Lecture 1 of [[Roy Baumeister]]'s [[PA Big Ideas in Psychology]] course on [[Peterson Academy]]. Roy Baumeister looks into the fundamental human motivations or drives, following the path of the likes of [[Sigmund Freud]] who suggested sex and aggression to be the answer. Roy Baumeister takes a different path and argues for "the need to belong" as a fundamental drive. The need to belong is properly categorized as a need, whereas sex is a highly desirable want at best, and the significance of aggression was overestimated by Freud by a large degree. Not only are lonely people less happy, but also far less healthy. ## Anatomy of belonging Belonging consists in two parts: interaction, and a relational framework (defined relationship) by which two parties establish and understand their care for one another. An example of interaction without relationship is prostitution, and an example of relationship without interaction is a long-distance relationship. Having one without the other is better than having none at all, but the ideal is to have both. ## Anti-belonging: Rejection Rejections, and our response to them, holds the clue to the potency of the need to belong as a fundamental drive. The prediction was that rejections would create emotional and behavioral changes. Rejection research seeks to create moments of personal rejection by choice, by circumstance, recalling of old rejections, and predictions of future rejection. Surprisingly, no emotional change was found for people who just got rejected. Behaviorally, participants got predictably more aggressive towards future negative feedback, or even neutral people. There is a visible increase in antisocial behavior. Researches also found a decrease in pro-social behavior, and an increase in foolish risk-taking. All these suggests rejections don't make people more aware of their own faults and correct them, but lead people into a self-destructive cycle, as if professing hatred or resentment towards the world. But why? Reflection: this is highly relevant to [[Jordan Peterson]]'s scorpion analogies in his [[12 Rules for Life]] book that argues that scorpions being defeated in battle have their entire biology reconfigured, resulting in massive change in behavior. ### Reduction of intelligence Rejection leads to a visible increase in intelligent thought. IQ tests often test two processes, unconscious logical inference and conscious vocabulary. Automatic logical reasoning ability gets greatly affected by rejection. IQ test scores are visibly lower after break ups or rejections. ### Reduction of self-control Rejected people are bad a doing what's good for them, but that seems to be connected to a broader theme of not being in control of what they do—leading to both selfish and self-defeating behavior. They ate more cookies uncontrollably, drank fewer bottles of a drink that they know are good for them, and gave up considerably sooner on difficult tasks. Lonely people are also recorded to have impaired control over their attention. But why? ## Implicit Bargain Theory People trade obedience to social rules in exchange for belonging. Self-control is the sacrifice made in order to gain that sense of belonging. That sacrifice is no longer rewarded in the event of rejection, and that undermines the implicit reason for self-control. Sociological trends of groups that don't feel like they belong committing more crimes affirm this. They are unwilling, not unable to self-regulate. They do want to be socially accepted again, but at the same time they don't want to take a chance at being rejected again. ## Numbing: Pain and Emotions Emotional reactions aren't found, surprisingly. A meta-analysis does show emotions going towards zero after rejection, as if the emotional system is shutting down. Studies on unconscious emotion, however, showed a bias towards positive emotion, suggesting a coping mechanism at work. Similarly, rejected people also show an increase in self-esteem. Animals are less sensitive towards pain after being socially rejected. Humans are later found to experience the same effect. Jaak Panksepp suggested that the phenomenon of socially rejected animals being numb to pain (temporarily) and the numbing out of emotions are essentially the same thing. We see the same trend with empathy as well. **Rejection makes one feel less.** Painkillers, and marijuana, reduces the pain experienced in the face of rejection. Rejection, or social exclusion, causes a lack or reduction in emotion, which interferes with our ability to connect with others, and makes social exclusion more likely in the future. --- Back to: [[PA Big Ideas in Psychology]] Next Lecture: [[The Weight of Negativity]]