you have to do major excavation work.

KARATE CHOP: Even though I feel this …. (strong emotion like fear, desperation, sadness) I deeply and completely love and accept myself Even though I feel this emotion in my (body part like heart, throat, eyes), I love and appreciate my body Even though I have this memory of (give it a title like “Forgotten in the grocery store”), I allow myself to feel safe now. Eyebrow: This (emotion) Side of eye : This discomfort/pain in my (body part) Under eye : This memory of (title of memory) Nose : There is no place for me in this world  Chin : I can never get over that Collarbone : It hurts too much  Under arm : There is nothing and nobody I belong to Top of head : This deep yearning for a place where I belong

Continue with the specifics of your feelings, body sensations, beliefs, and memories.

What does this current emotional pain remind you of?

When did you feel that you don’t belong for the first time?

How did you feel generally as a child?

What specific situation comes up? Narrate the story.

Did the discomfort/pain in your body shift? Where is it now ?

What are your exact feelings now? Did they change?

Did another memory pop up?

Could you express your feelings as a child? If you did, what were the consequences? If you could not, how did you feel about that?

Continue to “dig” and follow the trail of your memories, thoughts, emotions, and body sensations. Talk it out, make notes, and tap until you get relief.

If you feel warm or dead tired, sigh, yawn, or get bored with the whole thing – those are good signs! Your energy is shifting.

Now you are ready for the last round:

KARATE CHOP: Even though a part of me still feels that I don’t belong, I choose to listen to the wiser part of me  Even though I don’t know who I would be without this feeling, the truth is that this feeling is not who I really am Even though I am sensitive and vulnerable, I deeply and completely love and accept myself. Eyebrow : I give myself permission to let all that go now. Side of eye : I give the lost little child inside me a home Under eye : She (he) belongs with me Nose : The time for healing is now Chin : That was then and this is now Collarbone : I reclaim my sense of belonging Under arm : Separateness is an illusion Top of the head : Nobody can get lost in this world because we are all ONE Eyebrow : I let go of all this sadness and desperation now Side of eye : My life is joyful and connected  Under eye : I am at home everywhere Nose : I feel safe and secure in my body Chin : I feel safe and secure with other people Collarbone : I feel safe and secure in Spirit Under arm : I trust the flow of life, I belong Top of the head : I am guided and protected wherever I am

Carna Zacharias-Miller is an EFT International Certified Advanced EFT practitioner in Tucson, Arizona. Her specialties are working with people who grew up in dysfunctional families, www.MissingMother.com , and introducing EFT into the dance community. Carna's new blog, www.sacredquestforlove , explores the spiritual side of emotions. You can also find her books on the site, The Way of the Ugly Duckling and, for dancers, It Takes Two To Tango .

From the EFTfree Archives , which are now a part of EFT International . Originally published Apr 13, 2014.

Samuel says

8 March, 2019 at 9:54 pm

Thank you. I believe I found this at the right time. You’re wonderful. I’m very grateful.

debbie wilson says

24 May, 2017 at 2:54 am

Thank you, this is so spot on! I am in my 50s and this sums up a lifetime of sadness and desperation, constantly moving every couple of years and searching…

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Students’ Sense of Belonging Matters: Evidence from Three Studies

On Thursday, February 16, we hosted Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan to discuss her latest research on how students’ sense of belonging matters.

• Evidence has shown that in certain contexts, a student’s sense of belonging improves academic outcomes, increases continuing enrollment, and is protective for mental health. In some of the studies presented, these correlations were still present beyond the time frame of the analysis, suggesting that belonging might have a longitudinal effect.
• Providing a more adaptive interpretation of challenge seemed to help students in a belonging intervention make alternative and more adaptive attributions for their struggles, forestalling a potential negative impact on their sense of belonging.

Professor Gopalan began her talk by discussing how the need for “a sense of belonging” has been identified as a universal and fundamental human motivation in the field of psychology. John Bowlby, one of the first to conduct formal scientific research on belonging, examined the effects on children who had been separated from their parents during WWII (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). From his pioneering work, Bowlby and colleagues proposed that humans are driven to form lasting and meaningful interpersonal relationships, and the inability to meet this need results in loneliness and mental distress. Educational psychologists adapted the concept of belonging to indicate how students’ sense of fit with themselves and with their academic context can affect how they perceive whether they can thrive within it (Eccles & Midgley, 1989; Eccles & Roeser, 2011).

After providing this brief overview of what belonging means more broadly, Dr. Gopalan introduced the concept of “belonging uncertainty” pioneered by social psychologists Geoffrey Cohen and Gregory Walton at Stanford University (Walton & Cohen, 2007) to describe the uncertainty students might feel about their belonging when entering a new social and academic situation , which is most pronounced during times of transition (e.g., entering college). Research has shown that belonging uncertainty affects how students make sense of daily adversities, often interpreting negative events as evidence for why they do not belong. Belonging uncertainty may result in disengagement and poor academic outcomes. In contrast, a sense of belonging is associated with academic achievement, persistence in the course, major, and college (Walton & Cohen, 20011, Yeager & Walton, 2011). It is the concept of belonging uncertainty that is the focus of Dr. Gopalan’s presentation, with emphasis on the findings from the following key research questions:

• How do students’ sense of belonging in the first year correlate with academic persistence and outcomes at a national level?
• Can belonging interventions during the first semester of college lead to increased persistence and academic achievement in a diverse educational setting?
• How does a student’s sense of belonging amidst the COVID-19 pandemic correlate with mental health?

Study 1: College Students’ Sense of Belonging: A National Perspective (Gopalan & Brady, 2019)

Most research examining college students’ sense of belonging has come from studies looking at one or a few single four-year institutions. To examine how belonging differs across student identities and institutions, Professor Gopalan and colleagues looked at the responses from the only nationally representative survey of college students to date that had measured belonging. The Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS) (Dudley et al ., 2020) sampled first-time beginning college students from 4070 eligible two- and four-year institutions (N= 23, 750 students), surveyed during their first year and subsequently two years later.

Professor Gopalan examined average measurements of belonging across institution type and student characteristics (Gopalan & Brady, 2019) and associations between belonging measurements and measurements of academic achievement, including GPA and persistence (continued enrollment), self-reported mental health, and self-reported use of campus services. The results, Dr. Gopalan explained, were striking: underrepresented racial and ethnic minority students (URMs) and first-generation/low-income students (FGLIs) reported a lower sense of belonging in four-year colleges than their non-URM and non-FGLI counterparts. 1 Importantly, they also found that having a greater sense of belonging is associated with higher academic performance, persistence, and is protective for mental health in year three of students’ undergraduate trajectory, suggesting that belonging might have a longitudinal effect (Gopalan & Brady, 2019). These findings were consistent with previous results from smaller studies involving single institutions. Sense of belonging is important not just in specific institutions but nationally, and social identity and context matter . One practical and policy-driven takeaway from this study is that only one national data set currently measures students’ sense of belonging using a single item. More robust measurements and large data sets might reveal additional insights into the importance of belonging for students’ educational experiences.

1 At two-year colleges, first-year belonging is not associated with persistence, engagement, or mental health. This suggests that belonging may function differently in two-year settings. More work is ongoing to try to understand the context that might be driving the difference. (Deil-Amen, 2011).

Study 2: A customized belonging intervention improves retention of socially disadvantaged students at a broad-access university (Murphy et al ., 2020)

Professor Gopalan and colleagues wanted to understand how to adapt existing belonging interventions to different educational contexts and dig deeper into underlying psychological processes underpinning belonging uncertainty. Because previous social-belonging interventions were conducted in well-resourced private or public institutions, Professor Gopalan was interested in examining whether the positive effects of belonging interventions could be extended to a broader-access context (context matters as not all extensions of belonging interventions have been shown to reproduce persistent changes in enrollment and academic outcomes). For this purpose, the traditional belonging interventions were customized for a four-year, Hispanic-serving public university with an 85% commuter enrollment using focus groups and surveys. Based on prior research, belonging interventions provide an adaptive lay theory for why students encounter challenges during transition times (Yeager et al ., 2016). Students, particularly those with little knowledge of how college works or those who have experienced discrimination, or are aware of negative stereotypes about their social group, may make global interpretations of why college can be challenging and may even associate challenges as evidence that they and students like them don’t belong. With belonging interventions, the lay theory provided to students aims to frame the experience of challenge in more adaptive ways—challenge and adversity are typical experiences, particularly during transitional moments, and should be expected; adapting academically and socially takes time—students will be more likely to persist, seek out campus resources and develop social relationships.

• They acknowledge that challenges are expected during transitions and that these are varied.
• They communicate to students that most students, including students from non-minority groups, experience similar challenges and feelings about them.
• They communicate that belonging is a process that takes time and tends to increase over time
• They use student examples of challenges and resolutions.

