Social Exclusion and Sense of Belonging: Being Excluded by Strangers and Being Excluded by Familiar People

Abstract

Humans are social animals, and sense of belonging is one of our existence needs. When people are placed in a new environment with both strangers and familiar people, they tend to first contact with people they are familiar with. The study aims to find out the relationship between people's sense of belonging and the identity of the excluder. I conducted a questionnaire to examine whether there is a difference in sense of belonging when the identity of the exluder is different. There are five different conditions displayed in the questionnaire in separate sections, and participants are going to complete all five sections. The closeness between the excluder and the participants in the five conditions is divided into five scales (completely strange; seen but do not know; know but not well; know and familiar with; and recognized to be friends). The five conditions in the questionnaire test the relationship between participlants sense of belonging and different degrees of the closeness between the excluder and the participants. The hypothesized result is that as the closeness between the excluder and participants is higher, participants senses of belonging will be lower. The analysis of the results of the questionnaire demonstrates that peoples sense of belonging is significantly different when the identity of the excluder is different.