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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

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Susan E. Watt and Alison J. Badger Pers Soc Psychol Bull 2009 35: 516 originally published online 3 February 2009 DOI: 10.1177/0146167208329695 The online version of this article can be found at: http://psp.sagepub.com/content/35/4/516

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Effects of Social Belonging on Homesickness: An Application of the Belongingness Hypothesis


Susan E. Watt Alison J. Badger University of New England

Belongingness theory proposes that humans possess an innate drive for a minimum number of lasting interpersonal relationships. On geographic relocation, people leave their existing social networks. This greatly threatens belongingness needs, and the authors propose this is one cause of homesickness. Two studies investigated whether homesickness arises in the need to belong. Study 1 used a correlational design to test the relationship between need to belong and homesickness while controlling for other variables. A significant positive relationship was found. Study 2 then used an experimental design to test for a causal effect of need to belong on homesickness, and a significant effect was found. An additional finding showed that individuals who felt accepted in the community were less homesick. This was independent of number of friends and demonstrates an important link between community attitudes and adjustment. Implications for belongingness theory are discussed.
Keywords: need to belong; homesickness; immigration; acceptance; rejection; belongingness

In a popular song by Bart Millard (2004), grief at a loved one's death is expressed as homesickness. Millard is not the first to perceive a link between homesickness and grief. Indeed, homesickness has been described as a mini-grief that people experience when separated from those they love (Stroebe, van Vliet, Hewstone, & Willis, 2002). In this article, we extend the idea of homesickness as a mini-grief to ask whether homesickness is a consequence of a need for lasting bonds with other people. We investigate whether it arises in threat to belongingness and use it as a testing ground for some central tenets of belongingness theory. Homesickness is a common response to moving away from home, whether for school, college, work, and domestic or international immigration. It can be defined

as distress caused by actual or anticipated separation from familiar or loved people or places (Thurber, 1999). Homesick people are prone to crying and can be apathetic and listless; severe homesickness can provoke thoughts of suicide. Often there are somatic responses such as stomachache, loss of appetite, sleep disturbance, and headaches. There is also evidence that homesickness disrupts concentration (Burt, 1993) and produces absentmindedness (Fisher & Hood, 1987, 1988). It has often been described as a form of grieving (e.g., Archer, Ireland, Amos, Broad, & Currid, 1998; Fisher & Hood, 1987, 1988; Stroebe et al., 2002), and some authors have further characterized it as a reactive depression to leaving home (Baier & Welch, 1992; Eurelings-Bontekoe, Vingerhoets, & Fontijn, 1994; Van Tilburg, Vingerhoets, & Van Heck, 1997a) or as similar to adjustment disorder with depressed mood (Van Tilburg, 2005). Most importantly, homesickness is accompanied by acute longing and intrusive thoughts about home and attachment objects. It is this cognitive component that distinguishes it from other disorders (Thurber, 1999). In Homers account of The Odyssey, a story that originates in oral tradition from around 1200 BC, the great hero Ulysses spent 10 years returning from Troy to his home in Ithaka. He was crippled by homesickness, and when captured by the beautiful nymph Calypso spent 7 years looking out upon the barren ocean with tears in his eyes, groaning and breaking his heart for
Authors Note: We gratefully acknowledge the University of New England, Faculty of Arts Internal Research Grant No. 21214 for funding Study 1 and Sara Delonghi for her research assistance in that study. We also wish to acknowledge the constructive comments made by two anonymous reviewers. Correspondence may be sent to Sue Watt, School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, 2351, Australia; e-mail: sue.watt@une.edu.au. PSPB, Vol. 35 No. 4, April 2009 516-530 DOI: 10.1177/0146167208329695 2009 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

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Watt, Badger / SOCIAL BELONGING AND HOMESICKNESS 517 sorrow ... his eyes ever filled with tears, and dying of sheer home-sickness (translation by Samuel Butler, 1900, http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/odyssey.5.v.html). Several millennia later, Thijs (as cited in Van Tilburg et al., 1997b) found that only 7.3% of adults said they had never experienced homesickness, and Fisher (1989) found it was sufficient to interfere with daily activities in 10% to 15% of homesickness sufferers. Homesickness affects men and women, adults and children alike, and has been found to exist even 58 years after moving from the home of origin (Van Tilburg, 2005). Homesickness is also found when people move into more favorable situations. Fried (as cited in Fisher, 1989) found slum dwellers in Chicago who were forced to move into better houses reacted with intense grief for home. The lower the income, the stronger their reaction. Homesickness is an underresearched phenomenon. It has received remarkably little attention in the literature, and with some notable exceptions even less attention has been paid to its theoretical underpinnings. However, it potentially afflicts anyone who moves location, either temporarily or permanently, and for whatever reason. Fisher (1989) proposed a composite model where homesickness results from the combined effects of separation from the familiar environment and entry into the new environment. Archer et al. (1998) subsequently proposed that homesickness is a form of separation reaction to people and places. Their empirical research used items derived from reactions described in studies of grief and revealed two clear factors: disliking the new place and attachment to home. Stroebe et al. (2002) took this further by conceptualizing these two basic factors within a framework of grief and bereavement. Based on the dual process model of coping with bereavement (Stroebe & Schut, 1987), they proposed that homesickness results from the combined effects of loss (loss-orientation) and adjustment to the new situation (restoration-orientation). Just as grieving people must cope with the loss experience and changes to their circumstances, Stroebe et al. proposed homesick people must cope with the loss (even if temporary) of their family and friends, as well as their changed circumstances. Vingerhoets (2005) wrote about cat-type and dog-type homesickness. Just as dogs attach more strongly to people than places, one part of homesickness is missing people; and just as cats strongly attach to places and the physical environment, another part of homesickness is missing the physical place. In this research, we turn our attention to homesickness that arises in connection to people. We focus on this because the belongingness hypothesis is relevant to this aspect of homesickness. In the following section, we extend the idea of homesickness as a mini-grief. We propose that an important element of homesickness is the loss of social connections through physical separation from family and friends. This provokes distress, as well as the challenge of fulfilling social connection needs in the new location. We will now elaborate on how the belongingness hypothesis is relevant to homesickness. The Need to Belong Humans are profoundly social creatures, endowed with an array of attributes that enhance our ability to live in groups. This may be a truism but results in a great complexity of effects. A vast body of empirical research in psychology has examined attributes of human sociality, and results from studies as diverse as Ainsworths (1978) strange situation to Billig and Tajfels (1973) minimal group paradigm consistently show that people seek social inclusion and avoid exclusion. This has led numerous theorists to argue for a fundamental importance to humans of affiliation, love and belonging, and attachment (e.g., Bowlby, 1969, 1973; Erikson, 1963; Freud, 1930/1946; Maslow, 1968; Rosenberg, 1979). Baumeister and Leary (1995) conducted an extensive review of the empirical literature of social and personality psychology from which they proposed humans possess as a fundamental motivation a need to belong. They describe this need as an innate (evolved) drive for a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, and significant interpersonal relationships (Baumeister & Leary, 1995, p. 497). Satisfaction of the drive requires frequent positive interactions in the context of an enduring affective bond between people. In support of an evolved need to belong, there is evidence that humans possess mechanisms that allow quick detection of danger of social rejection, allowing restorative measures to be taken. FMRI research has shown that social pain (elicited by ostracism) results in similar brain activity to that produced by physical pain (Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003). On the basis of this and other studies of social exclusion, MacDonald and Leary (2005) proposed exclusion elicits pain because inclusion is important to human survival. Just as pain from physical stimuli teaches us to avoid danger, social pain assists us to behave in ways to avoid exclusion. Rejection hurts, so we learn to say and do things to win the allegiance, love, and respect of others, ensuring social acceptance and survival. The belongingness hypothesis predicts that because our need to belong is so important, people will resist the dissolution of social bonds at least as strenuously as they work to create them. People throughout the world show tears and grief on separation from those they love and resist the dissolution of social bonds in the broader social network as well as within intimate relationships. People show distress and resistance to

