Generate a hypothesis about the need to belong and design an experiment to test your hypothesis. You will specify conceptual and operational independent and dependent variables.
Describe the need to belong and the research in the reading, An Introduction to the Science of Social Psychology, that supports the need to belong.
Describe your own hypothesis about the need to belong that can be tested in an experiment (e.g., I predict that those who feel a sense of belonging will perform better).
Create an experiment that tests this hypothesis. Be sure to describe the experimental conditions fully. Explicitly name the independent variable and the dependent variable in your experiment.
Describe the results as if your hypothesis was supported and relate your findings to the need to belong.
An example of an experiment that tests the need to belong:
I will recruit a group of students from Thomas Edison State University to participate in a study. Participants will be randomly assigned to learn they have been rejected or accepted by others. Specifically, all participants arrive at the study and are asked to design a personal introduction video that will be shared with another group of students. Participants are told that the other group of participants have been instructed to choose someone to partner with in the next task based solely on the videos. In reality, there is no other group of students. Instead, the experiment is rigged so that participants in the experimental condition always get chosen by others and therefore feel accepted while those in the other condition never get chosen and therefore feel rejected. This serves as the primary manipulation of acceptance and rejection. Then, participants are all assigned to take a short math task.
