Personality Traits and Belonging

You First

Think of a time, place, or situation where you felt, beyond a doubt, that you didn’t belong. It might be small, like if you wandered into a retro-punk bar when your tastes lean toward country music. Or maybe it’s something with a little more impact, like if you finally met the parents of the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, and their disapproval of you was unmistakable.

What were the things that made you feel like you didn’t belong? Can you list three things? What were the feelings that you felt? Try to list three of those too.

Now take a step in the opposite direction. Inspired by your list of reasons why you didn’t belong, name the top three characteristics that let you know times when you did belong. How did people respond to you? What did you feel when you found your tribe, or what do you hope to feel if you’re still searching for it?

Belonging Is Nearly Essential

Belonging is a feeling that people experience when they identify with a group. In return, they feel that the group accepts them for who they are. Brené Brown, a researcher and feelings expert, asserts that belonging and fitting in are separate things. With belonging, a person is accepted for who they are. To fit in, they must conform to the standards of a group. For this article, we agree and will treat acceptance as a fundamental element of belonging.

Sometimes people treat belonging like a luxury – it’s something nice to have but unnecessary. People isolate themselves for many reasons. In personality studies, we often talk about lone wolves who relish being on their own and sometimes practice extreme independence. Those individuals may even question the value of connecting more deeply with other people. We’re not here to tell intelligent people that their life choices are right or wrong. But there are some realities about the cost of trying to navigate life without a sense of belonging.

Abraham Maslow, the American psychologist famous for his hierarchy of needs pyramid, saw love/belonging as a need. His original pyramid describes five levels of human needs, with the most basic needs being the two foundational levels of physiological needs (food, water, breathing, sex, and any bodily need) and safety needs (health, welfare, and security). The two top levels of the original five included esteem (self-esteem, confidence, and respect) and self-actualization (acceptance of reality, morality, creativity, and spontaneity). Dividing these two groups in the middle is the third level: love and belonging.

Although it’s not necessarily crucial to meet lower needs before ascending the pyramid to higher needs, Maslow’s idea was that it’s easier to climb to the higher levels once the lower levels are satisfied. While it may take too much liberty with Maslow’s theory, one might look at belonging as a gateway between the more primal needs (the bottom two levels) and the more enlightened needs (the top two) of humans. If nothing more, it serves as a lively metaphor for the value of belonging.

Growth usually requires stepping outside of one’s comfort zone. Belonging allows people to feel emotional safety and support as they explore new attitudes and behaviors. It makes sense that an accepting group can help a member develop their more advanced human needs, like a healthy sense of self-worth and the development of a meaningful life.

The wisdom of experienced others within the group and a free exchange of ideas, when there is an atmosphere of acceptance, nurtures intellectual and emotional expansion. Becoming a more complete person is a product of belonging and a reason to value being part of a group.

Loneliness Can Be a Killer

A fairly well-documented plague of loneliness seems to be causing mental and physical health problems worldwide. The recent pandemic, with its various forms of isolation, has revealed how fragile individuals’ connections to others can be. There’s ample research that shows that loneliness is not limited to a certain age group or other narrow demographics. The unquestionable cure for loneliness is a sense of belonging.

There have been studies suggesting that loneliness affects everything from productivity to premature mortality. Some research has compared loneliness to smoking, claiming that the health impact of loneliness is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes daily. Loneliness can be a symptom of depression. Furthermore, the brain reacts to social harm and rejection (which can lead to loneliness) in much the same way that it reacts to physical harm.

Being alone and being lonely are two separate things, and solitude isn’t necessarily something to be feared. But we want to be careful not to dismiss all loneliness as the benign act of being alone. Loneliness is not simply enjoying solitude – it doesn’t feel like a choice. Loneliness is when aloneness feels like a place where one is stuck without having a sense of balance between being alone and having social connections.

So we can also consider belonging to be a curative measure for the damage that loneliness can do, both mentally and physically.

On the positive side, belonging is related to happiness and life satisfaction. It’s said to hedge the effects of depression and stress, which are often side effects of loneliness. The pleasure areas of the brain light up when one experiences belonging. These beneficial side effects of belonging take us beyond preventive measures and toward more blissful places. That alone makes belonging worth pursuing.

Belonging and Personality Traits

There are likely many other ways in which belonging positively impacts a life – and lack of belonging negatively impacts a life – than we can mention in this brief article. But our purpose here is to explore how personality traits might respond to belonging in a measured, healthy fashion and how obstacles might come into play within the various traits to make belonging hard to attain or difficult to maintain.