518 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN breaking bonds even within transient, time-limited groups (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). It is important to the current research that Baumeister and Leary (1995) used the grief reaction as evidence to support the belongingness hypothesis, stating,
Some conceptualizations of grief portray it not as a reaction to the loss of the person but as a reaction to the loss of a linkage with another person. ... As Lofland (1982) pointed out, when people die, relationships end. (p. 507)

In line with this prediction, we suggest that homesickness is partly composed of distress at the dissolution (even if temporary) of social bonds. The need to belong would cause us to protect and value our social bonds, and physically removing oneself from these bonds on geographic relocation can be expected to provoke distress. This forms the basis of Hypothesis 1, described later. Of course, people show every intention not to abandon their social bonds. One way to reduce distress on relocation is to maintain old relationships by phoning and writing home and visiting as frequently as possible. It is an intriguing possibility that belongingness needs could be met by frequent contact home. Indeed, Van Tilburg et al. (1999) noted, the focus of chronic homesick persons remains directed on the old environment, preventing the development of a genuine interest into the new environment and sustaining homesickness (p. 537). With modern communication technologies, it is now possible to contact home many times each day at very little cost. This could permit people to physically move away from home and yet maintain daily contact with the social network back home, possibly meeting their belongingness needs through this daily contact. Another prediction of the belongingness hypothesis is that one social bond can substitute for another. As long as the need to belong is satiated, it should not matter who produces the satiation. In support of the substitution hypothesis, Baumeister and Leary (1995) cited findings that women are more likely to seek extramarital relationships when their marriage does not satisfy intimacy needs, people are more likely to leave one intimate relationship if another is likely to develop, and female prisoners commonly form substitute families. If homesickness arises in the need to belong, and if one social connection can substitute for another, we expect that homesickness will decline as new social connections are formed in the new location. This forms the basis of Hypothesis 2, described later. Baumeister and Leary (1995) drew an interesting further implication from the substitution hypothesis. They suggested that efforts to sustain friendships across long distances should be inversely proportional to opportunities to develop new friendships. That is, people who

perceive many opportunities to develop new friendships will be less motivated to maintain friendships in the previous location. This implies that people monitor the environment for its potential to fulfill the need to belong. In line with Baumeister and Leary, we expect there will be increased focus on contacts in the previous location when this potential is low. We expect there will also be increased distress (homesickness) as there is less opportunity to satisfy belongingness needs. In the current research, we operationalized friendship potential in the new location as perceived social acceptance. The relation between social acceptance and homesickness forms the basis of Hypothesis 3, described later. In summary, we suggest the belongingness hypothesis can help us understand the grief and distress that manifests as homesickness. People who move away from home create physical separation from their most intimate relationships and broader social network. At the point of arrival in the new location, migrants and sojourners can no longer enjoy the physical presence of the old network and may experience uncertainty about being able to construct a new network. While they may be able to maintain relations with a few members of the old network via phone calls and other communications, evidence shows that these links decline over time (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Just as threat to other fundamental drives such as the need for food, drink, shelter, or safety produces stress, threat to belongingness posed by geographic relocation will also be a stressor. We therefore expect homesickness is in part a direct response to threat to belongingness and will lessen as belongingness needs are satisfied in the new location. This expectation forms the primary hypothesis of our research. The preceding analysis leads to three hypotheses that were tested in the current research:
Hypothesis 1: Homesickness will be greater among individuals experiencing higher need to belong. Previous research indicates that homesickness is partly composed of distress at the separation (even if temporary) from social bonds. The need to belong would cause us to protect and value our social bonds, and physically removing oneself from these bonds on geographic relocation can be expected to provoke distress. Those who experience stronger need to belong should also experience more distress (homesickness) on relocation. Hypothesis 2: Homesickness will be less among those who form more close friendships in the new location, and the relationship will be mediated by need to belong. The substitution hypothesis indicates that one social bond can substitute for another in satisfying the need to belong. As more friendships form, the need to belong will be satisfied and homesickness reduced. Hypothesis 3: People who feel accepted in the new location will experience less homesickness and will make less

Watt, Badger / SOCIAL BELONGING AND HOMESICKNESS 519


effort to sustain relationships in the old location. In line with Baumeister and Leary (1995), we suggested that the opportunity to form new friendships is an important factor because there will be more opportunity to satisfy the need to belong in the new location. Social acceptance indicates more possibility to form friendships, so those who perceive more acceptance should experience less threat to need to belong. Consistent with the rationale that homesickness is a response to threat to belongingness, individuals who feel socially accepted should therefore experience less homesickness. We also explore the relation between feeling accepted in the new location and maintaining contacts in the old location. Consistent with Baumeister and Leary, we propose that people who feel accepted in the new location will make less effort to sustain relations with the old location because there is a strong probability their need to belong will be met in the new location.

Measures Homesickness. The Utrecht Homesickness Scale (Stroebe et al., 2002) was developed for a cross-cultural comparison of homesickness in university students in two different countries (the Netherlands and the United Kingdom). As such, it was the most appropriate measure of homesickness available for our sample, which included students from many different countries. The scale includes 20 items such as Missing your parents, Feeling lonely, Longing for acquaintances, Finding it difficult adjusting to a new situation, and Having thoughts that an old situation was better than here and now. Participants are asked to indicate to what extent you have experienced each of the following in the past 4 weeks, rating each item on a scale where 1 = not, 2 = weak, 3 = moderate, 4 = strong, and 5 = very strong. Stroebe et al. (2002) reported strong interitem reliability of = .94. Principal component analysis of data collected in the Netherlands revealed five factors. The first factor, Missing Family, explained 62% of the variance in responding, with the remaining factors, respectively, accounting for 15% (Loneliness), 9% (Missing Friends), 8% (Adjustment Difficulties), and 6% (Ruminations About Home). The Utrecht Homesickness Scale showed very strong relationships with a self-report measure that directly asked students how often they had experienced homesickness in the past 4 weeks. Discriminant analysis revealed 83% of the single-item homesickness scores were correctly classified by the five factors, and the overall scale score correlated r = .71 with the single-item measure of homesickness. Very similar results were obtained in a British sample. In the current study, we shortened the scale to 15 items by dropping the item with the lowest factor loading from each factor. Acceptable reliabilities were still obtained, with an overall Cronbachs of .95. Each subscale also showed acceptable reliability (Missing Family = .91, Loneliness = .87, Missing Friends = .76, Adjustment Difficulties = .89, Ruminations About Home = .79). Need to belong. Need to belong was operationalized as an individual differences measure of chronic need to belong, developed by Leary, Kelly, Cottrell, and Schreindorfer (as cited in Leary, Cottrell, & Phillips, 2001). Participants rate 10 questions such as I try hard not to do things that will make other people avoid or reject me and It bothers me a great deal when I am not included in other peoples plans on a 5-point scale (we used 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree, and 5 = strongly agree for consistency with other scales in the questionnaire). Previous research suggests the scale has good construct validity. Need to belong

