Affiliation is the desire to be in the company of other people, the need to create trusting, warm, emotionally significant relationships. This concept includes categories such as communication, friendship, love and many others. The nature of relationships with parents and peers in early childhood determines the formation of this need. Affiliation leads to a decrease in anxiety and mitigates the effects of both psychological and physiological stress.
Negative experience, reinforced by frequent repetition of situations involving self-doubt and distrust of another person or group of people, blocks affiliation and causes alienation, loneliness and frustration.
Basis of affiliation
The formation of the need for communication and love is based on the child’s initial influence with parents and relatives, and subsequently with peers. Failure in the formation of affiliation occurs when exposed to negative external factors, for example, anxiety, self-doubt, doubts, and so on. And only communication with loved ones helps to get rid of anxiety. The formation of an affiliation motive is an important stage in the development of personal characteristics.
Affiliation motivation
It is almost impossible to imagine a person’s life without various social motives: to take a certain place in society, to achieve success, to help others and simply to communicate - all these motives determine our attitude towards the people around us.
Here are examples of some of the most significant motivations for affiliation:
- Talk periodically (even if it’s just chatting about nothing);
- Build relationships and contacts (feel connected and needed by someone else);
- Sharing problems with loved ones (“a vest” in which you can cry, sometimes everyone needs it).
What's the point?
The motive of affiliation in psychology is motivation and actions aimed at establishing new and terminating old relationships between people. An individual may have excellent communication skills, which enable him to make new acquaintances and establish informal relationships without problems. But despite this, a person may experience fear of misunderstanding, failure or rejection. That is why a person feels the need to create not one-time acquaintances, but full-fledged, long-term, close relationships. Affiliation develops over time into a person's character traits.
Motives for affiliation acquire their significance in the process of building communications. Internally, a person experiences affection and loyalty, externally this manifests itself in the desire to build cooperation, friendly relations, the desire to constantly be close to another individual. The concept of affiliation, motives for affiliation and loneliness are related definitions.
Affiliation motive
encourages making friends and feeling affection, enjoying other people and living with them, cooperating and communicating with them, loving, joining a group.
Back in 1938, G. Murray defined the motive of affiliation as follows: “To make friends and experience affection. Enjoy other people and live with them. Collaborate and communicate with them. Be in love. Join the group” (Quoted in: Heckhausen, 1986, vol. 1, p. 289). Emphasizing the fundamental nature of a person’s daily craving for contacts with other people, this motive should be defined as a mutual desire to receive satisfaction from communication and maintain contacts in such a way that they not only bring satisfaction, but also captivate and enrich both parties.
It is important that the partner feels that he is being offered a relationship of equals, in which mutual trust dominates. The purpose of affiliation is a mutual search for acceptance, desirability of oneself, friendly support and sympathy, consonance of experiences. The affiliation motive includes two different tendencies - the desire for rapprochement, hope for affiliation (NA) and fear, fear of rejection (FR).
Researcher and psychotherapist L. Horowitz identifies two types of behavior that underlie any interpersonal relationship: behavior aimed at bringing another person closer - type C actions (bringing closer); and behavior oriented toward moving away from another—actions of type O (rejection). Type C behavior occurs when there is a tendency toward cooperation, agreement, intimacy, and ultimately love. Type O actions manifest disagreement, mistrust, detachment, and hostility.
Type O behavior creates barriers that others must overcome in order to achieve Type C manifestations. Some people may unconsciously give ambiguous signals such as: “I really need you, go away,” “I may refuse, but you still need to contact me.” , “You have to call me, it’s my right not to pick up the phone,” etc. (according to: Heckhausen, 1986).
Affiliative communication has its own behavioral manifestations (they are ordered using factor analysis and identified from an audiovisual recording by A. Mehrabyan in 1971) (according to: Heckhausen, 1986):
- total number of statements in 1 minute (especially positive ones);
- duration of speech of partners and duration of eye contact;
- friendly facial expression;
- volume and speed of speech;
- number of gestures, nods, verbal agreements;
- lack of tension (number of leg movements, body swaying, distance to the partner).
