3b Affiliation

Affiliation

The need for affiliation gives a person a sense of belonging within a social group. Studies have show that affiliation with others has health benefits such as reducing stress. But why do we need to affiliate? I think it goes right back to the very beginning of time, when God put Adam on the Earth:

"Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone;

I will make him a helper fit for him." (Genesis chap 2 vs 18-19)

The animals were not enough companionship for Adam so God made Eve. He could have left him alone but he wanted him to have a companion and one that could reproduce. But why was it not good for him to be alone?

As Crisp and Turner found "adolescents spend about 75% of their waking time with other people" (Crisp & Turner, 2007 pp266-268). Research has shown the benefits of being around others. It can relive stress, give us support,  improve our social skills needed for everyday life and leave us with a sense of happiness and satisfaction.

American psychological theorist David McClelland popularized the idea of our need for affiliation. In his book The Achieving Society (1961) he created a needs-based motivational model describing 3 types of characteristics. Some people might posses a mix of these and other may steer towards a certain type. He research was mainly into achievement motivated people and he believed that these types of people are generally the ones who get things done and are goal orientated. His three types were:

N-arch- the need for achievement
These types of people are 'achievement motivated' with the need to succeed in the goals set to them. They like to feel a sense of accomplishment.
N- power- the need for authority and power
These people are 'authority motivated' enjoying the power of leading. They have a need to lead and like to be in charge.
N-affil- the need for affiliation
These people are 'affiliation motivated' having a need to be around people and like to be popular in social situations.

People motivated by achievement and those motivated by the need to affiliate seem to be very opposite in character. People that are motivated by achievement may generally have a low need to affiliate whereas those that are motivated by affiliation may be low on high achievement. Looking at the above I would say I steer more towards n-arch. I love feeling a sense of achievement or accomplishment in tasks set before me. I am a very organised person, a list maker and perfectionist in many ways and like the feeling of tasks well accomplished. I have the n-affil (need for affiliation) sometimes too but this can vary.

Obviously affiliation is more complex than just whether you are one way or the other. The Privacy Regulation Theory (Irwin Altman, 1975) explains why our need for affiliation fluctuates over time- why sometimes we like to be alone and other times around a lot of people. Altman argues that our desired privacy level changes according to cultural differences and different circumstances we experience. The goal of the privacy regulation theory is to achieve our desired level. If we have a small level of privacy but actually want a greater one we will feel lonely just like if we have too much interaction, more than our desired level we will feel annoyed. I can relate to this theory in my professional practice with contracts such as the cruise ships I worked on. Constantly being surrounded by cast members and crew was nice at times but also became annoying. As you share a cabin too it is very easy to feel overwhelmed by people and it was nice to sometimes go up on the deck for a walk or to the gym on my own to get some me time.

The social affiliation model by Shawn O'Connor and Larne Rosenblood again shows us how we regulate our need for affiliation to or desired level at that particular time. In certain situations for example a death in the family we might feel like we need a shoulder to cry on and reach out for help, our desire to affiliate becoming high. If however we feel that being around people at a particular time might increase stress our desire to affiliate with others will be very low and we want to be alone.
There are also biological and cultural differences in people that can explain our individual needs to affiliate.
Johnson and colleagues (1999) conducted brain studies that revealed differences in introverts and extroverts. Rachael Rettner wrote an article in Live Science Brains of Introverts revealed why they prefer being alone(LiveScience, Aug, 2010) where studies revealed that human faces are much more meaningful to extroverts than introverts. Introverts treat people the same way they do say flowers or animals and can therefore take them or leave them a lot easier than extroverts can. I found this really interesting. I would class myself as an extrovert as I am outgoing, enjoy talking and being around a lot of people. I have always been quite sensitive to people in the past and this study may explain why.

I find Geert Hofstede (1980) theories on cultural differences hard to grasp as it seems very generalised on a whole nation. It was also a study done back in the 80's and with times changing might be outdated for this day and age.

To summarize, I feel I have quite a high need for affiliation as I enjoy having a lot of people around when I am at work. I enjoy talking to people and finding out things about them. I like to have the TV on as background noise even if I am not watching it. However I also like to do things on my own and have no problem being alone sometimes. I have established that I am a person quite high on the need for achievement and I like to associate myself with like-minded people. The trouble I find with these theories is that each of them are subject to human nature and individualism. Each person differs in their own way making it hard to generalize. I think we all have the need for achievement and affiliation as it is in our nature as human beings and you can be high on both not just one or the other. It is also subject to circumstances as we all behave differently depending on what is going on around us. You might be surprised how someone might act in a situation of desperation when they act differently at other times. What I found through looking into affiliation and achievement was a that at first glance I thought they were different from each other, but I now see they can be both related.