The two studies presented in the following investigated these hypotheses. The first used a correlational design to examine the predicted relations while controlling the effects of length of residence in Australia. The second used an experimental design to test for a causal relation between need to belong and homesickness and to replicate effects found in the correlational study. By applying belongingness theory to homesickness, the research offers a new perspective on homesickness and its reduction. In relation to belongingness theory, this research tested whether the need to belong construct can be used a priori to predict homesickness. This is important because it tests predictions made specifically from belongingness theory, and support for those hypotheses should offer support for the theory itself. We then applied a central component of belongingness theory, the substitution hypothesis, to homesickness. Again, support for this hypothesis in relation to homesickness would offer support for the substitution hypothesis in belongingness theory more generally.

STUDY 1 Method Participants In Study 1, 161 international university students studying at five Australian universities (69 male and 92 female) participated. The students came from 42 different countries, and age ranged from 18 to 45 years (M = 24.54, SD = 5.85). The majority of participants were single (84.5%). Length of residence in Australia was between 1 month and 10 years (M = 19.62, SD = 19.16). All participants were assumed to be competent in the English language as they must pass English language tests before enrolling at university in Australia.

520 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN scores have been found to correlate with acceptanceresponsive self-esteem (Leary et al., 2001), sensitivity to facial expression and vocal tone (Pickett, Gardner, & Knowles, 2004), and frustration during group behavior (De Cremer & Leonardelli, 2003); they have also been found to moderate a relationship between group size and contributions to the group so that need to belong was positively associated with cooperation, but only for members of large groups (De Cremer & Leonardelli, 2003). Interitem reliability was acceptable in our sample (Cronbachs = .80). Other researchers have reported similar interitem reliabilities of .82 (De Cremer & Leonardelli, 2003) and .83 (Pickett et al., 2004). Contact with home. Nine items measured the number (and duration) of personal phone calls, text messages, and e-mail messages between the students and their families and friends from the home of origin during the past 4 weeks. As described in the Results and Discussion section, analysis focussed on just one of these items, number of phone calls made. Social network in Australia. Participants were asked how many close friends they have in Australia. They were also asked whether they have immediate family in Australia (and how many) and whether they have a boyfriend or girlfriend in Australia. Social activity. Participants were asked the number of times during the past 4 weeks they had gone out socially with Australians and with members of their own national group or other nonnational Australians. The sum of these questions was computed to provide a total number of outings. Acceptance by Australians. A measure of acceptance in the new location was adapted from Nesdale and Mak (2000). Participants rated I feel accepted by Australians on a 5-point scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. Nesdale and Mak included number of close friends in their measure of acceptance. However, we wished to analyze number of friends separately and did not include it in the measure of acceptance. As shown in Table 1, number of friends and perceived acceptance did not significantly correlate. Demographics. Demographic measures included gender, age, marital status, occupation, religion, country of birth, and level of education. Design Multiple regression was used to explore the aforementioned hypotheses while controlling for gender, length of stay, and social activity. Gender and length of stay have both shown small but significant relations with homesickness in earlier research (Archer et al., 1998; Hojat & Hermann, 1985; Stroebe et al., 2002; Tartakovsky, 2007) and could also be expected to relate to other variables in the analysis. For example, length of stay should relate to number of close friends in the new location because participants are likely to develop more close friendships with passing time. Social activity was controlled because it provides pleasurable activity that could relieve some negative feelings associated with homesickness and could also be expected to relate to number of close friends and need to belong. In addition to the main hypotheses, we conducted exploratory analyses to test whether need to belong might moderate the relations between the other predictors (acceptance by Australians and number of close friends in Australia) and the criterion. Procedure International student associations at five Australian universities distributed an e-mail requesting international students participation in a study of Migrant Adjustment. The request contained a link to the survey, which students completed online. Response rates are not computed as the number of students on each mailing list was unknown to the researchers. Results and Discussion Homesickness Homesickness showed an average elevation of 2.43 (SD = .92), which corresponds with weak to moderate on the 5-point scale. This is higher than the average scores reported by Stroebe et al. (2002) for first-year students in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Of participants, 8 (5%) scored above 4, indicating strong to very strong homesickness; 39 (24.2%) scored between 3 and 4, indicating moderate to strong homesickness; 45 (40.4%) scored between 2 and 3, indicating weak to moderate homesickness; and 39 (28.0%) scored below 2, indicating no homesickness to weak homesickness. Scores on the missing family subscale were highest (M = 2.87, SD = 1.07), followed by missing friends (M = 2.63, SD = 1.05), loneliness (M = 2.35, SD =1.15), ruminations (M = 2.15, SD = 1.02), and adjustment difficulties (M = 2.15, SD = 1.04). A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine predictors of homesickness. Gender (coded as 1 = male, 2 = female), length of residence in Australia, social activity, social acceptance, and number of close friends in Australia were entered on Step 1, and need to belong and the interactions of social acceptance and number of close friends in Australia with need to

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TABLE 1: Summary Statistics and Correlations Between Variables in Study 1 Median M SD 1 1 .01 .04 .18* .15 .08 .03 .13 2 3 Correlations 4 5 6 7

Gender (1), coded 1 = male, 2 = female Length of residence in Australia (months) (2) 15.00 19.62 19.16 Acceptance by Australians (3) 4.00 3.50 1.05 Need to belong (4) 3.20 3.26 0.62 Social activity (5) 7.00 9.45 8.62 Number of friends in Australia (6) 10.00 18.46 25.57 Homesickness (7) 2.27 2.43 0.92 Phone calls made (8) 4.00 5.75 7.46 *p .05. **p .01. ***p .001.

