Social Acceptance

Humans seem to be motivated much of the time by learned needs derived from their socialization into their culture and society. One of these learned needs is the desire for social acceptance, to have others value one as a person and respond warmly to one’s actions.
The need for social acceptance may be developed through learning that the acceptance and approval of ones parents and peers enables one to receive more basic rewards from others.
One of the learned needs that act as a powerful motive in human actions is the need for social acceptance. The degree to which a person can be influenced by the approval of others depends upon his situational deprivation of social acceptance. The need for social acceptance represents the basis for enduring interpersonal relationships.
Another personality characteristic with especially important implications for social acceptance is the tendency to seek the approval of others. Most people at least a little about having others like them and approve of them, but people do differ in how much they care. Some people are especially concerned that others regard them favorably.
Falling in love, making friends, experiencing the warmth, comradeship, and intimacy of close personal relationships is one of the most exciting aspects of being alive. Much of human society and action seems based upon attraction individuals have for each other. To a special psychologist it becomes interesting to ask how do individuals become friends, why did Joemark fall in love with Almirah and not Jane? Why did Almirah fall in love with Jeff and not to Joemark? What causes the deep pain often experienced where two close friends move to different communities?
The need for positive approval is so strong that the inability to obtain acceptance is basic to many forms of mental illness. A child who is not loved or accepted or approved by his parents, peers, or teachers may develop serious incapacities in relating to others which lead him to behave in ways that are defined as “mentally ill” in his society.
Adolescents are tremendously sensitive to social stimuli, no other problem seem to them as important as the establishment of themselves in their own society. They react faster and more deeply to the influenced of their age- mates than to that of adults. High school boys and girls tend to form small, shut-in cliques, the member of which is intensely loyal to each other and highly critical of outsiders.