The Intervention

All students in the first-year writing class were randomly assigned to either the belonging group or an active control group. The intervention was provided to first-year students in their writing class and consisted of a reading and writing assignment about social and academic belonging. The control group was given the same assignment but with a different topic, study skills. In the intervention group, students read several stories from a racially diverse set of upper-level students who reflected on the challenges of making friends and adjusting to a new academic context. The hypothetical students reflected on the strategies they used, the resources they accessed, and how the challenge dissipated over time. After the reading exercise, the students in the intervention group were instructed to write about how the readings echoed their own first-year experiences. Then, they were asked to write a letter to future students who might question their belonging during their transition to college. Research has shown that written reflections help students internalize the main messages of the belonging intervention (Yeager & Walton, 2011).

Similar to previously published belonging interventions, results in persistence and academic achievement were significant for minoritized groups in the belonging cohort:

• Persistence. Compared to the control group, continuous enrollment for URM & FGLI students increased by 10% one year after and 9% two years after the intervention.
• Performance. The non-cumulative GPA from the URM & FGLI students increased by 0.19 points the semester immediately following the intervention and by 0.11 over the next two years compared to students in the control group.

Immediately following the intervention, a selected sub-sample of students in both conditions was invited to take a daily diary survey for nine consecutive days. The daily diary survey assessed students’ daily positive and negative academic and social experiences (students were asked to report and describe three negative and three positive events that they faced daily and to rate how positive and negative the events were), as well as their daily sense of social and academic belonging. The daily-diary assignment revealed another interesting finding: the intervention did not change the overall perception of negative events. URM & FGLI students in both groups had a statistically similar daily-adversity index and reported the same number of daily adverse events on average. However, there was no connection between the adversity index and sense of belonging for students in the belonging cohort. In contrast, students in the control group evidenced a negative correlation between daily adversities and belonging: “the greater adversity disadvantaged students experienced on a day, the lower their sense of social and academic fit” (Murphy et al ., 2020).

Providing a more adaptive interpretation of challenge seemed to help students in the belonging condition make alternative and more adaptive attributions for their struggles that did not connect to their sense of belonging. A follow-up survey one year after the intervention showed that minoritized students in the belonging intervention continued to report a higher sense of belonging in comparison to their counterparts in the control group.

Study 3: College Student’s Sense of Belonging and Mental Health Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic (Gopalan et al ., 2022)

Dr. Gopalan presented the third study, which turned out to provide a unique opportunity to assess whether sense of belonging had predictive effects on mental health. In the fall of 2019, researchers sent a survey to students at a large, multicampus Northeastern public university called the College Relationship and Experience survey (CORE), which included two questions about belonging, among other items. In the Spring of 2020, after students were sent home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a variation of the same survey was sent to students who had taken the CORE survey. After controlling for pre-COVID depression and anxiety, Dr. Gopolan and colleagues found that students who reported a higher sense of belonging in the fall of 2019 had lower rates of depression and anxiety midst-COVID pandemic , with the effects on depression more strongly predictive than those for anxiety. The correlation between a lower sense of belonging and higher rates of depression and anxiety was also found to be strongest for first-year students, who had little time during their first year to build community and adjust to college before the pandemic hit.

Dr. Gopalan concluded with some practical advice for instructors: “Stop telling students they belong, show them instead that they belong,” citing a recent op-ed from Greg Walton . We do this by modeling the idea that belonging is a process that takes time and by communicating to students that they are not alone , which can be done through sharing our own experiences with belonging, and by allowing students space to hear the experiences of their peers and learn from one another.

• Classroom Practices Library which includes Overview: Effective Social Belonging Messages are more.
• The Project for Education Research That Scales (PERTS) : a free belonging intervention for four-year colleges and universities.
• Research library on belonging
• Article on Structures for Belonging: A Synthesis of Research on Belonging-Supportive Learning Environments
• “Stop telling students ‘You Belong!’”
• Everyone is talking about belonging: What does it really mean?
• Post-secondary
• Academic Belonging : introduction to the concept and practices that support it.
• Flipping Failure : a campus-wide initiative to help students feel less alone by hearing stories about how their peers coped with academic challenges

Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117 (3), 497–529. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.497

Deil-Amen, R. (2011). Socio-academic integrative moments: Rethinking academic and social integration among two-year college students in career-related programs. The Journal of Higher Education , 82(1), 54-91. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2011.11779085  

Dudley, K., Caperton, S.A., and Smith Ritchie, N. (2020). 2012 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:12) Student Records Collection Research Data File Documentation (NCES 2021-524). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved 2/27/2023 from https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid-2021524

Eccles, J. S., & Midgley, C. (1989). Stage/Environment Fit: Developmentally Appropriate Classrooms for Early Adolescence. In R. E. Ames, & Ames, C. (Eds.), Research on Motivation in Education , 3, 139-186. New York: Academic Press.

Eccles, J. S., & Roeser, R. W. (2011). Schools as developmental contexts during adolescence. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21 (1), 225–241. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2010.00725.x

Gopalan, M., & Brady, S. T. (2020). College Students’ Sense of Belonging: A National Perspective. Educational Researcher , 49(2), 134–137. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X19897622

Gopalan, M., Linden-Carmichael, A. Lanza, S. (2022). College Students’ Sense of Belonging and Mental Health Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic, Journal of Adolescent Health , 70(2), 228-233. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2021.10.010

Murphy, M.C., Gopalan, M., Carter, E. R., Emerson, K. T. U., Bottoms, B. L., and Walton, G.M., (2020). A customized belonging intervention improves retention of socially disadvantaged students at a broad-access university Science Advances, 6(29). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aba4677

Walton, & Cohen. (2007). A question of belonging: Race, social fit, and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(1), 82. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.1.82

Walton, G.M., & Cohen, G.L. (2011). A Brief Social-Belonging Intervention Improves Academic and Health Outcomes of Minority Students. Science,  331(6023), 1447-1451.  DOI: 10.1126/science.1198364

Yeager, D. S., & Walton, G. M. (2011). Social-Psychological Interventions in Education They’re Not Magic. Review of Educational Research, 81(2), 267–301. http://doi.org/10.3102/0034654311405999

Yeager, D.S., Walton G.M., Brady, S.T., Dweck, C.S.,(2016). Teaching a lay theory before college narrows achievement gaps at scale, Psychological and Cognitive Sciences , 113(24), E3341-E3348. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1524360113

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Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

How to Create More Belonging for Yourself and Others

Before a big, make-or-break presentation to shareholders, a rising employee in Silicon Valley was feeling nervous. Although her career was going well, it was still difficult to make it in a male-dominated industry, and she often felt like she didn’t belong.

But before the talk, her CEO came up to her, looked her in the eye, and said, “You are changing this company.” It gave her the confidence to go in, give the speech, and nail it. Today, she is the director of a major firm in the technology industry.

The way we treat each other can help us feel like we belong—or not. Belonging is the sense that we’re part of a larger group that accepts and values us for who we are, to which we can contribute; we feel like we have roots, maybe even a home.

As humans, we evolved to move through the world together, and there can be destructive consequences when belonging is missing, including for our health. Amid the pain of not belonging, we feel more threatened and stressed in the world, and sometimes we’ll seek out belonging wherever we can get it—even in extremist, violent ideological groups.

But there are small things we can do, day in and day out, to feel that we belong and help others feel the same. Based on research by myself and others, here are a few. 

Reach out. There is so much we can do to help one another, and small actions matter. It could be just a word from a mentor, or a well-timed pat on the back, that is just what we need at the right time.

Research by Gillian Sandstrom , Elizabeth Dunn, Eric Wesselmann , Kip Williams, and many others shows how little things make a big difference. Even talking to your barista in a way that conveys you want to get to know them, or making eye contact with people, has benefits for your sense of meaning, connection, and purpose. So does turning your phone off when you’re with friends or family.

The ability to connect in the smallest corners of social life is almost like a superpower that we all have.

Don’t underestimate the benefits of connection. What we think will make us happy isn’t necessarily what makes us happy, and sometimes that means we miss out on opportunities for happiness and connection. According to research by Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder , people don’t think talking to a stranger on the train will make them happier. But when they actually do it—just a 10-minute chit-chat—they are happier. Even little connections energize us.

Connecting with other people has many benefits. First, you get alternate perspectives on your own troubles and worries. But you’re also experiencing the delight of encountering another human being. If you’re awake to that wonder, there is much joy to be had.

Don’t be so quick to judge others. The fundamental attribution error refers to our tendency to over-blame people—their personality, abilities, and virtues—and to under-blame situations and context. We fail to imagine how the things in their circumstances, even the ones right in front of our face, may be affecting them.

For example, teachers and managers overattribute poor performance to a lack of ability, especially in people who belong to negatively stereotyped groups. If a Black kid misbehaves twice in class, they may write them off as a troublemaker, and they’re more likely to suggest suspending them, suggests research by Jason Okonofua and Jennifer Eberhardt . That does more harm than good, aggravating the sense of exclusion and uncertainty about belonging that often drives kids to act out. 
 Instead, we can empathize and try to get the perspective of the people who disappoint and upset us. Research suggests that taking an empathic rather than punitive perspective on misbehaving students—inquiring into what’s troubling them, and responding by reinforcing connection rather than with punishment—reduces teenagers’ suspension rates, especially among members of underrepresented ethnic groups.