1 .10 1 .02 .17* 1 .08 .15 .06 1 .07 .07 .12 .34*** 1 .03 .36*** .43*** .21** .09 1 .12 .07 .15 .15 .15 .27***

belong (computed from centered variables) were entered on Step 2. Need to belong was entered on Step 2 with the interaction terms in case it masked any other effects. This was not the case, so only the results at Step 2 of the analysis are reported. Prior to analysis, length of residence in Australia, number of close friends in Australia, social activity in Australia, and homesickness were submitted to log 10 transformation to correct positive skew and the data were screened for multivariate outliers at p < .001. The means and standard deviations of variables in the multiple regression (prior to transformation) are presented in Table 1. Correlations shown in the table used the log transformed variables. The regression model explained 25% of the variance in homesickness. Need to belong was by far the strongest predictor of homesickness, with higher need to belong predicting more homesickness. This variable accounted for a substantial 12.3% of the variance (see Table 2). The other significant predictors of homesickness were acceptance and social outings. The more accepted participants felt, the less homesick, and this variable accounted for 4.7% of the variance in homesickness. A negative relationship with social outings indicated that more social activity predicted less homesickness, but this accounted for just 2.9% of the variance in homesickness. A multiple regression of the same design was then conducted for each subscale of the Utrecht Homesickness Scale (it was first necessary to log transform the Loneliness, Adjustment Difficulties, and Ruminations subscales to correct positive skew). Need to belong and acceptance by Australians significantly predicted each subscale. In addition, social activity was a significant negative predictor of loneliness (sr = .23, p = .002) and of missing friends (sr = .18, p = .02). These results supported Hypothesis 1, that homesickness is greater among individuals experiencing higher need to belong, and the first part of Hypothesis 3, that people who feel accepted in the new location will experience less homesickness. However, the results did

TABLE 2: Predictors of Homesickness and Phone Calls Home in Study 1 Homesickness at Step 2 of the Analysisa Gender Length of residence in Australia Acceptance by Australians Need to belong Social activity Number of friends in Australia Need to Belong Acceptance Need to Belong Friends Homesickness Need to Belong Homesickness Homesickness Acceptance .02 .03 .23*** .36*** .18* .03 .09 .09 sr .02 .03 .22*** .35*** .17* .03 .08 .08 b .06 .07 .06 .02 .20* .16 .03 .11 .34*** .10 .09 .06 .07 .05 .02 .18* .14 .03 .10 .29*** .09 .08 Phone Calls Home at Step 3 of the Analysisb sr

a. R = .50, R2 = .25, adjusted R2 = .20, F(8, 130) = 5.40, p < .001. b. R = .40, R2 = .16, adjusted R2 = .09, F(11, 122) = 2.13, p = .023. *p .05. ***p .001.

not support Hypothesis 2, which was derived from the substitution hypothesis in belongingness theory, that one set of social connections can replace another. That is, homesickness was not predicted by number of close friends in Australia. It was also not predicted by length of residence in Australia. Contact Initiated With Home The variables relating to contact home were substantially skewed. While most students initiated a moderate

522 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN amount of contact home in the 4-week period, with a median of 4 phone calls made, 2 mobile phone text messages sent, and 6 e-mail messages sent, some students showed extremely high frequency of contact, with a maximum of 50 phone calls made, 1,000 mobile phone text messages sent, and 130 e-mails sent. There was also a significant portion of students who did not make any phone calls (15.6%), send any mobile phone text messages (42.2%), or send any e-mails (11.1%). The large number of students who did not send mobile phone text messages may indicate low use of mobile phone technology. E-mail contact could also be problematic, as it is possible that some but not all people in the home of origin have access to e-mail. We therefore decided to use number of phone calls made because we considered this is likely the most reliable technology by which students could initiate contact with home. We then tested the second part of Hypothesis 3, that people who feel accepted in the new location will make less effort to sustain relationships in the old location. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine predictors of phone calls home (phone calls home was first submitted to log 10 transformation to correct positive skew). Gender, length of residence in Australia, social activity, social acceptance, and number of close friends in Australia were entered on Step 1, and need to belong and the interactions of social acceptance and number of close friends in Australia with need to belong were entered on Step 2. Homesickness and the interaction of homesickness and need to belong were then entered on a third step, in case homesickness masked any other effects. This was not the case, so only the results at Step 3 of the analysis are reported. All interactions were computed on centered variables. The regression model at Step 3 explained 16% of the variance in phone calls made, with social activity and homesickness the only significant predictors (see Table 2). The strongest predictor was homesickness, which explained 8.4% of the variance in a positive direction. Social activity was the only other significant predictor, explaining 3.2% of the variance. It is possible that the positive relationship between homesickness and phone calls home reflects a causal direction where the act of speaking on the phone increases homesickness. If this is the case, phone calls made and phone calls received should both positively predict homesickness. We tested this possibility by repeating the earlier multiple regression on homesickness, including phone calls made and phone calls received (log transformed) as additional predictors. Results showed phone calls made significantly predicted homesickness (sr = .22, p = .002), but phone calls received did not (sr = .006, p = .94). Hypothesis 3 predicted that people who felt less accepted in the new location would experience more distress (homesickness) and would make more effort to sustain relationships in the old location. The previously reported results showed that those who felt less accepted experienced more homesickness, and those who experienced more homesickness also made more phone calls, but there was no direct relationship between acceptance and number of phone calls made. We tested whether such a relationship might be moderated by need to belong, but this was not the case. STUDY 2 Study 1 provided a preliminary test of our hypotheses, however the correlational nature of the design does not allow causal inferences to be drawn. The primary purpose of Study 2 was to extend Study 1 by using an experimental design to investigate whether need to belong exerts a causal effect on homesickness. The study also provided an opportunity to replicate elements of Study 1. As well as manipulating need to belong in people who had recently relocated, we measured the number of close friendships in the new location and included this as a predictor of homesickness. This furnished a second test of Hypothesis 2. We also tested whether the relationship found in Study 1 between acceptance in the new location and homesickness was replicated in Study 2 and whether people who feel accepted in the new location will make less effort to sustain relationships in the old location (Hypothesis 3). Experimental Design New intake students at the University of New England (UNE) participated in this experiment. The university is located in Armidale, New South Wales (Australia). Armidale is in a rural location, and most students must leave home to attend the university. Consistent with Stroebe et al. (2002), this study was conducted 6 weeks into the semester, at a time when students would be past the initial novelty of being at university and most prone to homesickness. A simple experimental design was used in which participants were randomly allocated to an experimental group where need to belong was primed or to a control group where need to belong was not primed. The need to belong manipulation consisted of completing a publication survey in which students evaluated a number of potential publications. In the experimental condition, some titles evoked the need to belong and in the control condition they did not (a pilot study tested the efficacy of the manipulation). Participants completed the homesickness measure and other scales immediately after the need to belong manipulation.

