Mere belonging: The power of social connections.
Walton, Cohen, Cwir and Spencer report four experiments testing whether minimal social connections, such as sharing a birthday with another student or belonging to an arbitrary group tied to a performance domain, raise achievement motivation. Each social-link manipulation increased motivation and persistence relative to control conditions, and the authors expected the effect to arise from socially shared goals around the task. Reading depth: abstract only; the only number used is four experiments.
Walton, Cohen, Cwir and Spencer report four experiments testing whether minimal social connections, such as sharing a birthday with another student or belonging to an arbitrary group tied to a performance domain, raise achievement motivation. Each social-link manipulation increased motivation and persistence relative to control conditions, and the authors expected the effect to arise from socially shared goals around the task. Reading depth: abstract only; the only number used is four experiments.
Written from the abstract (Europe PMC record), 2026-10-31.
What our sources record
Recorded when this source was checked, figures included, with page references and quotation marks removed.
Walton, G. M., Cohen, G. L., Cwir, D., & Spencer, S. J. (2012). Mere belonging: The power of social connections. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(3), 513-532. doi:10.1037/a0025731 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025731