Definition
The association of self-esteem, or one’s sense of self-worth, with perceived and actual acceptance.
Introduction
A sense of belonging or feeling accepted, liked, and included by others is a fundamental human need (Baumeister and Leary 1995). As will be discussed in greater detail below, self-esteem, or one’s sense of self-worth, is empirically linked with perceived and actual belonging. This association holds true both when researchers investigate belonging with state self-esteem (i.e., one’s transient and reactive feelings about the self) and with trait self-esteem (i.e., one’s relatively stable and chronic feelings about one’s self and one’s sense of self-worth). Research on the association between self-esteem and belonging can be divided into three different perspectives. First, many researchers have focused on how self-esteem changes in response to experiencing actual belonging....
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References
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Cameron, J., Granger, S. (2016). Self-Esteem and Belongingness. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1170-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1170-1
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