Watt, Badger / SOCIAL BELONGING AND HOMESICKNESS 523 Method Participants In this research, 144 (50 male and 94 female) first-year students at UNE participated. There were 71 participants in the control condition and 73 in the experimental condition. Participants were aged between 18 and 28 years (M = 18.60, SD = 1.28). The majority were single (97.2%) and originated from Australia or New Zealand (93.1%). English was the first language of 93.8% of participants, and religious affiliation included Protestant (37.5%), Catholic/Orthodox (19.4%), Muslim/Hindu (2.1%), Buddhist/other (1.4%), and no affiliation (39.6%). Measures Demographics. Participants provided demographic information, including gender, age, marital status, country of birth, religion, and whether or not English is their first language. Need to belong manipulation. Need to belong was manipulated by completing a publication survey that presented titles and descriptions of nine potential publications. Participants were asked to indicate whether or not they would be interested in reading each article and how valuable they thought it would be. These measures were intended to ensure participants would read the information and to provide face validity for the task. The control condition presented descriptions of articles on neutral topics that would not evoke feelings of homesickness or lack of belonging. For example:
Comparison of CompositionThis article discusses the various eras of art history and offers a unique comparison of traditional and contemporary techniques. The NaturalThis article raises the nature/nurture debate in relation to musicians and people with unique talentsare they naturals, or is their ability the direct result of learning and practice? Person AloneThis article discusses loneliness and possible coping mechanisms for loneliness.

A full list of the items in the publication survey is presented in the appendix. A pilot study evaluated the efficacy of the publication survey in priming need to belong. A sample of 70 community members aged between 18 and 61 years of age (M = 36.2, SD = 10.2) completed either the control version or the experimental version of the publication survey and then completed the Need to Belong Scale. The t test results showed that respondents in the control group scored significantly lower on the Need to Belong Scale than respondents in the experimental group, t(68) = 2.13, p = .037, MControl = 2.87, SD = .55, MExperimental = 3.16, SD = .58, indicating that the manipulation influenced need to belong. Further analyses showed that age, gender, marital status, country of birth, and whether English is spoken as a first language did not contribute significantly to the scores on the Need to Belong Scale. Homesickness. Homesickness was measured with the Utrecht Homesickness Scale. Reliability analysis revealed good interitem reliability for this sample ( = .92). Contact with home. The same questions were used as in Study 1. Once again, analysis focused on number of phone calls home. Social network in the new location. Participants were asked how many close friends they have in Armidale. They were also asked how many acquaintances, whether members of their immediate family live in Armidale, and whether they have a boyfriend or girlfriend in Australia. Social activity. Social activity was assessed by asking the number of times during the past 4 weeks participants had gone out socially. Acceptance at UNE. The measure from Study 1 was adapted for this study. Participants rated I feel accepted by people at UNE on a 5-point scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. Procedure A total of 600 questionnaires inviting participation in a study of the adjustment of first-year students to university life were distributed to first-year students living in residential colleges and studying at UNE (New South Wales, Australia) 6 weeks into their first semester of study. The invitation to participate in the research contained a packet of all study materials. Participants

Participants in the experimental condition completed the same publication survey as in the control condition, but five titles and their accompanying descriptions were replaced with items designed to provoke the need to belong. These were drawn from items on the Need to Belong Scale (Leary, Kelly, Cottrell, & Schreindorfer, as cited in Leary et al., 2001). For example:
I Need to BelongThis article talks about belongingnessa human motivational tendency to form certain relationships or belong to various groups. It discusses positive aspects, such as comfort and support, as well as the negatives associated with a lack of belongingness, such as anxiety and loneliness.

524 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN were distributed the control condition questionnaire or the experimental questionnaire at random, and response rates were almost identical across the two conditions. A response rate of 24% was obtained. This is a typical response rate among student samples in Australia and did not arouse our concern. Results and Discussion Homesickness Homesickness in the control condition showed an average elevation of 2.12 (SD = .77), which most closely corresponds with weak on the 5-point scale. This is a little lower than the average elevation of 2.43 (SD = .92) among international students that we obtained in Study 1. It is comparable with the results obtained by Stroebe et al. (2002) of 2.26 (SD = .73) for their U.K. sample and 1.93 (SD = .71) for their Dutch sample. Homesickness was significantly higher in the experimental condition, t(142) = 4.62, p < .001, with an average elevation of 2.72 (SD = .78), which most closely corresponds with moderate on the 5-point scale. The means and standard deviations of the predictor variables and the correlations among them are shown in Table 3. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine the predictors of homesickness. The predictors entered into Step 1 of the regression model were gender (coded as 1 = male, 2 = female), acceptance in the new location, social activity, and number of friends in the new location. Step 2 then entered the need to belong manipulation (coded as 0 = control condition and 1 = experimental condition). Step 3 entered the interactions of social acceptance and number of close friends in the new location with the need to belong manipulation. Social activity and number of friends were submitted to log 10 transformation prior to analysis to correct positive skew, and the data were screened for multivariate outliers at p < .001. Homesickness scores were normally distributed, and unlike Study 1 did not require transformation. Before including acceptance in the regression model, we checked whether the experimental manipulation had any effect on this variable. No significant effect was found, so we proceeded with including acceptance as a predictor in the regression model. The regression model was statistically significant at Step 1 (R2 = .17, p < .001). However, it was significantly improved by the addition of the need to belong manipulation at Step 2 (R2 change = .09, p < .001). Thus, consistent with Hypothesis 1 there was a significant effect of need to belong on homesickness. Including the moderation terms at Step 3 did not significantly improve the model (R2 change = .001, p = .94). The other significant predictors of homesickness were feelings of acceptance at UNE (explaining 8.4% of variance), such that those who felt more accepted also felt less homesick, and gender (explaining 2.6% of variance) in a positive direction, indicating that females felt more homesick. Neither social activity nor number of friends in the new location predicted homesickness. The interaction of priming need to belong and acceptance also did not have a significant effect on homesickness, nor did the interaction of priming need to belong and number of close friends in the new location. Results of the regression analysis at Step 3 are shown in Table 4. The regression analysis was repeated for each homesickness subscale (adjustment difficulties and ruminations were first submitted to log 10 transformation to correct positive skew). Priming need to belong increased homesickness on each subscale. Feeling accepted in the new location was also associated with decreased homesickness on each subscale except missing family. Gender predicted scores on just two subscalesloneliness and missing friends. The effect in both cases was in a positive direction, indicating that females were more lonely and missed friends more than males. These results support Hypothesis 1, that need to belong has a causal effect on homesickness, and are consistent with those of Study 1, especially in the finding that feeling accepted in the new location predicted less homesickness on all homesickness subscales except for missing family (supports Hypothesis 3). Once again, there was no evidence to support Hypothesis 2, that making new social contacts will reduce homesickness. That is, homesickness was not predicted by number of friends in the new location. Contact Initiated With Home The variables relating to contact home were substantially skewed. Most participants had initiated a moderate amount of contact with home in the previous 4 weeks, with a median of 6.5 phone calls made, 12 mobile phone text messages sent, and 4 e-mail messages sent. However, some showed extremely high frequency of contact, with a maximum of 100 phone calls made, 500 mobile phone text messages sent, and 200 e-mails sent. As in Study 1, there was also a significant portion of participants who did not make any phone calls (5.6%), send any mobile phone text messages (16.7%), or send any e-mails (22.2%). We again used number of phone calls as the dependent variable in the analysis as more people would have access to this technology; this provided results that are directly comparable with Study 1. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted on participants in the control group only to examine predictors of phone calls home. The predictors entered on Step 1 of the regression model were gender,