Usually we explore these things by personality type. But this time, for simplicity and an alternate view, let’s look at belonging as it might be expressed through individual personality traits. Keep in mind that all traits in personality theory are influenced by three other traits. (For the purposes of this article, we are discussing the four core traits and not including the Assertive and Turbulent Identity aspects of personality, which do also influence how a person reacts to belonging.) So the Thinking trait as it’s expressed by, say, an Architect (INTJ) may look different from how it might as expressed by an Entrepreneur (ESTP). It may also be the case that the more diverse a group of people, the more balanced the sense of belonging. For example, a group with a prominent number of both Thinking and Feeling personality types may provide the right mix of compassion and rationality.

Introverted (I)

Introverts often love their solitude. This might suggest that they are resistant to belonging, but that would be stereotyping people with this personality trait. Belonging isn’t about how many people are in a group or how often they get together. For an Introvert, belonging might be meeting for tea with three friends every third Thursday of the month, as long as there is acceptance, commitment, and some kind of shared interest or responsibility. In other words, as long as they like/love one another for who they are and are around for one another when needed, they belong.

However, Introversion, like any other personality trait, can become overheated. Introverted personalities might choose isolation as an extreme expression of their more solitary nature. We’ve already discussed the negative aspects of isolation above. Introverts may have to take a more intentional approach to belonging to get themselves out of isolation.

Not being as gregarious as their Extraverted cousins, Introverts may need to put a little more effort into creating their tribes or sustaining those relationships that they land in by birth or other means. This may not come easily to all Introverts. Still, if they reflect on the essential nature of belonging, it may be worth their effort. It can be as easy as finding a place where people share a focus in life, like a group that shares an interest or cause.

Extraverted (E)

Since individuals with the Extraverted personality trait draw their energy from, among other things, people, it’s easy to see where belonging might have an almost natural value to them. In our research, Extraverts are more likely to say they desire to belong, compared to Introverts. They are likely to connect with groups of people more consistently, so that they can enjoy social exchanges. These opportunities will likely lead to satisfying and meaningful interactions with others.

However, remembering Brené Brown’s distinction between belonging and fitting in, some Extraverts may sometimes fit in to feed their need to connect, rather than joining a group authentically and seeking acceptance rather than just approval. To satisfy their need to be social, some Extraverts may settle for a superficial relationship instead of deeper belonging. They may seek a quick social fix requiring less risk and commitment.

Extraverted personalities may want to take their social temperature occasionally. Do they feel like they are part of a group and coming as their genuine selves, or do they always feel that they conform to a particular group? When we talk about conforming, we don’t mean that they shouldn’t compromise at times or expand their comfort zones occasionally. What might send up red flags may be the sense that they have altered who they are to feel comfortable enough to stay in a group in order to feed their social needs.

Intuitive (N)

Intuitive people are all about connections, and what is belonging but connecting with other humans? An Intuitive personality may read a lot into what belonging means, which can be beneficial – or it can overcomplicate things and increase expectations beyond what is reasonable.

Intuitive people may look at a community and understand, almost without effort, the synergy and dynamics of the group. They are likely to see the value of individual members in the context of the tribe in ways that more concrete types may not. They may also quickly shift between a macro and micro view of what it means to be a part of their group.

On the downside, Intuitive personality types might also focus on idealized interpretations of these connections. This can lead to too many canned expectations of the community members, switching the sense of belonging from acceptance to fitting in. Consider a head of household who sees their family as the engine that drives their family business, but one of the children is dead set on becoming a performance artist. The artist is unlikely to feel like they comfortably belong within the head of the household’s vision. A healthy belonging would make room in such a family for both corporate ambitions and the individual aspirations of each member.

Observant (S)

Observant personality types are likely to see belonging in far more “feet-on-the-ground” terms. There may be a hint of survival behind their sense of belonging. This may be a throwback to our tribal ancestors. They discovered that survival increased if they pooled their skills and support into a single unit of belonging. They found that safety and sustenance were more likely to be achieved in a group than in a solo existence.

This approach to belonging may sound a bit mercenary until we start to consider that the emotional needs of others can be woven into a more practical approach to belonging and seen as having their own utility. We all need some sense that we are loved and respected to flourish. True belonging among humans can never be reduced to simply meeting physical survival needs. You may fit in for that reason, but true belonging needs affection and respect. So while Observant personality types may have more practical foundations attached to belonging, they are not devoid of heartfelt commitment to others based on love and appreciation for each individual.

However, it’s also possible that viewing a group through an overheated Observant lens can lead to an excessive tendency to assess others by a standard that asks, “What have you done for us lately?” If the group doesn’t include more emotionally connective characteristics than a cold transactional relationship, the members may be fitting in rather than belonging. Acceptance would mean occasionally supporting someone even when they underperform, which may not always seem practical.