Reflect on your values . In numerous studies, researchers have asked individuals—like students, employees, and professional athletes—to take some time before a stressful moment and reflect or write about their core values . They look at a list of values, such as relationships with friends and family or community, and they select their most important ones. Then, they write about why these values are important to them.

Affirming Important Values

When your self-image takes a hit, reflect on what matters

When teachers ask students to do this, research by Eric Smith and Greg Walton suggests, it conveys that the teacher cares about them and wants to know their whole self. It also invites their full self into what can be a seemingly threatening situation (middle school), so they feel bigger than the problems before them and able to overcome more difficulties.

This small act of revisiting our core values can tamp down the stress response we have in threatening or stressful situations. For middle schoolers from underrepresented groups, the activity can improve their Affirmation on Identity Development">sense of belonging in school , boost their GPA over the next two years, improve their disciplinary behavior , and help them make it to college . And those benefits are strongest among students who are often made to feel like outsiders because of their income or background. New research by Julian Pfrombeck and his colleagues finds that these values affirmations help the unemployed to stay engaged during the often-discouraging job search process, increasing their likelihood of finding employment.

Be welcoming at the beginning. In the workplace, research by Dan Cable and his colleagues suggests we can improve retention by helping employees evoke their best self during the onboarding process, rather than trying to “break them in.”

If you wait too long to intervene or to plant that seat of belonging, it’s often too late. We have a lot of leverage at those early moments when we’re opening the door and welcoming a person in. It’s like arriving at a party: That moment when you’re greeted and welcomed can really shape the tone of the whole experience.

Give wise criticism. How do we give good critical feedback to our employees or students in a way that helps them learn but isn’t threatening or undermining to their sense of belonging? In a series of studies, we found a simple technique that can be very helpful: When you’re giving the feedback, first make it clear (in a genuine way) that it comes from high standards. I’m giving you this critical feedback because I have high standards and because I believe in your potential to reach them.

In one study with my colleague David Yeager and others, we found that when middle school students received this message from their teacher with feedback on an essay, the percentage of students who revised their essay jumped from 17% to 72%. Years later, those kids were more likely to make it to a four-year college because that message came at a formative moment when they were trying to get a foothold and feel like they belonged.

Share stories of adversity. When people are transitioning into new roles, one helpful way to convey the message you’re not alone here is to have those who are more senior share their stories of adversity and what they went through when they were transitioning.

My research with Gregory Walton and Shannon Brady finds benefits to this in college and in workplaces. The stories of adversity are conveying two messages: First, if you’re feeling like you don’t quite belong during this transition, that’s normal. You’re not alone. And, second, feeling like you don’t belong tends to be short-lived. It gets better if you hang in there, reach out to people, and ask for feedback.

Stories of people who have gone before us—who have “been there, done that”—help us to see our shared humanity. They can be reassuring and promote belonging, school retention, health, well-being, productivity, and morale.

Listen to other people’s perspectives. Too seldom do we take the time to ask people questions about what’s standing in the way of their belonging and how we can help—what Nicholas Epley calls perspective-getting .

In one study , researchers asked college students from historically underrepresented groups (Black and Latino students) about their experiences and struggles in college. The students said they wanted more faculty engagement and more tips on improvement. So instructors started sending emails that explained how to improve if the students weren’t getting good grades, and when to come for office hours. This simple message increased students’ grades in their course, with some evidence that it also raised graduation rates.

For many people in our society, systems of exclusion make them de facto outsiders in so many situations, and systemic change in many of our institutions is necessary. At the same time, all these brief practices can have lasting benefits for people’s sense of belonging, performance, and achievement if we offer them to our mentees, friends, students, or strangers, especially at timely moments.  Several of these strategies have been tested and validated in large-scale studies , even at the national level .

While these acts may be brief, they aren’t small. In fact, they are often psychologically very big from the perspective of a kid or a new employee who feels unseen or like an outsider. These acts can occasion a change in identity and trajectory by sending the message I see you , I believe in you , or You’re not alone .

This essay is based on a  talk  that is part of the Positive Links Speaker Series by the University of Michigan’s Center for Positive Organizations. The Center is dedicated to building a better world by pioneering the science of thriving organizations.

Bridging for Belonging

Explore the science of empathy, humility, forgiveness in a new program for educators.

About the Author

Geoffrey Cohen

Geoffrey Cohen, Ph.D. , is the James G. March Professor of Organizational Studies in Education and Business at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, and (by courtesy) a professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

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Finding our way to true belonging

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So many of us long to be part of something real. But we’ll need to risk discomfort and criticism and show the world our real selves first, says vulnerability researcher Brené Brown.

True belonging.

I don’t know exactly what it is about the combination of those two words, but I do know that when I say it aloud, it just feels right. It feels like something that we all crave and need in our lives. We want to be a part of something, but we need it to be real — not conditional or fake or constantly up for negotiation. We need true belonging, but what exactly is it?

In 2010, in my book The Gifts of Imperfection , I defined belonging this way:

“Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging, but often barriers to it. Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”

This definition has withstood the test of time as well as the emergence of new data, but it is incomplete. There’s much more to true belonging. Being ourselves means sometimes having to find the courage to stand alone, totally alone. It’s not something we achieve or accomplish with others; it’s something we carry in our heart. Once we belong thoroughly to ourselves and believe thoroughly in ourselves, true belonging is ours.

No matter how separated we are by what we think and believe, we are part of the same spiritual story.

Belonging to ourselves means being called to stand alone — to brave the wilderness of uncertainty, vulnerability and criticism. And with the world feeling like a political and ideological combat zone, this is remarkably tough. We seem to have forgotten that even when we’re utterly alone, we’re connected to one another by something greater than group membership, politics and ideology — we’re connected by love and the human spirit. No matter how separated we are by what we think and believe, we are part of the same spiritual story.

The special courage it takes to experience true belonging is not just about braving the wilderness, it’s about becoming the wilderness. It’s about breaking down the walls, abandoning our ideological bunkers and living from our wild heart rather than our weary hurt. We’re going to need to intentionally be with people who are different from us. We’re going to have to sign up, join and take a seat at the table. We’re going to have to learn how to listen, have hard conversations, look for joy, share pain and be more curious than defensive, all while seeking moments of togetherness.

True belonging is not passive. It’s not the belonging that comes with just joining a group. It’s not fitting in or pretending or selling out because it’s safer. It’s a practice that requires us to be vulnerable, get uncomfortable and learn how to be present with people — without sacrificing who we are. We want true belonging, but it takes tremendous courage to knowingly walk into hard moments.

True belonging is not something you negotiate externally, it’s what you carry in your heart. It’s finding the sacredness in being a part of something.

You don’t wander into the wilderness unprepared. Standing alone in a hypercritical environment or standing together in the midst of difference requires one tool above all others: trust. To brave the wilderness and become the wilderness, we must learn how to trust ourselves and trust others.

As I often say, I’m an experienced mapmaker, but I can be as much of a lost and stumbling traveler as anyone else. We all must find our own way through. This means that, while we may share the same research map, your path will be different from mine. Joseph Campbell wrote, “If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.”

We’ll need to learn how to navigate the tension of many paradoxes along the way, including the importance of being with and being alone . In many ways, the etymology of the word “paradox” cuts right to the heart of what it means to break out of our ideological bunkers, stand on our own and brave the wilderness. In its Greek origins, paradox is the joining of two words, para (contrary to) and dokein (opinion). The Latin paradoxum means “seemingly absurd but really true.”

True belonging is not something you negotiate externally, it’s what you carry in your heart. It’s finding the sacredness in being a part of something. When we reach this place, even momentarily, we belong everywhere and nowhere. That seems absurd, but it’s true. Carl Jung argued that a paradox is one of our most valued spiritual possessions and a great witness to the truth. It makes sense to me that we’re called to combat this spiritual crisis of disconnection with one of our most valued spiritual possessions. Bearing witness to the truth is rarely easy, especially when we’re alone in the wilderness.

But as Maya Angelou tells us, “The price is high. The reward is great.”

Excerpted with permission from the new book Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone by Brené Brown. Published by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Copyright © 2017 by Brené Brown. All rights reserved.

About the author

Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston where she holds the Huffington Foundation-Brené Brown Endowed Chair at the Graduate School of Social Work. She has spent 16 years studying courage, vulnerability, shame and empathy. She is also the author of three #1 New York Times bestsellers: "The Gifts of Imperfection," "Daring Greatly," and "Rising Strong."

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Frontiers for Young Minds

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Do You Feel Like You Belong?

People have a natural need to connect and belong. Belonging makes a person feel good and accepted. A sense of belonging, particularly in schools, is important for young people. However, many students do not feel that they belong at their schools. This feeling may only be temporary and can change at any time. Parents, teachers, and other students have vital roles in improving young people’s sense of belonging. Other factors that also influence a young person’s sense of belonging in school are personal characteristics, mental health, and academic motivation.

