"RB: The core point of the belongingness hypothesis is that people have an innate motivational drive to form and maintain interpersonal bonds with other people. We called belonging a “need” rather than merely a “desire” because people who fail to satisfy it suffer various mental health and physical health deficits. We framed it in terms of forming one-to-one close relationships, but it can probably be satisfied by belonging to larger groups and organizations. These desired social bonds have two aspects: frequent positive or neutral (just not negative) interactions, and an ongoing framework of mutual caring."
"Marsh’s work has made a strong case that with education, it’s the area-specific self-esteem that matters, not global self-esteem. Whether belongingness has anything to do with area-specific self-esteem (e.g., believing oneself good at math or reading) may be worth exploring."
"Another big issue for future research and societal concern is what happens when the child’s early years do not have a stable belongingness context? The trend in modern societies is toward more family dissolution, single and divorced parents, geographical moves, rotating quasi-stepparents, and the like. What are the lasting effects on a child of starting out life without that stability of belongingness?"
"The inferences people make about their belonging, and their understanding of why they do or do not belong, play a very important role in their reactions and are important aspects of interventions designed to increase belonging. "
"The most important thing is to be careful and precise in the constructs and terms that you use in your work and to be sure that your measures and manipulations map on to those conceptualizations as tightly as possible. "