Being Part of Something Great: A Fundamental Human Need

Goal

What does it mean to live a life of meaning and purpose? The idea proposed is that humans have a fundamental psychological need to feel they are part of a collective movement greater than the self ("GTS need"), sharing a common purpose and impact, and this feeling lies at the heart of what we mean by a "meaningful" life. This need has wide-ranging implications for flourishing - and when unfulfilled may be directed into toxic, destructive action - yet is not acknowledged or addressed by research or by individualistic modern societies.
The goal of a Grand Challenge would be to launch and coordinate multiple, integrated, specific programs of research on: reliable measures of GTS need fulfillment; neural, psychological, and social components/mechanisms of GTS fulfillment; implications of GTS fulfillment for individual and relational well-being; how communities, organizations, and larger societal structures can promote fulfillment of GTS need; benefits accrued from a population in which GTS need is fulfilled (e.g., creativity, social harmony, productivity, transformational energy); and what happens when societies fail to fulfill GTS need (e.g., addiction, despair, susceptibility to cults, extremist religious groups, authoritarian movements). A strong transdisciplinary consortium would work toward shared understanding of these processes and their interconnections.

Opportunity

The idea of a fundamental human need to feel one is part of something great builds upon existing theory/research on human ultrasociality, capacity for conceptual abstraction, spirituality, and the emotion awe. Combined, these building blocks point to an emergent deep-seated and universal psychological need that remains largely unexplored. The opportunity is to greatly expand our understanding of meaning and purpose as elements of human flourishing, positing that these are engaged primarily at the collective rather than individual level. This knowledge could be applied to promote wide-scale societal flourishing, and to prevent destructive consequences that ensue when GTS need is unfulfilled.

Roadblocks

Communication: This proposal crosses academic disciplines, and levels of analysis from human neural and psychological functioning through large-scale societal structures, that have little means of communicating or understanding each others' work. This fragmentation leads to different vocabularies and theoretical frameworks despite studying the same overarching topic, making it extremely difficult to integrate knowledge. In particular, comprehending methods across disciplines tends to be a major barrier to transdisciplinary work.
Funding: Highly novel topics and research questions can be difficult to fund and risky for researchers, especially early-career investigators who need to establish a track record of external support for their work.

Breakthroughs Needed

Identify scholars: The first stage is to reach out to key scholars around the world whose expertise encompasses various aspects of this idea, identifying those excited about working together.
Develop consortium: The next stage is to bring these scholars together regularly (annual in-person summits; online meetings 6-8 times per year). Bringing scholars together at the earliest stages of concept definition and scientific inquiry can break down barriers and spark innovative approaches. This consortium would take the larger topic and break it down into a series of specific questions whose answers can be pieced back together.
Launch research programs: The third stage is to develop and fund research projects addressing specific components of the GTS need topic, as identified by the consortium, and maintain strong communication among projects to ensure they stay connected to and integrated with the whole.
Potential for success: For three years I have led a transdisciplinary network of ASU researchers addressing substance use/addiction – a notoriously fragmented field. This past week we expanded to include key community stakeholders. The approach I propose here has proved highly successful at integrating researchers' knowledge and sparking new collaborations, and we aspire to transform the field of addiction science.

Key Indicators of Success

3 years: Consortium formed with roster of 10-15 committed, compensated faculty; literature review submitted for publication and/or disseminated as white paper; first round of empirical projects funded. Failure = disengagement of consortium members; no product of review work; insufficient projects funded.
5 years: Consortium remains fully active, expanded; first round empirical projects produce meaningful answers, submitted for publication and picked up by media; review paper integrating findings submitted for publication; second-stage questions identified, projects funded. Failure = consortium dissolution, projects fail.
10 years: Intervention efficacy/effectiveness studies conducted, submitted for publication, disseminated broadly; more widespread adoption of interventions/relevant policies beginning.

Additional Information

Example research project specific aims:
- Develop new, reliable and valid (s) measures of subjectively feeling part of a collective movement greater than the self, and (b) objective indicators of participation in such collectives; and identify unique contribution to variability in existing measures of meaning/purpose in life (e.g., Ryff & Keyes, 1995).
- Examine unique contribution of GTS need fulfillment to higher psychological well-being, relationship and work satisfaction, resilience to stress and trauma, prosocial behavior as well as vulnerability to addiction, mood disorder, burnout, susceptibility to misinformation/conspiracy theories.
- Examine physical health biomarkers and health outcomes associated with GTS need fulfillment.
- Examine neural, physiological activation profiles associated with exposure to visual stimuli activating collective movement identification vs. control stimuli.
- Examine role of unfulfilled GTS needs in predicting/driving engagement with extremist religious movements, authoritarian movements, hate groups.
- Identify organizational policies and procedures, community level activities, and broader societal characteristics that predict higher reports of GTS need fulfillment.
- In experiments comparing GTS-emphasis vs control conditions in small groups, examine effects on group productivity, harmony, output creativity.
- Develop GTS-fulfillment interventions at the small group, organization, community levels and conduct experiments to assess efficacy.
Potential consortium members:
- Blake Ashforth, Arizona State University, WP Carey School of Business, Management and Entrepreneurship
- Dacher Keltner, University of California at Berkeley, Psychology
- Pamela Reed, University of Arizona College of Nursing
- Carien van Reekum, University of Reading, Psychology and Neuroscience
- Donatella Della Porta, Scuola Normale Superiore (Italy), Political Science
- Jacquelien van Stekelenburg, VU University Amsterdam, Sociology
Suggested readings:
- Ashforth, B. E., & Schinoff, B. S. (2016). Identity under construction: How individuals come to define themselves in organizations. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 3, 111-137. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-041015-062322
- Bai, Y., Maruskin, L. A., Chen, S., Gordon, A. M., Stellar, J. E., McNeil, G. D., Peng, K., & Keltner, D. (2017). Awe, the diminished self, and collective engagement: Universals and cultural variations in the small self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(2), 185–209. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000087
- Reed, P. G. (1992). An emerging paradigm for the investigation of spirituality in nursing. Research in Nursing & Health, 15(5), 347-357. https://doi.org/10.1002/nur.4770150505
- Schaefer, S. M., Boylan, J. M., Van Reekum, C. M., Lapate, R. C., Norris, C. J., Ryff, C. D., & Davidson, R. J. (2013). Purpose in life predicts better emotional recovery from negative stimuli. PloS one, 8(11). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0080329
- Shiota, M. N., Keltner, D., & Mossman, A. (2007). The nature of awe: Elicitors, Appraisals, and Effects on Self-Concept. Cognition and Emotion, 21(5), 944-963. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930600923668