The affiliation motive has a complex relationship with the achievement motive. There is a well-known experiment that clearly shows this contradiction. To solve a certain difficult problem, a person was asked to take a partner as an assistant - either a friend who had little understanding of the problem, or a obviously unpleasant, but knowledgeable person. The choice made indicated what the leading motive was for this person, what was more important for him - to maintain friendly relations (since completing the task was both prestigious and paid) or to achieve a result.
AFFILIATION AS A STUDENT
In 1999, a study was undertaken of affiliation and its relationship with the structure of relationships with significant others. In I. V. Kuznetsova’s thesis (1999, under the supervision of V. N. Kunitsyna), the following methods were used: a questionnaire to identify two affiliative tendencies (24 judgments), V. N. Kunitsyna’s technique “The importance of another person,” modified the method of measuring self-attitude (SOTKU), the Cattell personality questionnaire and the method of measuring motivational tendencies of G. Eysenck (modified by M. L. Kubyshkina).
In a student sample of 72 people, the following distribution of motivational tendencies was found. The desire for emotional contacts is evident in a quarter of respondents; avoidance of companies and communication is represented in the fifth part; pronounced fear of rejection is observed in 7%; more than a third do not experience fear of rejection.
Trust relationships in the surveyed group prevail over dependency relationships. A third of respondents define their relationship with their mother as a trusting, partnership; More than half of them believe that, despite all this, relationships of dependence often arise with their mother, while relationships with a friend are assessed only as trusting and partnership.
It turned out that dependent relationships with one significant person are often compensated by building partnerships with another significant person. If, during the accumulation of experience, a person has formed insufficient hope of establishing close relationships with people, then relationships of trust and support more often arise with a friend than with a mother.
The expressed motive of affiliation (MA) is associated with courage in communication, impulsiveness and a certain dependence on the opinions of significant people. Fear of rejection (FR) occurs among insecure people who are dissatisfied with their own lives.
It turned out that people with insufficiently expressed responsibility, anxious, prone to “soul-searching” and self-blame, more often end up in dependent relationships and are less likely to build their relationships with friends as trusting ones.
This sample did not confirm the assumption that the predominance of the fear of rejection (FR) motive will be more associated with relationships of dependence on close people, and the predominance of an orientation toward communication and rapprochement (NA) will be more associated with relationships of equality, trust, and partnership.
The few studies on this topic show that people with a strong affiliation motive are more likely to talk on the phone and write letters, thus fulfilling their need for trusted contacts. They perceive other people more positively and more similar to themselves, which evokes reciprocal feelings and even when communicating with a stranger, leads to a feeling of trust and comfort.
Higher affiliation motivations
Love for another individual is the highest manifestation of affiliative motives. This category is determined by ease in communication, confidence in one’s actions and words, courage, sincerity and openness. Motives for affiliation are closely related to the basic human need to gain social approval, the desire to assert oneself and realize oneself. Psychologists note that people with an increased need for communication usually evoke positive emotions and sympathy in others, because relationships with them are of a trusting nature. In contrast to affiliation is the motive of rejection. This category manifests itself in the fear of being misunderstood and not accepted by the people most important to a person. If this motive dominates, then the person’s character is replete with such traits as uncertainty, isolation, and constraint.
The features of the manifestation of the motives of affiliation and power differ from the motive of achievement and anxiety primarily in their social nature. That is why a person can satisfy affiliative motives through interaction with others.
Need for affiliation
Each of us needs communication differently. There are people who simply cannot sit at home, they constantly attend various events, parties, meet with friends, etc., it is almost impossible to find them alone. In other words, they have a high need for affiliation.
Another category of people, on the contrary, leads a rather secluded lifestyle. They prefer to spend time, if not alone, then in the circle of those closest to them, they do not like increased attention, have difficulty establishing new contacts and practically do not make new acquaintances. In these cases we are talking about people with little need for affiliation.
So, in psychology, affiliation is used, simply put, as a term that determines the level of how much a person likes being in society, how much it inspires him.