We All Want to Belong

Imagine for just 1 minute that you have found yourself in a room, on your own. There are no windows, there is no furniture, and there are certainly no people. The room is stripped down to nothing. The floor is exposed, the walls are bare. There is nothing in the room but you and the clothes you are wearing. You stop whatever you are doing and try to clear your mind. What is the first thing you think about?

Chances are you think about someone you know—another person. That is because, when we are seemingly at rest, our brains work in the same way they do when we are engaged in interacting with other people. This occurrence is explained by something called the default mode network [ 1 ]. The default mode network is a large brain network that becomes active when our brains are not focused on anything in particular. Researchers now understand that the default mode network can still be active even when we are engaged in other tasks. It enables us to think about others, our self, and our past or future. The default mode network reflects our need to belong and interact with others.

Even though we sometimes want to be alone, most of us strive to connect with other people—to fit in and to belong. Have you ever eaten something you did not like, to avoid offending someone? Perhaps it was your Nana’s home-cooked tuna mornay? Have you ever stopped yourself from doing something because you knew that it would be met with judgment or disapproval? Like singing a favorite song out loud when it came through the speakers at your local supermarket? Have you ever been unsure about a particular situation and looked around the room to see what other people were doing? Perhaps it was an activity at school or in a new country you traveled to? The reason why you might have decided to “go with the flow” and hide your real feelings or wants is because of the natural urge to belong and fit in.

What Is Belonging?

A sense of belonging has been described as one of our most important needs [ 2 ]. In fact, belonging means that you feel accepted, included, or a part of something else. People can feel like they belong to a school, a friendship, a sporting group, or even a classroom [ 3 ]. And we know two things: belonging feels good, but we tend not to realize this until we miss it. But what does belonging feel like, exactly? It is hard to say, but we know that the feeling of not belonging can feel like physical pain for some people, like jamming your thumb in a car door or burning your finger on a hot stove [ 4 ]. Not belonging can be linked to feelings of worthlessness, self-doubt, isolation, and sadness. It can affect your relationships with others and even your grades. Belonging is important and can be experienced differently by different people. Because many young people around the world attend school, schools are a primary place for most young people to feel a sense of belonging [ 5 ].

Many Students Do Not Feel Like They Belong at Their Schools

If you feel like you do not belong, you are not alone. In fact, if you look around the average classroom, at least one in every three students would not feel a sense of belonging [ 6 ]. When some researchers asked students if they recently felt like they belonged at their schools, 29% of them said they did not feel that way, and this percentage has been steadily increasing since 2003 ( Figure 1 ). Feelings of not belonging and loneliness are a part of the spectrum of human emotions. There is nothing wrong with feeling these things. We all move through different waves of belonging, especially at school. Some days we may feel more connected than others. Some days we may feel lonelier than others. Your feelings of belonging may sometimes be high, and sometimes be low, and sometimes they may fall somewhere in between. Belonging is a unique experience and my own research has found that there are a lot of things that can influence it [ 7 ]. The main point here, however, is that feelings of not belonging can be temporary. They can be changed.

• Figure 1 - Percentages of students who do not feel a sense of school belonging for the years 2003, 2012, 2015, and 2018.
• More and more students are not feeling like they belong in school, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) [ 6 ].

The Importance of Belonging

When students feel that they belong, they are more likely to get good grades and otherwise perform well in school. A feeling of belonging also positively affects students’ psychosocial functioning , meaning their ability to perform daily activities and interact with people around them. Research has found that a sense of belonging is an important factor in students’ motivation, and how they cope and learn in school. A feeling of belonging fosters positive attitudes toward learning, improves well-being , and improves your confidence in your ability to do well in school. Additionally, a high sense of belonging is related to less misconduct in school and more positive social relationships [ 7 ].

Everyone Has a Role in Helping Other People to Belong

There are lots of reasons why other people may not feel like they belong to your group of friends, to your school, or to another group you may be involved in. It is important to remember that “belongingness can be almost as compelling as the need for food” [ 2 ]. That means that nearly everyone you know will want to be included and feel a sense of belonging—even your teachers, parents, and caregivers.

What Can You Do to Help Others Belong?

Research has found that there are many things that can influence a sense of belonging for young people at school and these things can be found within school and outside of school ( Figure 2 ). Some of the most important factors stem from the relationships young people have with parents, teachers, and other students. Building strong and healthy relationships with the core people in your life will help create a sense of belonging. Young people who feel close to and supported by their friends, in terms of both schoolwork and personal issues, are more likely to feel like they belong at school. One of the most powerful predictors of school belonging is teachers. When young people feel liked and cared for by teachers, and think their teachers are likable and fair, they are more likely to report feelings of school belonging. Young people with parents who support them at school, who have positive conversations with their kids about school, and who take an interest in their kids’ education have also been found to feel high levels of school belonging. Parents also have a role to play in helping their kids maintain regular school attendance and participate in school-sanctioned events, which also helps kids have good feelings about school.

• Figure 2 - Rainbow model of school belonging.
• There are many factors that can influence a young person’s sense of belonging, including their personality, social groups and family, school, local community, natural environment, culture, and even the broader issues surrounding the planet, such as climate change. This figure shows that these influential factors can blend together, much like the colors of a rainbow. This figure also shows that a young person’s sense of belonging can waiver between high and low. Adapted from Allen and Kern [ 8 ].

Interestingly though, it is not just other people who help with belonging. You can help with your own sense of belonging as well! Young people who are resilient (able to bounce back from problems), who can cope well with challenges and stress, and who are flexible and adaptable are in a good position to feel a sense of belonging. Young people who are happy and have good mental health are more likely to feel like they belong. And there is one more thing that might surprise you. Those students who are motivated at school, who see a purpose and value in learning, and who have good study habits also feel like they belong at school. To summarize, peers, teachers, parents, mental health, personal characteristics , and academic motivation are some of the building blocks of strong school belonging that can be found in the scientific literature. As I am sure you will agree, we can see from these findings that there are many things that can be done to help improve the sense of belonging for young people.

What Can Schools Do to Increase a Sense of School Belonging in Students?

We know from our own research that most schools want their students to feel a sense of belonging [ 7 ]. Some schools have even made great strides to create an improved sense of belonging in young people. However, there is little research evidence available that has examined which programs and interventions are available to schools and whether they work. We do know that teachers who take an interest in getting to know their students, who find similarities with their students, and who are available to support students personally and academically are doing a number of things to support a sense of belonging in their classrooms ( Figure 3 ). Interestingly, a teacher’s sense of belonging in school has also been found to predict a student’s sense of belonging in school. School leaders who take an interest in the staff’s feelings of belonging are also helping students to belong. Creating a culture of belonging is therefore something that everybody has a role in.

• Figure 3 - Cookies! Even the adult students in my classes need a reminder that they belong.
• This cookie was made using a famous quote by Brené Brown.

Sense of Belonging : ↑ Feeling of being accepted, included, and part of something.

Psychosocial Functioning : ↑ Ability to perform daily activities and interact with other people.

Well-being : ↑ Refers to the experience of being healthy, happy, and comfortable.

School Belonging : ↑ A sense of affiliation to school that may also involve teachers and peers.

Mental Health : ↑ A state of mental well-being that relates to how a person can cope with stress and be productive.

Personal Characteristics : ↑ Reflects a person’s individual traits, characteristics, and skills.

Academic Motivation : ↑ Desire to perform well in school.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Kathryn Kallady for her illustration of the Rainbow Model of School Belonging.

[1] ↑ Li, W., Mai, X., and Liu, C. 2014. The default mode network and social understanding of others: what do brain connectivity studies tell us. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 8:74. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00074

[2] ↑ Baumeister, R. F., and Leary, M. R. 1995. The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychol. Bull. 117:497–529.

[3] ↑ Allen, K.-A. 2020. Psychology of Belonging . Abingdon: Routledge.

[4] ↑ Kawamoto, T. 2017. What happens in your mind and brain when you are excluded from a social activity? Front. Young Minds 5:46. doi: 10.3389/frym.2017.00046

[5] ↑ Allen, K., Kern, M. L., Vella-Brodrick, D., Hattie, J., and Waters, L. 2018. What schools need to know about fostering school belonging: a meta-analysis. Educ. Psychol. Rev. 30:1–34. doi: 10.1007/s10648-016-9389-8

[6] ↑ Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 2019. PISA 2018 Results (Volume III): What School Life Means for Students’ Lives . Paris: OECD. Available online at: https://www.oecd.org/publications/pisa-2018-results-volume-iii-acd78851-en.htm

[7] ↑ Allen, K.-A., Kern, M. L., Vella-Brodrick, D., 2018. Understanding the priorities of Australian secondary schools through an analysis of their mission and vision statements. Educ. Admin. Q. 54:249–74. doi: 10.1177/0013161X18758655

[8] ↑ Allen, K.-A., and Kern, P. 2019. Boosting School Belonging in Adolescents: Interventions for Teachers and Mental Health Professionals . Abingdon: Routledge.

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Belonging: A Review of Conceptual Issues, an Integrative Framework, and Directions for Future Research

Kelly-ann allen.