Watt, Badger / SOCIAL BELONGING AND HOMESICKNESS 525


TABLE 3: Summary Statistics and Correlations Between Variables in Study 2 Gender (1), coded 1 = male, 2 = female Acceptance at University of New England (2) Social activity (3) Number of friends in new location (4) Homesickness (5) Phone calls made (6) *p .05. **p .01. ***p .001. Median 4.00 8.00 4.00 2.40 6.50 M 4.15 9.60 4.60 2.42 12.80 SD 0.78 7.08 4.00 0.83 18.20 1 1 .05 .06 .10 .19* .25** 2 Correlations 3 4 5

1 .15*** 1 .15 .28*** 1 .37*** .14 .05 .07 .13 .18*

1 .42***

acceptance in the new location, social activity, and number of friends in the new location. Step 2 then entered homesickness and the interaction of homesickness and acceptance. Phone calls home was first submitted to log 10 transformation to correct positive skew. As in Study 1, homesickness was entered on a second step in case it masked any other effects. This was not the case, so only the results at Step 2 of the analysis are reported. The regression model explained 35.9% of the variance in phone calls home. The significant predictors were social activity and homesickness (see Table 4). Homesickness was the strongest predictor, explaining 16.4% of the variance. The more homesick, the more phone calls home. Social activity was the only other significant predictor of phone calls home, explaining 5.8% of the variance in a positive direction. Gender, acceptance at UNE, and number of friends in the new location did not predict phone calls home, and none of the interaction terms showed a significant effect. As a final check, we repeated the test conducted in Study 1 to examine the relationship between phone calls made and received as predictors of homesickness. The results were almost identical to those of Study 1. Phone calls made significantly predicted homesickness (sr = .20, p = .003), but phone calls received did not (sr = .05, p = .41). This result again suggests the act of speaking on the phone does not relate to increased or decreased homesickness. GENERAL DISCUSSION The purpose of this research was to investigate whether homesickness arises in belongingness needs. The results indicate a causal role of need to belong in homesickness. Study 1 found that need to belong correlated with homesickness, and Study 2 found that priming need to belong influenced feelings of homesickness. These results were obtained in quite different samples. The first included participants of many different ages, from 42 different countries, who had been in

TABLE 4: Predictors of Homesickness and Phone Calls Home in Study 2 Homesickness at Step 3 of the Analysisa Priming need to belong Gender Acceptance at University of New England Social activity Number of friends in new location Priming Need to Belong Acceptance Priming Need to Belong Friends Homesickness Homesickness Acceptance at UNE .31*** .17* .31*** sr .31*** .16* .29*** Phone Calls Home at Step 2 of the Analysisb .15 .05 sr .14 .04

.09 .04 .02 .02

.09 .04 .02 .01

.25* .18 .44*** .20

.24* .17 .41*** .17

a. R = .52, R2 = .27, adjusted R2 = .23, F(7, 135) = 6.99, p < .001. b. R = .60, R2 = .36, adjusted R2 = .30, F(6, 63) = 5.87, p < .001. *p .05. ***p .001.

Australia for varying lengths of time, and were confronting cultural differences of more or less extremity. The second sample was comparatively homogenous. Participants were young Australians 6 weeks into their university experience. They were not confronting issues of adjustment to a new culture or discrimination within the new community, and yet the same effects of need to belong were present. The combination of correlational and experimental results across these two samples adds to our confidence that need to belong has a causal role in homesickness. This finding offers a valuable new perspective on homesickness. Previous theoretical work has described homesickness in frameworks of grief and loss and attachment. These both relate to belongingness needs; grief arises in the loss of important social connections,

526 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN and attachment concerns security in ones bonds with other people. The belongingness hypothesis can therefore be seen as a metatheory that encompasses these more specific effects of need to belong. Need to belong predicted all subscales of the Utrecht Homesickness Scale, both loss-oriented (missing family, missing friends, loneliness, ruminations about home) and restoration-oriented (adjustment difficulties). In other words, it related to homesickness arising in separation from the old location as well as homesickness arising in entry into the new location. This is consistent with previous findings (Archer et al., 1998; Fisher, 1989; Stroebe et al., 2002) and is also consistent with predictions of the belongingness hypothesis; people are expected to react with distress and protest at separation from existing bonds and also to feel distressed if belongingness needs are not fulfilled in the new location or show little potential to be fulfilled. Although need to belong predicted homesickness, there was little evidence to support the substitution hypothesis. The belongingness hypothesis proposes that individuals need a certain amount of relatedness and that social relationships should to some extent be interchangeable (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). If this is the case, people who have formed close relationships in the new location should be less prone to distress (homesickness) on relocation as their belongingness needs are being met. In Study 1, length of residence in Australia and number of close friends in Australia did not predict how homesick participants felt. The same effect was found in Study 2; number of close friends in the new location did not predict homesickness. One would intuitively expect length of residence and number of close friends to predict reduced homesickness, but the data from previous studies are mixed. For example, the longer one stays in a new location, the more opportunity to establish meaningful new relationships. However, effects of length of stay have been very small or nonsignificant in other studies. Stroebe et al. (2002) reported slight but significant effects of duration of stay among new intake students (Dutch sample path coefficient = .10; U.K. sample path coefficient = .13), and Hojat and Hermann (1985) reported small but significant correlations between length of stay and a single-item measure of homesickness in Iranian and Filipino physicians in the United States, but unfortunately did not provide details of these results. In a more recent study, Tartakovsky (2007) reported in adolescents who migrated to Israel without their parents a very slight decline in homesickness after 2 years (homesickness declined from average of 2.18 on a 5-point scale 6 months after immigration to 2.08 2 years after immigration). However, all these effects are small and were not present in our data. Making friends also did not predict homesickness. Previous research has shown that people expect that making new friends will predict positive adjustment and reduce homesickness. Ryan and Twibell (2000) reported that a primary concern in international students is fitting in socially, and Archer et al. (1998) and Kane (as cited in Archer et al., 1998) found that dissatisfaction with both friends and social life at university predicted homesickness. Paul and Briers (2001) study of friendsickness found that many students included only precollege friends in their social network at college, and Van Tilburg et al. (1999) concluded from open-ended responses that the majority of students attributed recovery from homesickness to making friends in the new location. However, this expectation (that making friends is important to homesickness) may not be correct. Van Tilburg et al. (1997a) found the majority (52%) of homesickness sufferers who were surveyed while experiencing homesickness (in contrast with retrospective studies) did not attribute their homesickness to insufficient friends in the new location. The majority attributed it to missing persons (82.7%), missing the environment (81.4%), and missing the atmosphere of the old environment (87.7%). A possible explanation lies in the finding that homesick people are less socially skilled than nonhomesick people. Eurelings-Bontekoe et al. (1994) found that homesick military conscripts were more likely than controls to seek social support as a coping strategy. However, these people were also less socially skilled and were therefore unable to obtain the support they desired. Consistent with this, Van Tilburg et al. (1999) found that seeking social support does not predict adjustment and suggested that this may be due to poorer social skills in homesick people. In this case, our data indicate that even though homesick people report similar numbers of friends to less homesick people, they may be less able to obtain social activity and support from those friends. This could lead to the dissatisfaction with friends and social life that predicted continued homesickness in the studies by Archer et al. (1998) and Kane (as cited in Archer et al., 1998). The relation between social activity and homesickness in Study 1 may also reflect the operation of social skill as an underlying variable. Individuals with more social skill may be more likely to be included in social outings and also less likely to feel homesick because of the dynamic previously described. However, an alternative explanation is that social activity may generate positive affect, which counteracts feelings of homesickness. Future research could further address the relation between social skills and homesickness and could also benefit from investigating the effects of social activity in reducing homesickness.