Etymology of the word
The concept of affiliation is of English origin and translated means “to join.” We can highlight the following needs that this concept regulates:
- friendship;
- attachment;
- the joy of communication and interaction with other people;
- Love;
- activities within certain groups of society.
Based on the listed categories, the motive of belonging is much broader than just the motive of communication. Many scientists have noted that the need for communication is based on other needs that began to function earlier. The basis of communication needs is the need for new emotions and impressions. M.I. Lisina noted that the motives for affiliation are secondary, it is only a tool for satisfying the most important cognitive need. That is why the motive of belonging is a complex concept that includes many categories.
Specificity of motives
Despite the fact that the motives for affiliation are viewed mainly from a positive position, the goals can be very different. For example, they may be based on the desire to impress people in order to gain power.
The basis of the affiliation motive is partnership; there is no place for an asymmetric division of roles. This category does not suggest using a partner to achieve personal goals, and on the contrary, such relationships destroy affiliation. For the most favorable development of affiliation relationships, the opinions of both partners must be taken into account; they must feel their own value. The features of the affiliation motive and its interaction with other motives are of paramount importance for the construction of communications.
Affiliation goals
The purpose of affiliation motives is to establish trusting relationships, sympathy, and support. Such motives have two ways of expression - hope for affiliation, desire for approval and self-affirmation, and fear of being misunderstood. This fear does not allow a person to feel comfortable in the process of communication, therefore such people are quite closed, do not inspire sympathy or trust, and are essentially lonely. Diagnosing affiliation motives is an important stage in building fruitful and positive relationships with people around you.
What is the role of affiliation
Psychologists have been studying human affiliations for a very long time, and they have come to the conclusion that:
- Close relationships between individuals improve their health;
- People with weak social connections are at greater risk of premature death than those who maintain relationships with friends and family.
Finnish researchers once studied cases in which one of the spouses lost his other half. So, they found that the risk of sudden death for a widower/widow doubles (!) literally a week after the death of his wife/husband.
Positive values
A person's motivation is determined by his expectations, which are based on past experiences. If we take the category of expected value, then affiliation is a positive value. You can give the following example: a person is about to have a dialogue with a complete stranger. And the result of this communication depends on the expectations of success. The stronger this expectation, the higher its positive attractiveness, and, accordingly, vice versa. Here one can observe a certain connection when the expectation of success influences a person’s behavior and the course of action, while the course of events influences the result of communication. To build a successful dialogue, the expectation of success must be higher than the expectation of failure; this contributes to the fact that positive attraction will prevail over negative one. But such a connection is inherent only in motives of affiliation. For example, in the achievement motive everything works the other way around. The higher the expectation of success, the lower the attractiveness of the task facing a person.
On the importance of affiliation of article authors
International bases for establishing the ranking of scientific journals use affiliation as the most important sign of the publication activity of scientists and scientific institutions in which scientists carry out their research. Along with the H-index, these characteristics play a decisive role in matters of financing universities and their scientific projects.
The culture of affiliation is very widespread in Western publications. There is no such publishing practice in the CIS countries. Affiliation on the pages of domestic scientific periodicals has never been in demand. The authors did not provide information about affiliation in their publications. The fact is that almost all the main scientific domestic organizations were previously classified and open scientific and journalistic journals did not indicate detailed information about the authors and universities. As a result, no one published this important information. And no one paid attention to her lack. In principle, this position remains today.
In contrast, foreign publications refuse to index articles with incomplete affiliation in international databases. Such articles will not contain information about the country of location and the name of the scientific institution in which the work was created. It follows from this that the publication of such an article will not have an impact on the revision of the H-index of the scientist, his institution, or the impact factor of the journal that published it.
Information about the place of work must be correctly identified, and the scientific article must be displayed in the profile of the institution and the author. This affects the indexing of the log in the database.
Gender
Psychologists note that affiliative motivation is also influenced by gender. For example, girls prefer to sincerely and openly share their experiences, guys try to build communications based on business issues and discussions. It should be noted that in addition to gender, age also has an influence. Over the years, the content of communication can change dramatically.