1 Educational Psychology and Inclusive Education, Faculty of Education, Monash University, Clayton Australia.

2 Centre for Positive Psychology, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia.

Margaret L. Kern

Christopher s. rozek.

3 Department of Education, Washington University in St. Louis, U.S.A.

Dennis McInereney

4 Department of Special Education and Counselling, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

George M. Slavich

5 Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology and Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, U.S.A.

A sense of belonging—the subjective feeling of deep connection with social groups, physical places, and individual and collective experiences—is a fundamental human need that predicts numerous mental, physical, social, economic, and behavioural outcomes. However, varying perspectives on how belonging should be conceptualised, assessed, and cultivated has hampered much-needed progress on this timely and important topic. To address these critical issues, we conducted a narrative review that summarizes existing perspectives on belonging, describes a new integrative framework for understanding and studying belonging, and identifies several key avenues for future research and practice.

We searched relevant databases, including Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus, PsycInfo, and ClinicalTrials.gov, for articles describing belonging, instruments for assessing belonging, and interventions for increasing belonging.

By identifying the core components of belonging, we introduce a new integrative framework for understanding, assessing, and cultivating belonging that focuses on four interrelated components: competencies, opportunities, motivations, and perceptions.

Conclusion:

This integrative framework enhances our understanding of the basic nature and features of belonging, provides a foundation for future interdisciplinary research on belonging and belongingness, and highlights how a robust sense of belonging may be cultivated to improve human health and resilience for individuals and communities worldwide.

Although the importance of social relationships, cultural identity, and — especially for indigenous people — place have long been apparent in research across multiple disciplines (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995 ; Cacioppo, & Hawkley, 2003 ; Carter et al., 2017; Maslow, 1954 ; Rouchy, 2002 ; Vaillant, 2012), the year 2020 — with massive bushfires in Australia and elsewhere destroying ancient lands, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S., amongst other events — brought the importance of belonging to the forefront of public attention. Belonging can be defined as a subjective feeling that one is an integral part of their surrounding systems, including family, friends, school, work environments, communities, cultural groups, and physical places ( Hagerty et al., 1992 ). Most people have a deep need to feel a sense of belonging, characterized as a positive but often fluid and ephemeral connection with other people, places, or experiences ( Allen, 2020a ).

There is general agreement that belonging is a fundamental human need that all people seek to satisfy ( Baumeister & Leary, 1995 ; Deci & Ryan 2000 ; Leary & Kelly, 2009 ; Maslow 1954 ). However, there is less agreement about the belonging construct itself, how belonging should be measured, and what people can do to satisfy the need for belonging. These issues arise in part because the belonging literature is broad and theoretically diverse, with authors approaching the topic from many different perspectives, with little integration across these perspectives. Therefore, there is a clear need to bring together disparate perspectives to understand better belonging as a construct, how it can be assessed, and how it can be developed. This narrative review describes several central issues in belonging research, bringing together disparate perspectives on belonging and harnessing the strengths of the multitude of perspectives. We also present an integrative framework on belonging and consider implications of this framework for future research and practice.

A need to belong — to connect deeply with other people and secure places, to align with one’s cultural and subcultural identities, and to feel like one is a part of the systems around them — appears to be buried deep inside our biology, all the way down to the human genome ( Slavich & Cole, 2013 ). Physical safety and well-being are intimately linked with the quality of human relationships and the characteristics of the surrounding social world (Hahn, 2017), and connection with other people and places is crucial for survival ( Boyd & Richerson, 2009 ). Indeed, for Indigenous people, “others” and “place” are synonymous and are inextricably entwined, where country provides a deep sense of belonging and identity as Aboriginal people ( Harrison & McLean, 2017 ).

The so-called “need to belong” has been observed at both the neural and peripheral biological levels (e.g., Blackhart et al., 2007 ; Kross et al., 2007 ; Slavich et al., 2014 ; Slavich, Way et al., 2010 ), as well as behaviourally and socially (e.g., Brewer, 2007 ; Filstad et al., 2019 ). Disparate research lines suggest that the principal design of the human brain and immune system is to keep the body biologically and physically safe by motivating people to avoid social threats and seek out social safety, connection, and belonging ( Slavich, 2020 ). Indeed, a sense of belonging may be just as important as food, shelter, and physical safety for promoting health and survival in the long run ( Baumeister & Leary, 1995 ; Maslow, 1954 ).

A Dynamic, Emergent Construct

Although belonging occurs as a subjective feeling, it exists within a dynamic social milieu. Biological needs complement, accentuate, and interact with social structures, norms, contexts, and experiences ( Slavich, 2020 ). Social, cultural, environmental, and geographical structures, broadly defined, provide an orientation for the self to determine who and what is acceptable, the nature of right and wrong, and a sense of belonging or alienation ( Allen, 2020 ). The sense of self emerges from one’s predominant social and environmental contexts, reinforcing and challenging the subjective sense of belonging. Belonging is facilitated and hindered by people, things, and experiences of the social milieu, which dynamically interact with the individual’s character, experiences, culture, identity, and perceptions. That is, belonging exists “because of and in connection with the systems in which we reside” ( Kern et al., 2020 , p. 709).

Despite its importance, many people struggle to feel a sense of belonging. Socially, a significant portion of people suffer from social isolation, loneliness, and a lack of connection to others ( Anderson & Thayer, 2018 ). For example, in 2017, in Australia, half of the adults reported lacking companionship at least some of the time, and one in four adults could be classified as being lonely ( Australian Psychological Society, 2018 ). Similar findings have been reported in the United States, where 63% of men and 58% of women reported feeling lonely ( Cigna, 2018 ). Social disconnection has become a concerning trend across many developed cultures for several reasons, including social mobility, shifts in technology, broken family and community structures, and the pace of modern life ( Baumeister & Robson, 2021 ). The COVID-19 pandemic magnified and accelerated the struggles that already existed. Early studies pointed to increases in loneliness and mental illness, especially among vulnerable populations, that is caused at least in part from extended periods of isolation, social distancing, and rising distrust of others ( Ahmed et al., 2020 ; Allen, 2020b ; Dsouza et al., 2020 ; Gruber et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2020 ).

Struggles to belong are particularly evident in minorities and other groups that have been historically excluded from mainstream culture. For instance, even as many Indigenous people experience a sense of well-being when they connect with and participate in their traditional culture (e.g., Colquhoun & Dockery, 2012 ; Dockery 2010 ; O’Leary, 2020 ), many Aboriginal people also experience ongoing grief from country dispossession ( Williamson et al., 2020 ). As bushfires ravaged Australian lands early in 2020, the grief of the fires was significantly worse than nonIndigenous people, as they not only watched the fires decimate their land, but also their memories, sacred places, and the hearts of who they are as a people ( Williamson et al., 2020 ). Several months later, the killing of George Floyd, a Black man in the U.S., initiated protests worldwide that provided a sense of meaning in connecting with others against racism ( Ramsden, 2020 ), bringing to light the systemic exclusions that Black people have long experienced in the U.S. and beyond ( Corbould, 2020 ; Yulianto, 2020 ).

A Narrative Review of Belonging Research

With this background in mind, we narratively review existing studies on belonging, considering different perspectives on how belonging has been defined and operationalised, along with correlates, predictors, and outcomes associated with belonging. Although belonging is not merely the opposite of loneliness, social isolation, or feelings of disconnection, across the literature, low and high belonging have been placed on a continuum conceptually ( Allen & Kern, 2017 , 2019 ; for a review of belonging and loneliness, see Lim et al., 2021 ). Furthermore, because of the shared similarities and close relationships between the constructs, we include studies that have considered the presence of belonging, low levels of belonging, and disconnection indicators.

Defining Belonging

The constructs of “belonginess” and “belonging” lack conceptual clarity and consistency across studies, hence limiting advances in this research field. Belonging has been defined and operationalised in several ways (e.g., Goodenow, 1993 ; Hagerty & Patusky, 1995 ; Malone et al., 2012 ; Nichols & Webster, 2013 ), which has enabled investigators to test whether interventions increase a sense of belonging over days, weeks, or months. However, definitions have often explicitly focused on social belonging, thus missing other essential aspects, such as connection to place and culture, and the dynamic interactions with the social milieu, as described above.

Because of the increased importance of belonging during adolescence, much of the research on belonging has involved students in school settings ( Abdollahi et al., 2020 ; Arslan et al., 2020 ; Yeager et al., 2018 ). Definitions have tended to include school-based experiences, relationships with peers and teachers, and students’ emotional connection with or feelings toward their school ( Allen et al., 2016 , 2018 ; Allen & Bowles, 2012 ; O’Brien & Bowles, 2013 ; Slaten et al., 2016 ). Goodenow and Grady’s (1993) definition remains the most common definition: “the extent to which students feel personally accepted, respected, included, and supported by others in the school social environment” (p. 80).