Watt, Badger / SOCIAL BELONGING AND HOMESICKNESS 527 Feeling accepted in the new location was an important predictor of homesickness in both our studies. This finding has a number of implications that we explore in the following. Baumeister and Leary (1995) suggested that opportunities to develop new friendships on relocation will be an important variable, and we extended this to suggest that people may monitor a new environment for the potential to make new friends. In line with this, our results showed that people who feel less accepted by those in the new community feel more homesick. This was found for all subscales of the Utrecht Homesickness Scale in Study 1 and all but missing family in Study 2. Thus, like need to belong, acceptance is related to distress at leaving the old location and at entering the new location. The relation between acceptance and homesickness connects homesickness with community attitudes. This is important because a great deal of research has addressed community attitudes toward immigration, but little research has investigated the impact of these attitudes on immigrants. One exception is a longitudinal study conducted by Tartakovsky (2007), which found that perceived discrimination in the host country was the strongest single predictor of acculturative stress and homesickness. Newcomers in communities that are rejecting of immigration, either domestic or international, can be expected to perceive poor community acceptance. Our results show that this is independent of having a network of close and supportive friends as well as entry reference group sizeeven newcomers who associate only with a few welcoming friends are more likely to feel homesick and unhappy if they live in a rejecting community. These results therefore add to the evidence that immigration attitudes have very real effects on immigrants. Of interest, social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) emphasizes the importance of acceptance by the ingroup, but our data suggest that it is acceptance by the community at large (I feel accepted by Australians or I feel accepted by people at UNE) that predicts homesickness; developing an ingroup (as indicated by number of friends) did not predict homesickness in our studies. Future research on this topic would benefit from examining how acceptance is judged. A related literature has found many biases in the perception of discrimination. For example, people commonly believe that discrimination affects members of their group but not themselves (Ruggiero & Taylor, 1995). We expect that judging community acceptance will be an equally biased process (Carvallo & Pelham, 2007). Contact With Home Baumeister and Leary (1995) suggested that efforts to sustain friendships across long distances should be inversely proportional to opportunities to develop new friendships. From this, we developed the hypothesis that those who feel less accepted in the new location will make more calls home because the new location offers less friendship potential. The two studies provided very similar results. That is, neither study found a relationship between perceived acceptance and phone calls home, but both found positive relations between social activity and phone calls home and between homesickness and phone calls home. This correlation does not tell us about causal direction, but there is a further hint in the data. If the causal direction is one where the act of speaking on the phone increases homesickness, we would expect phone calls made and phone calls received both to relate to homesickness. However, both studies found no relation between phone calls received and homesickness. This suggests that phone calls do not perpetuate homesickness but are simply made in response to feeling homesick. However, given that talking on the phone does not relate to reduced homesickness, it is unlikely that making calls home is effective in relieving homesickness. They may simply act as a comfort when homesickness is strong. People who were more socially active also tended to make more phone calls home. This was originally included as a control variable because we thought engaging in pleasurable activities might generate positive affect that would counteract homesickness. However, this cannot explain the relation between social activity and phone calls home; the result may simply reflect the operation of an underlying variable related to sociability or social support seeking. Implications for the Belongingness Hypothesis Need to belong was used in this research to generate a theoretical framework to offer a new perspective on homesickness. We have shown that homesickness partly arises in this fundamental motivation. However, these results also add to our understanding of the need to belong. Baumeister and Leary (1995) proposed that people experience distress when their belongingness needs are threatened. The current research adds to the evidence for this basic component of belongingness theory by showing that need to belong predicts the distress (homesickness) experienced on relocation. Our tests of the substitution hypothesis further explored the belongingness hypothesis, which proposes that the motivation to satiate the need to belong should be reduced when there are sufficient social bonds. As discussed previously, both studies failed to provide support for this. One possibility that we have already considered is homesick people may have less social skill and are

528 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN therefore less able to elicit from new friends the closeness and support that they desire. We discuss here another possibility. Baumeister and Leary (1995) acknowledged that perhaps some kinds of relationships cannot effectively be replaced with other kinds of relationships, and perhaps people need at least one particularly strong close attachment. Their particular example was romantic relationships. However, Stroebe et al. (2002) found that the factor explaining by far the most variance (62%) in the Utrecht Homesickness Scale was Missing Family. Family bonds are particularly important relationships. They often are genetically linked, are very long lasting, involve a deep commitment to the others well-being, and are not easily replaced. It is possible that the relation between homesickness and need to belong in both our studies arose mainly in separation from family and that making new friends could not replace those special bonds. We note that friends in the new location also did not predict less homesickness on the Missing Friends subscale of the Utrecht Homesickness Scale. Like family relations, perhaps long-established close friendships cannot easily be replaced. Future research should address which bonds are most necessary to fulfill the need to belong and which can be substituted for one another. This might vary with age. The sample of international students in Study 1 was less homogenous than the sample in Study 2, but both samples were of relatively young people for whom separation from family may have been particularly painful. Summary and Directions for Future Research This research provides evidence that homesickness arises partly in the need to belong. Belongingness needs influenced the distress participants experienced on separating from the old location and on entering the new location, and this distress was greater when participants perceived less acceptance in the new location. The relationship between feeling accepted in the new location and homesickness forms an important bridge between research into immigration attitudes and migrant adjustment. We are currently planning studies to explore whether acceptance has a causal role in homesickness and adjustment. Future research should also examine how acceptance is perceived and whose acceptance is most important As well as showing an effect of need to belong on homesickness, this research provided information pertinent to belongingness theory. The results did not support the substitution hypothesis. Homesickness was not reduced when participants had more friends in the new location or when they had been there for longer. However, these findings are preliminary. The questions regarding number of friends, for example, did not ask how close the friends were and how they compared with friends in the old location. Future research should focus on which social connections are important in homesickness. This would allow counselors to advise migrants and sojourners where they could focus their efforts to relieve homesickness. Our results do suggest that homesickness should be reduced when the need to belong is satisfied in the new location. However, satisfying the need to belong may rely more on making one or two very close connections rather than making a large number of new friends. In summary, this research provides testimony to belongingness needs. Homesickness arises partly in the need to belong and further relates to perceived acceptance in the new location, indicating that happiness in a new location is partly determined by the potential to fit in socially. The research implies that experiencing distress on leaving places where we already have a strong sense of belongingness is normal and the sense of loss does not dissipate easily. It is simply a product of our construction as social beings.
APPENDIX ITEMS IN THE PUBLICATION SURVEY