The tendency to affiliate increases when a person is involved in a potentially critical and stressful situation. It is at such moments that people around us provide an opportunity to check whether the choice of behavior in a dangerous situation is correct. As practice shows, the proximity of other people during a stressful situation leads to a decrease in anxiety and excitement, which has a positive effect not only on the psychological, but also on the physiological state. A person's blocking of affiliation provokes feelings of loneliness, alienation and rejection.
The central motivational moment of communication
This category includes the choice of a temporary or permanent communications partner. The choice of a permanent partner is carried out not only by business, moral and intellectual qualities, but also by appearance. You can determine the motives for affiliation of a particular individual using various techniques, of which there are a huge number. The most used technique today was developed by Mehrabian. It is based on the diagnosis of two general motivators, which are stable and are part of affiliation motives. These motivators are the tendency to affiliation or love of communication and sensitivity to rejection, fear of rejection. These two categories are the basis for diagnosing affiliation motives according to A. Mehrabian.
How to register an affiliation
Information about the organization is freely identifiable. All profiles will be correct only if the structure is correct. Careless and inattentive attitude of article authors and publishers to the compilation of initial affiliation information entails the loss of data from scientometric databases.
The scale of this problem is enormous in percentage terms. Here is just one fact: in 2014, 7,415 Russian articles were published in Scopus journals. Of these, 4,041 articles did not show a country. Subsequently, such articles were not included in the list of Russian publications. There are also so-called “homeless publications” with partial affiliation that are not indexed by scientometric databases. They do not appear in organization profiles and are not registered in author profiles. The annual share of such publications in Scopus journals from the entire body of Russian articles is 1.5%.
Affiliation determines the success of an organization and its employees. This is determined by many factors, the main one of which is citation. It helps prevent the loss of publications by scientists with common surnames.
There are generally accepted European standards for strict formalization of affiliation. In order for an article to be displayed in the profile of a scientific institution, it must contain the following information:
- faculty or other structural unit;
- scientific institution;
- city;
- postcode;
- country.
Ethnic affiliation
Ethnic or group affiliation is focused on the desire of a certain ethnic group to receive the support of other complementary ethnic groups. Group affiliation is expressed in the relationships between certain groups, of which one is only an integral part of the other. Simply put, this is the interaction between groups that have different weight and scale in society. In this case, the larger group absorbs the smaller one and it begins to conduct its activities in accordance with the rules and values of the larger group. Modern affiliation theory suggests that every person needs to belong to a certain group. Due to the instability of a transitional society, an individual feels the need for family or ethnic affiliation; this reduces feelings of anxiety and makes it possible to feel part of a single whole. Ethnicity is formed at primary school age, when children acquire the first knowledge that relates to this area. By the age of 8-9, a child already clearly identifies himself as a member of a certain ethnic group. Full ethnic identity and motives for affiliation are formed by approximately 10-12 years.
How to register an affiliation
correctly compiled author's affiliation for publication should include information in the following form: faculty or other structural unit, organization, city, postal code, country. This is the necessary data to include an article in the organization's profile. Special mention should be made of double affiliations. If the author carried out work in two organizations (for example, a permanent place of work and a project location), then information about the second organization must be indicated at intervals.
Another important point that authors should take into account. In recommendations to authors, many foreign publications do not pay attention to the correct formatting of affiliation, since the tradition of indicating affiliation in all published works has a long history and does not require additional mention.
Organizational data is easily identifiable and its profiles will only be correct if it is well structured. The careless attitude of authors and publishers to the correct writing of initial affiliation data leads to the loss of information about the publication from scientometric databases.
The size of this problem in percentage terms is very impressive. For example, out of 7,415 articles published in Russian-language Scopus journals in 2014, 4,041 articles did not indicate a country, and, therefore, they were not included in Russian publications. Articles with incomplete affiliation, which are not indexed by scientometric databases, are often called “bum publications”, and they not only do not fall into the profiles of organizations, but are often not recorded in the profiles of the authors. The share of such Scopus publications is about 1.5% of the total number of Russian articles for the year.