A distinction can be made between trait (i.e., belonging as a core psychological need) and state (i.e., situation-specific senses of belonging) belongingness. Studies suggest that state belonging is influenced by various daily life events and stressors ( Ma, 2003 ; Sedgwick & Rougeau, 2010 ; Walton & Cohen, 2011 ). Depending on the variability of situations and experiences that one encounters, along with one’s perceptions of those situations and experiences, a person’s subjective sense of belonging can change as frequently as several times a day in much the same way that happiness and other emotions change over time ( Trampe et al., 2015 ). However, people can also have relatively stable experiences of belonging. For example, some individuals demonstrate generally high or low levels of belonging with relatively little variability across time and different situations. In contrast, for others, a sense of belonging is more variable, depending on one’s awareness of and perceptions of environmental context and social cues (Schall et al., 2013). For instance, whereas one individual might perceive a smile from a coworker as a sign that they are part of a community, another might suspect a contrived behaviour and see it as a sign of exclusion. Indeed, research suggests that the effects of belonging-related stressors can be more intense for those who identify with outgroups ( Walton & Brady, 2017 ). Such outgroups include those from racial minorities, those who identify as sexually or gender diverse, or individuals with behaviours, attributes, or abilities that depart from the social norm, such as those that stem from mental health issues ( Gardner et al., 2019 ; Harrist & Bradley, 2002 ; Rainey et al., 2018 ; Spencer et al., 2016 ; Steger & Kashdan, 2009 ).

It appears that multiple processes must converge for a stable, trait-like sense of belonging to emerge and support well-being and other positive outcomes ( Cacioppo et al., 2015 ; Erzen & Çikrikci, 2018 ; Mellor et al., 2008 ; Rico-Uribe et al., 2018 ; Walton & Cohen, 2011 ). For instance, a successful singer is motivated to sing and has skills and capacity to sing well, confidence, opportunities to sing, and support by others. It would seem that trait belongingness is more crucial for mental health and well-being; that is, a more stable and lasting sense of belonging as opposed to a state of belonging (i.e., a temporary feeling of belonging based on thoughts, feelings, and behaviours ( Clark et al., 2003 ).

Assessing Belonging

Several different instruments have been used to assess belonging, but there is no consensus, gold-standard measure. The differentiation between state and trait belongingness has made defining and measuring belonging even more complicated. Most belonging measures are unidimensional, subjective, and static, representing a snapshot of a person’s perception at the administration time. Instruments such as Walton’s measures of belonging and belonging uncertainty have been used in many studies within education and social psychology ( Pyne, Rozek, & Borman, 2018 ; Walton & Cohen, 2007 ). These measures assess belonging from a more state-based sense of belonging, capturing transitory feelings of belonging or lack of situation-specific belonging ( Walton, 2014 ; Walton & Brady, 2017 ). Other measures, such as the UCLA Loneliness Scale, potentially assess a more stable, trait-like sense of belonging, pointing to belonging as a core psychological need ( Mahar et al., 2014 ). It could be argued that commonly used belonging measures are more accurate in assessing state-like experiences due to their propensity to assess belonging in a single snapshot of time ( Cruwys et al., 2014 ; Feser, 2020; Leary et al., 2013 ; Martin, 2007 ). This is also the case with more applied belonging studies, such as those focused on school belonging ( Allen et al., 2018 ; Arslan & Allen, 2020 ).

Given that no single measure of belonging exists, research has examined numerous belonging surveys to identify commonalities that can be applied across a variety of disciplines. Mahar et al. (2014) reviewed several instruments for assessing belongingness and found that belonging was often measured as related to the performance indicators of specific types of service organisations. For example, the sense of belonging to a church congregation may depend on the amount of support one receives from that congregation while belonging to a university is dependent not just on social connections but also on how well a student performs academically. Therefore, every social science discipline, unfortunately, has its own measure and scale of belonging.

However, there are some commonalities in all of the studies reviewed by Maher et al. (2014). First, a sense of belonging is based on an individual’s perception of their connection to a chosen group or place. Most instruments Maher and colleagues reviewed contained at least one question that referenced the feeling of belonging, whether to a large group such as a country or race or a small group such as a church or school. Second, the sense of belonging is dependent on opportunities for interaction with others. Each survey reviewed referenced this variable differently, using words such as “relationships,” “making friends,” “spending time,” and “bonding.” Whatever term is used, the instruments all appear to be measuring the same thing — namely, the opportunities a person has to belong to a desired group.

A few scales specifically ask respondents to evaluate their motivations to connect and build relationships with a desired group. Motivations appear to be an area of importance that is often ignored in previous survey tools. The importance of this element will be further explored below.

In addition, several measures consider the ability to belong. Specifically, does the individual have the social skills and abilities it takes to belong to a group? The reviewed instruments might include a question such as “I find it easy to make friends” ( Mahar et al., 2014 , p. 23); however, the questions do not specifically address whether an individual is unable to belong to the desired group because of their behaviours or attitudes.

Correlates, Predictors, and Outcomes Associated with Belonging

Regardless of how belonging has been defined and measured, the fundamental importance of belonging combined with elevated levels of social disconnection evident in modern society has led to several fruitful research and application areas. A sense of belonging has been used as a dependent, independent, and correlated variable in a wide range of studies demonstrating the salience of this construct across various contexts (e.g., Allen et al., 2018 ; Freeman et al., 2007 ). For instance, Mahar et al. (2014) reviewed how a sense of belonging was measured and actioned as a service outcome among persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities, concluding that belonging is an important outcome in this domain. Other studies have found a positive association between students’ belonging needs and psychological well-being ( Karaman & Tarim, 2018 ; Kitchen et al., 2015 ). Undergraduates’ involvement in courses that use technology was related to higher belonging levels ( Long, 2016 ). Additionally, a sense of belonging positively relates to persistence in course study ( Akiva et al., 2013 ; Hausmann et al., 2007 ; Moallem, 2013 ). Across these and other studies, greater belonging is consistently associated with more positive psychosocial outcomes.

Other studies have considered the implications for belonging interventions that target (a) characteristics of the individual including personality, social skills, and cognitions (e.g., Durlak et al., 2011 ; Frydenberg et al., 2004 ; Walton & Cohen, 2011 ); (b) their social relationships (e.g., Aron et al., 1997 ; Kanter et al., 2018 ); or (c) the environment that individuals inhabit, such as the physical attributes of the workplace, sense of space, and opportunities to connect (e.g., Gustafson, 2009 ; Jaitli & Hua, 2013 ; Trawalter et al., 2020 ). Most intervention studies have treated belonging as a secondary outcome rather than directly targeting belonging ( Allen et al., 2020 ), although there are some exceptions. For instance, in a brief social belonging intervention in a college setting for Black Americans, positive effects appeared to be long-lasting (i.e., from 7 to 11 years; Brady et al., 2020 ). A brief social belonging intervention among minority students had positive impacts on academic and health outcomes among minority students by encouraging students to understand that the feeling of not belonging is normal and temporary ( Walton & Cohen, 2011 ). Additionally, Borman et al. (2019) found that improvement in students’ sense of belonging partially mediated the effects of a similar intervention on academic achievement and disciplinary problems in secondary school.

Other studies have examined the benefits that arise from a sense of belonging. Studies have identified numerous positive effects of having a healthy sense of belonging, including more positive social relationships, academic achievement, occupational success, and better physical and mental health (e.g., Allen et al., 2018 , Goodenow & Grady, 1993 , Hagerty et al., 1992 ). A lack of belonging, in turn, has been linked to an increased risk for mental and physical health problems ( Cacioppo et al., 2015 ; Hari, 2019 ). Indeed, a meta-analysis of 70 studies concluded that the health risks of social isolation are equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day and is twice as harmful as obesity ( Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015 ). Likewise, studies have found that deficits in social relationships across the lifespan are associated with depression, poor sleep quality, rapid cognitive decline, cardiovascular difficulties, and reduced immunity ( Hawkley & Capitanio, 2015 ). More specifically, the adverse effects of not belonging or being rejected include increased risk for mental illness, antisocial behaviour, lowered immune functioning, physical illness, and early mortality (e.g., Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2003 ; Cacioppo et al., 2011 ; Choenarom et al., 2005 ; Cornwell & Waite, 2009 ; Holt-Lunstad, 2018 ; Leary, 1990 ; Slavich, O’Donovan, et al., 2010 ).

An Integrative Framework for Belonging

From this review, the take-home message is that belonging is a central construct in human health, behaviour, and experience. However, studies on this topic have used inconsistent terminology, definitions, and measures. At times, belonging has been treated as a predictor, outcome, correlate, and covariate. Therefore, it is unclear whether the lack of a sense of belonging is equivalent to negative constructs such as loneliness, disconnection, and isolation, or if these are separate dimensions. These inconsistencies arise, in part, from the multiple theoretical and empirical perspectives present in the belonging literature. Building on these different perspectives and insights, we propose an integrative framework to conceptualise belonging measures and inform interventions. In brief, we suggest that belonging is a dynamic feeling and experience that emerges from four interrelated components that arise from and are supported by the systems in which individuals reside. As illustrated in Figure 1 , the four components are:

• competencies for belonging (skills and abilities);
• opportunities to belong (enablers, removal/ reduction of barriers);
• motivations to belong (inner drive); and
• perceptions of belonging (cognitions, attributions, and feedback mechanisms — positive or negative experiences when connecting).