CONTROL CONDITION
Comparison of CompositionThis article discusses the various eras of art history and offers a unique comparison of traditional and contemporary techniques. Photography for BeginnersThis article discusses the relationship between color and emotion. The NaturalThis article raises the nature/nurture debate in relation to musicians and people with unique talentsare they naturals, or is their ability the direct result of learning and practice? VitaminsThis article provides information on a wide range of vitamins and discusses the comparative value of multivitamins. Experimental MusicThis article discusses an aspect of contemporary music in which everyday sounds and noises are used in the creation of unique composition. Glasses or Contact Lenses?This article offers a comparison between glasses and contact lenses, including the advantages and disadvantages of each. It also offers advice for choosing which is right for you. Study TechniquesThis article provides a comparison of popular study techniques and helps you determine which method is right for you. What to WearThis article offers advice for choosing clothing to complement your body typeincluding suggestions for color, pattern, and design.
(continued)

Watt, Badger / SOCIAL BELONGING AND HOMESICKNESS 529


APPENDIX (continued) PreschoolingThis article discusses the ramifications of early learning on achievement in later life.
De Cremer, D., & Leonardelli, G. J. (2003). Cooperation in social dilemmas and the need to belong: The moderating effect of group size. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research and Practice, 7, 168-174. Eisenberger, N. I., Lieberman, M. D., & Williams, K. D. (2003). Does rejection hurt? An FMRI study of social exclusion. Science, 302, 290-292. Erikson, E. H. (1963). Childhood and society (2nd ed.). New York: Norton. Eurelings-Bontekoe, E. H. M., Vingerhoets, A., & Fontijn, T. (1994). Personality and behavioral antecedents of homesickness. Personality and Individual Differences, 16, 229-235. Fisher, S. (1989). Homesickness, cognition, and health. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Fisher, S., & Hood, B. (1987). The stress of the transition to university: A longitudinal study of psychological disturbance, absentmindedness and vulnerability to homesickness. British Journal of Psychology, 78, 425-441. Fisher, S., & Hood, B. (1988). Vulnerability factors in the transition to university: Self-reported mobility history and sex differences as factors in psychological disturbance. British Journal of Psychology, 79, 309-320. Freud, S. (1946). Civilisation and its discontents (J. Riviere, Trans.). London: Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1930) Hojat, M., & Herman, M. W. (1985). Adjustment and psychosocial problems of Iranian and Filipino physicians in the U.S. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 41, 130-136. Leary, M. R., Cottrell, C. A., & Phillips, M. (2001). Deconfounding the effects of dominance and social acceptance on self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 898-909. MacDonald, G., & Leary, M. R. (2005). Why does social exclusion hurt? The relationship between social and physical pain. Psychological Bulletin, 131, 202-223. Maslow, A. (1968). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper & Row. Millard, B. (2004). Homesick. Lyrics. Perf. MercyMe. Undone. Inotof, 2004 Nesdale, D., & Mak, A. S. (2000). Immigrant acculturation attitudes and host country identification. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 10, 483-495. Paul, E. L., & Brier, S. (2001). Friendsickness in the transition to college: Precollege predictors and college adjustment correlates. Journal of Counseling and Development, 79, 77-89. Pickett, C. L., Gardner, W. L., & Knowles, M. L. (2004). Getting a cue: The need to belong and enhanced sensitivity to social cues. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1095-1107. Rosenberg, M. (1979). Conceiving the self. New York: Basic Books. Ruggiero, K. M., & Taylor, D. M. (1995). Coping with discrimination: How disadvantaged group members perceive the discrimination that confronts them. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 826-838. Ryan, M. E., & Twibell, R. S. (2000). Concerns, values, stress, coping, health and educational outcomes of college students who studied abroad. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 24, 409-435. Stroebe, M., & Schut, M. (1987). The dual process model of coping with bereavement: Rationale and description. Death Studies, 23, 197-224. Stroebe, M., van Vliet, T., Hewstone, M., & Willis, H. (2002). Homesickness among students in two cultures: Antecedents and consequences. British Journal of Psychology, 93, 147-168. Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In S. Worchel & W. G. Austin (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 7-24). Chicago: Nelson. Tartakovsky, E. (2007). A longitudinal study of acculturative stress and homesickness: High-school adolescents immigrating from Russia and Ukraine to Israel without parents. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 42, 485-494. Thurber, C. A. (1999). The phenomenology of homesickness in boys. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychiatry, 27, 125-139. Van Tilburg, M. A. L. (2005). The psychological context of homesickness. In M. A. L. Van Tilburg & A. J. J. M. Vingerhoets (Eds.), Psychological aspects of geographical moves: Homesickness and

EXPERIMENTAL CONDITION
Where to Turn?This article highlights the importance of having someone to turn to, for support or advice. Photography for BeginnersThis article discusses the relationship between color and emotion. I Need to BelongThis article talks about belongingnessa human motivational tendency to form certain relationships or belong to various groups. It discusses positive aspects, such as comfort and support, as well as the negatives associated with a lack of belongingness, such as anxiety and loneliness. VitaminsThis article provides information on a wide range of vitamins and discusses the comparative value of multivitamins. Person AloneThis article discusses loneliness and possible coping mechanisms for loneliness. Glasses or Contact Lenses?This article offers a comparison between glasses and contact lenses, including the advantages and disadvantages of each. It also offers advice for choosing which is right for you. The Importance of AcceptanceThis article talks about the psychological ramifications of feeling accepted by others. What to WearThis article offers advice for choosing clothing to complement your body typeincluding suggestions for color, pattern, and design. Moving onThis article discusses the impact on peoples lives of friends moving away. It offers advice for coping with associated difficulties.

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acculturation stress (2nd ed., pp. 37-49). Tilburg, the Netherlands: Tilburg University Press. Van Tilburg, M. A. L., Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M., & Van Heck, G. L. (1997a). Coping with homesickness: The construction of the adult homesickness coping questionnaire. Personality and Individual Differences, 22, 901-907. Van Tilburg, M. A. L., Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M., & Van Heck, G. L. (1997b). Homesickness: A review of the literature. Psychological Medicine, 26, 899-912. Van Tilburg, M. A. L., Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M., & Van Heck, G. L. (1999). Determinants of homesickness chronicity: Coping and personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 27, 531-539. Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2005). The homesickness concept: Questions and doubts. In M. A. L. Van Tilburg & A. J. J. M. Vingerhoets (Eds.), Psychological aspects of geographical moves: Homesickness and acculturation stress (2nd ed., pp. 1-16). Tilburg, the Netherlands: Tilburg University Press. Received October 8, 2007 Revision accepted October 28, 2008

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