Thinking (T)

Healthy belonging among Thinking types is unlikely to be much different from belonging among Feeling types. Still, lofty ideas may make a tribe more attractive to those with a “T” in their personality type configuration. This doesn’t mean that they can’t belong to a group with Feeling types and their more emotionally influenced decision-making. Most probably do. But it should also be noted that people with the Thinking personality trait may be more likely to endorse a stronger sense of belonging if a group is exclusive, and they may be more attracted to specialized groups.

Thinking types who wish to belong rather than just fit in need a spirit of open-mindedness. They can sometimes have so much faith in their rationality and logic that it’s hard for them to see that they might be wrong. They need to allow room for debate and disagreement, even when they think their argument seems ironclad. Belonging implies respectful disagreement and a fair hearing for opposing opinions, both of which can be strengths that Thinking personality types possess. However, that doesn’t mean that they are immune to emotions and ego concerns, and this may be connected to their belief in their personal rationality.

Overheated Thinking types may replace acceptance with dogma, and some of them may see their logic as more flawless than the logic of others in the group. Some individuals who value rationality may need to remind themselves that true intellectualism always has a humble element. Nobody knows everything. Even the most cogent argument can lose steam when someone introduces new information, so openness and reasonable flexibility are required where a Thinking type wants to create an environment of belonging.

Feeling (F)

For those with the Feeling personality trait, bonds are likely to be strongest when there is a pronounced emotional component. Belonging, for them, is best when it involves a heart connection. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for rationality. Still, logic may be secondary to a Feeling individual who joins a group. There are likely to be deeper interpersonal relationships in a group that contains a lot of Feeling individuals, and checking in with the moods and sentiments of others is likely a prominent feature of such groups.

As cozy as that may sound, emotions can be volatile and play out in extremes if left unchecked by something more objective. Feeling personality types may want to access their more rational side regularly to ensure that they have an anchor that provides stability amid shifting feelings. Fortunately, most Feeling types are likely used to balancing their prominent Feeling trait with more objective data in a world that often demands evidence.

Judging (J)

The keywords associated with the Judging personality trait are order and stability. This suggests that belonging would need principles or rules to be a comfortable fit for people with this trait. The group standards could involve a casual or formal philosophy, a familial or cultural code, religious tenets, or a rehabilitative process like a 12-step program. Above all, Judging types look for structure and consistency and will feel most at home in groups where those things are prominent.

An overheated version may be expressed as rigidity and intolerance by Judging personality types. These stern qualities can damage an overarching sense of belonging in a group and must be balanced by flexibility and acceptance of different views and attitudes. There are ways to maintain standards while the group remains infused with compassion and diversity. It’s all about respecting the individual members. The qualities that maintain a healthy sense of belonging can provide the structures that Judging types desire and can be made into behavioral rules. For example, giving advice or verbally reacting to someone who is sharing at a 12-step program is called cross talk and is forbidden. This sets a standard that does not impinge on anybody’s sense of belonging.

Prospecting (P)

Prospecting individuals have a more flexible view of the world, which might suggest that they avoid groups to avoid groupthink. People with this personality trait prefer less predictability and avoid things that interfere with their independence. However, compared to Judging types, Prospecting types are slightly more likely to say they feel a need to belong, so the previous assumption would be wrong.

That said, a social environment may not be optimal for Prospecting types if their penchant for delving into ever-changing topics and activities is not honored and accepted. They need latitude to engage their roving eyes, which are always searching for interesting things to attend to. For Prospecting types, nonacceptance by a group would involve structures that are too rigid, with expectations that don’t contain room for reasonable or preferable alternatives.

However, an overheated Prospecting personality trait can make someone into a contrarian who naysays easily out of needing to cover all of their bases in an argument. Their favorite phrase may be, “Yeah, but…” Constantly presenting alternative ways of thinking or feeling about something can make for interesting conversation but can be tiresome to those who prefer a single, simple approach. It may be incumbent upon such Prospecting types to accept this difference in others in a belonging situation and learn to balance their broader style of thinking and feeling against the needs of others.

Acceptance and Balance

Belonging is a matter of acceptance, receiving, and giving, as well as balancing one’s own needs against the needs of others. Within belonging, there is not only room for but also the need for compromise and negotiation. Those are about behaviors and actions. Underneath that lies the core of who a person is, and that is also where acceptance comes into play.

We’d love to hear about your experiences with belonging (or not belonging), especially as they apply to your personality preferences. Leave a comment below.