As a dynamic social system, these four components dynamically reinforce and influence one another over time, as a person moves through different social, environmental, and temporal contexts and experiences. Together they dynamically interact with, are supported or hindered by, and impact relevant social milieus. The narrative of how these components interconnect results in consistently high belonging levels, which support positive life outcomes.

An integrative framework for understanding, assessing, and fostering belonging. Four interrelated components (i.e., Competencies, Opportunities, Motivations, and Perceptions) dynamically interact and influence one another, shifting, evolving, and adapting as an individual traverses temporal, social, and environmental contexts and experiences.

Competencies for Belonging

The first component we suggest belonging emerges from is competencies : having a set of (both subjective and objective) skills and abilities needed to connect and experience belonging. Skills enable individuals to relate with others, identify with their cultural background, develop a sense of identity, and connect to place and country. Competencies enable people to ensure that their behaviour is consistent with group social norms, align with cultural values, and treat the place and land with respect. The development of social competencies is central to social and emotional learning approaches (e.g., CASEL, 2018 ), and plays a critical role in supporting positive youth development ( Durlak et al., 2011 ; Kern et al., 2017). In turn, social competencies deficits can limit relationship quality, social relations, and social positions ( Frostad & Pijl, 2007 ).

With some exceptions, most people can develop skills to improve their ability to connect with people, things, and places. Social skills include being aware of oneself and others, emotion and behaviour regulation, verbal and nonverbal communication, acknowledgement and alignment with social norms, and active listening ( Blackhart et al., 2011 ). Cultural skills include understanding one’s heritage, mindful acknowledgement of place, and alignment with relevant values. Social, emotional, and cultural competencies complement and reinforce one another, and contribute to and are reinforced by feeling a sense of belonging. The ability to regulate emotions, for example, may reduce the likelihood of social rejection or ostracisation from others ( Harrist & Bradley, 2002 ). Competencies can also help individuals cope effectively with feelings of not belonging when they arise ( Frydenberg et al., 2009 ). Pointing to the social nature of competencies, the display and use of skills may be socially reinforced through acceptance and inclusion, while feeling a sense of belonging may also assist in using socially appropriate skills ( Blackhart et al., 2011 ).

Opportunities to Belong

The second component we suggest belonging emerges from is opportunities : the availability of groups, people, places, times, and spaces that enable belonging to occur. The ability to connect with others is useless if opportunities to connect are lacking. For instance, studies with people from rural or isolated areas, first- and second-generation migrants, and refugees have found that these groups have more difficulty managing psychological well-being, physical health, and transitions ( Correa-Velez et al., 2010 ; Keyes & Kane, 2004 ). They might have social competencies, but their circumstances limit opportunities. For example, Correa-Velez et al. (2010) studied nearly 100 adolescent refugees who had been in Melbourne, Australia, for three years or less. Even with deliberate steps taken to help the students integrate into their new schools, including language development, they overwhelmingly reported feelings of discrimination and bullying. They subsequently reported a lower sense of well-being. Although these students had the skills to connect with their schoolmates, they were not given opportunities to connect. Similarly, legacies of racism, dispossession, and assimilation have continued to exclude Aboriginal people from connecting with and managing their homelands ( Williamson et al., 2020 ).

The need for opportunities became poignantly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, as social distancing was enforced in countries around the world, and many human interactions went virtual. Active membership of extracurricular groups, schools, universities, workplaces, church groups, families, friendship groups, and participation in hobbies provide opportunities for human connections. For instance, school attendance is a prerequisite for students to feel a sense of belonging with their school ( Akar-Vural et al., 2013 ; Bowles & Scull, 2018). In the absence of physical opportunities for belonging, technologies such as social media and online gaming may help meet this need, especially for youth ( Allen et al., 2014 ; Davis, 2012 ) and for those who are introverted, shy, or who suffer from social anxiety ( Amichai-Hamburger et al., 2002 ; Moore & McElroy, 2012 ; Ryan et al., 2017 ; Seabrook et al., 2016 ; Seidman, 2013 ). However, it remains uncertain the extent to which technologically mediated approaches can fully compensate for face-to-face relationships.

The Black Lives Matter movement particularly points to opportunities for those that are often excluded by building social capital that strengthens connections, allows activists to share their messages, and illuminates the inequities existing within and across cultures. In Putnam’s (2000) work on social capital identified social networks as fundamental principles for creating opportunity. Putnam described the concepts of bridging and bonding social capital, in which the former was later referred to as inclusive belonging, whereas the latter pertains to exclusive belonging ( Putnam, 2000 ; Roffey, 2013 ). Bridging social capital is inclusive because it creates broader social networks and a higher degree of social reciprocity between members ( Putnam, 2000 ). Whereas bonding social capital highlights the connections found within a community of people sharing similar characteristics or backgrounds, including interests, attitudes, and demographics ( Claridge, 2018 ). This might be observed with close friends and family members ( Claridge, 2018 ) or other homogenous groups such as a church-based women’s reading group or an over-50s mens’ basketball team ( Putnam 2000 ). In contrast, bridging social capital may emerge from the connection people build to share their resources ( Murray et al., 2020 ). Most members are interconnected through this type of social capital, which transcends class, race, religion, and sociodemographic characteristics. Bridging social capital occurs when there is an opportunity for any person to interact with others (Putnam, 2010). This might look like a sporting event, a gathering of concerned about a common concern like climate change or racism, or even attendance at a public concert. In the same way, inclusive belonging represents mutual benefits for all parties involved. In contrast, exclusive belonging presents the idea that a selected group will benefit from membership, particularly those who are members of the group ( Roffey, 2013 ). Communities and organisations can employ inclusive belonging principles that may improve the experience of belonging for people, particularly vulnerable to rejection and prone to social isolation and loneliness ( Allen et al., 2019 ; Roffey, 2013 ; Roffey et al., 2019 ).

There are numerous ways for individuals, groups, and communities to create opportunities for belonging, and some of these opportunities can even be motivated by a sense of not belonging ( Leary & Allen, 2011 ; London et al., 2007 ). For example, those who have been disenfranchised, have suffered abuse or trauma, or have been ostracised or rejected may look for alternative sources for belonging ( Gerber & Wheeler, 2009 ; Hagerty et al., 2002 ). This search for belonging outside, or in opposition to, established norms provides one explanation for the rise of radicalisation and extremism ( Leary et al., 2006 ; Lyons-Padilla et al., 2015 ), participation in gangs and organised crime ( Voisin et al., 2014 ), and school violence ( Leary et al., 2003 ). It can also be an incentive for more socially acceptable pathways to belonging, such as through joining support groups, or bonding together with diverse others to fight against racism ( Ramsden, 2020 ). At individual, institutional, and societal levels, there is a need to create opportunities and reduce barriers to allow positive connection to occur so that people are less likely to seek out problematic contexts for belonging.

Motivations to Belong

The third component we suggest belonging emerges from is motivations : a need or desire to connect with others. Belonging motivation refers to the fundamental need for people to be accepted, belong, and seek social interactions and connections ( Leary & Kelly, 2009 ). Socially, a person who is motivated to belong is someone who enjoys positive interactions with others, seeks out interpersonal connections, has positive experiences of long-term relationships, dislikes negative social experiences, and resists the loss of attachments ( Baumeister & Leary, 1995 ). In social situations, people who are motivated to belong will actively seek similarities and things in common with others. This characteristic may not always be accounted for by personality type or attributes ( Leary & Kelly, 2009 ). Similarly, a person might be motivated to connect with a place, their culture or ethnic background, or other belonging contributors.

The degree to which people are motivated to belong varies ( Leary & Kelly, 2009 ). Weak motivation to belong can be associated with psychological dysfunction ( Baumeister & Leary, 1995 ), and weak motivation may, alongside other socially mediated criteria, become a predictor of psychological pathology ( Leary & Kelly, 2009 ). A lack of motivation may arise in part from repeated rejection and thwarting of one’s basic psychological needs of relatedness, competence, and autonomy (Deci & Ryan, 2001), resulting in a learned helplessness response ( Nelson et al., 2019 ) that manifests as a reduced motivation to belong. Nevertheless, Baumeister and Leary (1995) suggest that people can still be driven and motivated to connect with others, even under the most traumatic circumstances.

Hence, individual differences and context play central roles in our understanding of belonging motivation. The range of possible motivators for belonging are vast and will reflect diverse sociocultural and economic environments such as indigenous-non-indigenous, collectivist-individualist, urban-rural, developed-developing. It is essential that any examination of the nature and function of motivators of belonging acknowledges this diversity and includes it in any conceptualisation of this construct.

Perceptions of Belonging

The fourth component we suggest belonging emerges from is perceptions : a person’s subjective feelings and cognitions concerning their experiences. A person may have skills related to connecting, opportunities to belong, and be motivated, yet still report great dissatisfaction. Either consciously or subconsciously, most human beings evaluate whether they belong or fit in with those around them ( Baumeister & Leary, 1995 ; Walton & Brady, 2017 ).

