Why people want to be part of the “in” group

“No one is spared the pain of rejection, except the ignorant and the fool.” ~Unknown

I’ve worked with groups who have been struggling with workplace culture issues on several occasions, and in many cases we keep coming back to one basic theme: people don’t feel valued or respected by either the organization they work for or the people they are supervised by.  This, of course, presents a major problem for these organizations, because, for starters, the workers in these organizations don’t feel motivated to go above and beyond, and they don’t feel that what they do even makes a difference.

Making someone feel valued isn’t a tall task, but it requires effort and time.  People have two sets of needs that need to be fulfilled — they need to have procedural needs met, and they need to have individual needs met.  Procedural needs include being provided with  details, consistency, and information in an efficient and organized manner.  Individual needs include being respected, valued, and listened to.  If you can meet these needs, you go a long way in building positive working relationships with others, because you show others that you care.

This got me to thinking about what the feeling of being “valued” really is.  We know how to address the issue, but what is it to feel valued, and where does it come from?  More so, why do we even need to be valued and respected?

It turns out that the feeling of being valued and respected has ties to social status — that is, whether we are socially “included” or socially “excluded.”  If we feel valued and respected, we find ourselves with the “in” group, and we feel that we are being “included” socially.  If we don’t feel valued or respected, we find ourselves “rejected” and in the socially “excluded” club.

I found an interesting fact sheet on social inclusion, which starts out by explaining, “A socially inclusive society is defined as one where all people feel valued, their differences are respected, and their basic needs are met so they can live in dignity. Social exclusion is the process of being shut out from the social, economic, political and cultural systems which contribute to the integration of a person into the community.”

Okay, well that makes sense…I get it.  So now I am wondering why we have this need to be socially included.  Is it an evolutionary survival mechanism?  Did it contribute to survival of the species?  It turns out that yes, this is probably the case…So much so that apparently it “hurts” to be rejected.  An area of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex, is involved with providing us with a perception of pain.  This area has been shown to be active in studies of people who played video games which made them feel rejected.

Perhaps the quote found on this website sums it up best: “Thus our social-attachment system seems to use our physical-pain system to ensure that we maintain relations with other people.  Accordingly, being separated from a loved one or rejected by a group is painful to us, and we tend to avoid such situations when we can.”

So, it appears that the human need to feel valued and respected is in some way our mind’s attempt to circumvent the pain associated with rejection, which is tied to a social-attachment system.  It just goes to show that the pain of rejection is very real and runs very deep.  It’s important that we listen to what people have to say, and understand their feelings and concerns.  It’s important that we show that others are important to us, and that we value what they have to say.  By being empathetic, we can go a long way in showing people that we do really care about them.  After all, it turns out that we can be “pain killers” by simply demonstrating to others that we truly care!

Have a great day!

-Victor

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