A hypothesized need to form and maintain strong, stable interpersonal relationships is evaluated in light of the empirical literature. The need is for frequent, nonaversive interactions within an ongoing relational bond. Consistent with the belongingness hypothesis, people form social attachments readily under most conditions and resist the dissolution of existing bonds. Belongingness appears to have multiple and strong effects on emotional patterns and on cognitive processes. Lack of attachments is linked to a variety of ill effects on health, adjustment, and well-being. Other evidence, such as that concerning satiation, substitution, and behavioral consequences, is likewise consistent with the hypothesized motivation. Several seeming counterexamples turned out not to disconfirm the hypothesis. Existing evidence supports the hypothesis that the need to belong is a powerful, fundamental, and extremely pervasive motivation.

The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation.

Much of social life involves interactions between individuals or corporate actors in dyads, groups, organizations or networks that can be viewed as social exchanges. This chapter presents an overview of the main theories of social exchange focusing on the key contributors in sociology, including George Homans, Peter Blau, Richard M. Emerson and those whose work subsequently built on their original formulations. The theories that have been developed in recent decades have focused on the social structures created by repeated exchanges and the ways in which these structures both constrain and enable actors to exercise power and influence. Other related social processes addressed within the exchange tradition include interpersonal commitment, trust, fairness, procedural and distributive justice, coalition formation and collective action. Recent work also focuses on emotions and their role in social exchange. The methodological challenges of studying social exchange in the laboratory and in the world outside the lab are addressed as well as links between exchange theory and topics under study by economic sociologists and network scholars more broadly, including Internet-mediated exchanges and their growing significance.

Social Exchange Theory.

A flood of new studies explores people's subjective well-being (SWB) Frequent positive affect, infrequent negative affect, and a global sense of satisfaction with life define high SWB These studies reveal that happiness and life satisfaction are similarly available to the young and the old, women and men, blacks and whites, the rich and the working-class Better clues to well-being come from knowing about a person's traits, close relationships, work experiences, culture, and religiosity We present the elements of an appraisal-based theory of happiness that recognizes the importance of adaptation, cultural world-view, and personal goals

http://gruberpeplab.com/teaching/psych131_summer2013/documents/Lecture19_MyersDiener1995_Whoishappy.pdf

Who Is Happy

The effect of age on happiness, as defined by positive and negative affect, was examined in a survey of 2,727 persons of a broad age range (25-74) conducted by the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Midlife Development. The age-affect association was examined, controlling for a host of sociodemograp hic, personality, and contextual influences. Among women, age was related to positive affect nonlineariy but was unrelated to negative affect. Among men, age interacted with 2 key variables in predicting affect: extraversion and marital status. These findings lend support to recent life span theories of emotion and indicate that personality, contextual, and sociodemographic variables, as well as their interactions, are all needed to fully understand the age-affect relationship.

/pdf/the-effect-of-age-on-positive-and-negative-affect-a-15b6rota61.pdf

The effect of age on positive and negative affect : a developmental perspective on happiness

How do new parents differ from their childless counterparts in social and psychological resources, daily strains, and psychological well-being? Using a nationally representative panel of 1,933 adults who were childless at the first interview, we compare 6 indicators of adults' lives for those who became parents and those remaining childless several years later, controlling for earlier states. Becoming a parent is both detrimental and rewarding. With the exception of social integration, which is greater for all groups of new parents compared with their childless counterparts, the effects of parental status on adults' lives vary markedly by gender and marital status. Unmarried parents report lower self-efficacy and higher depression than their childless counterparts. Married mothers' lives are marked by more housework and more marital conflict but less depression than their childless counterparts. Parental status has little influence on the lives of married men.

Costs and Rewards of Children: The Effects of Becoming a Parent on Adults' Lives

The effects of the presence of children on their parents' marital happiness were estimated, with data from six U. S. national surveys conducted from 1973 through 1978, for subpopulations delineated on the basis of sex, race, level of education, religious preference, employment status, and stated ideal number of children for a ,family. No evidence for distinctly positive mean effects was found for any subpopulation, the estimated mean effects ranging from distinctly negative (for most of the subpopulations) to near zero for whites who said that the ideal number of children for a family is four or more. The findings contribute to a rather large body of accumulating evidence which indicates that on the average children adversely affect marital quality, both in the total population of married persons in the U. S. and in several large and important subpopulations. Some implications of the findings are discussed.

Children and Marital Happiness: A Further Specification of the Relationship.

According to data from six U.S. national surveys, middle-aged women whose children have left home report, as a whole, somewhat greater happiness and enjoyment of life than women of similar age with a child (or children) living at home, and the former report substantially greater marital happiness than the latter. These findings, considered in conjunction with consistent findings from retrospective and longitudinal studies, are convincing evidence that the children's leaving home does not typically have an enduring negative effect on the mother's psychological well-being.

Norvald D. Glenn

Papers

Children and Marital Happiness: A Further Specification of the Relationship.

Psychological Well-Being in the Postparental Stage: Some Evidence From National Surveys*