Perceptions about one’s experiences, self-confidence, and desire for connection can be informed by past experiences ( Coie, 2004 ). For example, a person with a history of rejection or ostracization might question their belonging or seek to belong through other means ( London et al., 2007 ). This seeking could involve groups that are considered to be antisocial, such as cults, street or criminal gangs or group memberships characterised by radicalised social, political or religious ideas ( Hunter, 1998 ). This might involve returning to one’s home or place of origin or trying to find one’s place within a world that has systemically erased their value. A rejected student may engage in maladaptive behaviours in a classroom to seek approval from peers ( Flowerday & Shaughnessy, 2005 ). Indeed, in one study, indigenous children reported underperforming at school so that they would not be ostracised from their group ( McInerney, 1989 ). In other words, maintaining belonging with their indigenous peers was more salient than doing well at school; doing well at school was a white thing ( Herbert et al., 2014 ; McInerney, 1989 ). It was also apparent that perceptions of themselves as successful students (i.e., a feeling of belongingness at school) were weak for many Indigenous students but for “adaptive” reasons. Repeated social rejection experiences can create the perception (by both the individual and others who witness the repeated social rejection) that the person is not socially acceptable ( Walton & Cohen, 2007 ). Negative perceptions of the self or others, stereotypes, and attribution errors can also undermine motivation ( Mello et al., 2012 ; Walton & Wilson, 2018 ; Yeager & Walton, 2011 ). These subjective experiences and perceptions of those experiences thus act as feedback mechanisms that increase or decrease one’s desire to connect with others.

Just as the need to belong can shape emotions and cognitions ( Baumeister & Leary, 1995 ; Lambert et al., 2013 ), cognitions and emotions also impact a person’s capacities, opportunities, and motivations for belonging. To address these links and help enhance belonging, a variety of psychosocial interventions grounded in cognitive therapy aim to (a) reframe cognitions concerning negative social interactions and experiences, (b) normalise feelings of not belonging that everyone experiences from time to time, and (c) alter the extent to which the events that caused the feeling are internal vs. external to the individual (e.g., Walton & Cohen, 2007 ). These interventions have been shown to alter not just cognitions about other people and the world ( Borman et al., 2019 ; Butler et al., 2006 ) but also basic biological processes involved in the immune system that are known to affect human health and behaviour ( Shields et al., 2020 ).

Implications for Research and Practice

As we have alluded to, belonging research has been the subject of decades of development and broad multidisciplinary input and insights. As a result of this history, though, perspectives on this topic are highly diverse, as are methods for assessing this construct. Strategies for enhancing a sense of belonging exist, but identifying effective solutions depends on integrating multiple disciplinary approaches to theory, research, and practice, rather than relying on the silos of single disciplines. Arising from the framework described above, we point to six main challenges and issues related to understanding, measuring, and building belonging, highlighting areas that would benefit from additional attention and research.

First, belonging research has occurred within multiple disciplines but primarily siloed into separate domains. Understanding and support for belonging is a subject of concern in many fields, including psychology ( Baumeister & Leary, 1995 ), sociology ( May, 2011 ), education ( Morieson et al., 2013 ), urban education ( Riley, 2017 ), medicine ( Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2003 ), public health ( Stead et al., 2011 ), economics ( Bhalla & Lapeyre, 1997 ), design ( Schein, 2009 ; Trudeau, 2006 ; Weare, 2010 ), and political science ( Yuval-Davis, 2006 ). However, little work has integrated these different disciplines’ findings, with differing language, measures, and approaches used, yielding a fractured and inconsistent perspective on belonging. Thus, there is a need for authentic attempts to synthesise these findings fully and integrate, develop, and extend belonging research through genuinely interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches ( Choi & Pak, 2006 ). Our integrative framework provides an initial attempt at bringing these different perspectives together, but the extent to which it is sufficient and applicable within different disciplines remains to be seen.

Second, there is a need for belonging researchers to develop a more robust understanding of the existing literature. The theoretical, methodological, and conceptual gaps need to be bridged to make this literature much more widely accessible. Knowledge development in this area will lead to improved research measurement and practitioner tools, potentially based on multitheoretical, empirically driven perspectives that will, in turn, make the bridging of future theory, research, practice, and lived application easier for all stakeholders. Our framework provides an initial organising structure to map out the literature, identify gaps, and support further knowledge development in the future. Numerous theories across disciplines contribute to each of the components, and future work could identify how different theories map onto, intersect with, and inform understanding, assessment, and enhancement of belonging.

Third, there are significant gaps between research and practice in the context of belonging. One important factor contributing to this gap is the sheer breadth and complexity of belonging research. Thus, researchers in this field make conscious — and conscientious — efforts to collaborate and translate their work to and for other researchers and practitioners. We suggest that our framework provides an accessible entry point into the research for practitioners. The four components provide specific areas to focus interventions, identifying enablers and barriers of each of the components. Building belonging begins with a need to ensure that communities have a foundational understanding of the importance of belonging for psychological and physical health and that individuals can draw on and advance their competencies, opportunities, motivations, and perceptions to increase their sense of belonging. Still, there is a need to identify specific strategies within each component that can help people develop and harness their competencies, opportunities, motivations, and perceptions across different situations, experiences, and interactions.

Fourth, consideration needs to be given to how belonging is best measured. Existing instruments for assessing belonging primarily focus on social belonging, rather than on the broader, more inclusive construct of a sense of belonging as a whole. It is unclear whether positive and negative aspects of belonging are unidimensional or multidimensional. For instance, positive affect is not merely the absence of negative affect. Positive cognitive biases are different from low levels of negative cognitive bias, and disengagement is not necessarily the same as low engagement levels. Belonging and loneliness tend to be inversely correlated ( Mellor et al., 2008 ), but the extent to which this is true across different individuals and contexts, and depends upon the measures used, is unknown.

Existing measures also generally provide a state-like assessment of a person’s sense of belonging (i.e., at a given point in time). However, as a dynamic emergent construct, measuring and targeting singular (or even multiple) components in a fixed manner is insufficient. Studies will benefit by examining the best way to capture and track dynamic patterns and identifying (a) when and how a sense of belonging emerges from competencies, opportunities, motivations, and perceptions; (b) the contextual factors needed to enable this emergence to occur; (c) and the feedback mechanisms that reinforce or block the emergence of belonging in a person.

Fifth, although we suggested that four components are necessary for belonging to emerge, it is unknown how much of each component is needed, whether specific sequencing amongst the components matters (i.e., one needs to come before the other) and the extent to which that depends upon the person and the context. For example, culture can intensely affect an individual’s competencies for belonging, opportunities to belong, motivations to belong, and even perceptions of belonging ( Cortina et al., 2017 ). As a dynamic, emergent construct, each likely component impacts upon and interacts with the others. Still, for some individuals or across different contexts, there might be specific sequences that are more likely to support a sense of belonging. Aligned with other psychological and sociological studies, the existing belonging literature primarily has used variable-centred approaches. Person-centred research that exists points to belonging as being a nonlinear construct, with the ability for the sense of belonging to grow, stall, disappear, or flourish within an individual over the life course ( George & Selimons, 2019 ). Longitudinal, person-centred approaches might be a useful complement to traditional study designs because they allow the opportunity to track experiences of belonging in diverse populations, identify the combination of the four components described above, and when belonging emerges, with consideration of personal, social, and environmental moderators.

Finally, multilevel research is needed to elucidate social, neural, immunologic, and behavioural processes associated with belonging. This integrative research can help researchers understand how experiences of belonging “get under the skin” affect human behaviour and health. Equally important is the need to understand the biological processes that are affected by experiences of disconnection versus belonging, which can help researchers elucidate the regulatory logic of these systems to understand better what aspects of belonging are most critical or essential for health ( Slavich, 2020 ; Slavich & Irwin, 2014 ). Such knowledge can ultimately help investigators develop more effective interventions for increasing perceptions of belonging and lead to entirely new ways of conceptualising this fundamental construct.

In conclusion, a sense of belonging is a core part of what makes one a human being ( Baumeister & Leary, 1995 ; Deci & Ryan, 2000 ; Slavich, 2020 ; Vaillant, 2012). Just as harbouring a healthy sense of belonging can lead to many positive life outcomes, feeling as though one does not belong is robustly associated with a lack of meaning and purpose, increased risk for experiencing mental and physical health problems, and reduced longevity. As technology continues to develop, the pace of modern life has sped up, traditional social structures have broken down, and cultural and ethnic values have been threatened, increasing the importance of helping people establish and sustain a fundamental sense of belonging. Focusing on competencies, opportunities, motivations, and perceptions can be a useful framework for developing strategies aimed at increasing peoples’ sense of belonging at both the individual and collective level. To fully realize this framework’s potential to aid society, much work is needed.

G.M.S. was supported by a Society in Science—Branco Weiss Fellowship, NARSAD Young Investigator Grant #23958 from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, and National Institutes of Health grant K08 MH103443.

Conflicts of Interest : The authors declare no conflicts of interest with regard to this work.

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