Analysing Individual Differences in Need To Affiliate
Different individuals have different intensity of desires to affiliate with others and for relations. You might find that some people around you are very sociable and extrovert who always prefers to be in company of others; whereas some people prefer to be alone. This difference might result from genetics of a person or it may stem from his or her life experiences. This tendency forms a relatively stable trait which remains more or less unchanged for the whole lifespan of an individual. When this need is not fulfilled, an individual might develop a feeling of being ignored. He or she might have a feeling of lost control over one’s environment (Buckley, Winkel & Leary, 2003).
The feeling of social exclusion causes increased sensitivity to interpersonal information (Gardner, Pickett & Brewer, 2000) and may even result into less effective cognitive functioning (Baumeister, Twenge & Nuss, 2002)Alternatively, this tendency may vary within same person from time to time. You yourself may want to be alone some time and in a social situation some other time. In fact, we establish the level of social contact which is optimal for us at a particular instance (O’Connor & Rosenblood, 1996). Now the question arises that are there individuals who never want to associate with other people at all.
On one hand, social psychologists such as Baumeister & Twenge, 2003, claims that need to affiliate is a very strong one and almost all people display them. It has been found to be one of the most basic needs for human existence (Koole, Greenberg, & Pysczynski, 2006). On the other hand, there are some people who claim to have no need to affiliate to others and avoid close relationships (Collons & Feenzy, 2000). This is known as dismissing avoidant attachment style. Recent studies done by Carvallo & Gabriel (2006) obtained some answer to the above question. In the study, each participant exchanged information about themselves with three other people. Then they ranked each other for their preference to work with each other in some future task. Then in the experimental group, participants were given additional information that they have been ranked first by other participants as a future partner. Whereas in the control group, no such information was given to the participants.
After this, participants of both control group and experimental group were given questionnaires measuring their current mood, self-esteem and their attachment style. If a person really has dismissive style of attachment, his/her mood and self-esteem should not be affected by knowing that he/she is a preferred future partner. However, if they really has need for affiliation, their mood and self-esteem would be higher after learning that they were the preferred partners. The findings showed that the participants showing dismissive style showed significant increase in their mood and self-esteem after learning that they were the preferred partners.
