A Comparative Study: Need for Affiliation and Gratitude among Young Adults Who Are/Aren’t In a Relationship

Humans, as social beings, have an inherent need for affiliation. This need to form social relationships and maintain them varies in degree from individual to individual. Need for affiliation is a need for open and sociable interpersonal relationships. A common definition of gratitude is “the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness;”.Researchers have conceptualized gratitude as an emotion that is always directed towards appreciating the helpful actions of other people (c.f. McCullough, Kilpatrick, Emmons, & Larson, 2001). The aim of the present investigation was to compare among young adults who are in a relationship with those who aren’t on their need for affiliation and feeling of general gratitude. It was hypothesized that need for affiliation and gratitude will be more in people who are in a relationship from those who aren’t and there will also be gender differences in gratitude and need for affiliation. A sample of 210 participants of the age group 18-24 were selected from which 105 were in a relationship and 105 have never been in a relationship. Need for affiliation was assessed using Liking People Scale developed by E.E. Filsinger (1981) and gratitude using the Gratitude Questionnaire-6 by Michael E. McCullough (2002). Results shall be discussed in light of role of chosen variables and were interpreted in terms of their significance.

Interpersonal attraction is the attraction that happens between people that lead to the formation of either friendship or romantic relationship. It is a relationship between two people characterized by a general liking but range of variation that includes respect, love, lust and affection. According to interpersonal attraction principle, social psychologist have identified several major factors that influence interpersonal attraction which is anything bring two or more people together characterized by affection respect, liking or love " Interpersonal Attraction 2010".
The need of affiliation is one of three acquired needs laid out by psychologist David Clarence McClelland in his theory on the motivations for human behaviour and defined need for affiliation as "the desire to establish and maintain many rewarding interpersonal relationships" It can be defined as acceptance or friendly, accepting, open to social behaviour and having interest cooperation, communication and social contacts. The desire for affiliation with others has been described as a fundamental part of human nature (Wong & Csikszentmihalyi 1991). Affiliation can be viewed as psychical needs related with the need of love friendship and cooperation. Henry Murray in his Affection Needs defined affiliation as, to be close and loyal to another person, pleasing them and winning their attention and friendship. A person having high need for affiliation is motivated build relationship with other people that many of his/her thoughts, emotions and actions are directed towards to fulfilling this motivation.
A study conducted by Craig A. Hill (1991) suggested that a person having a strong need for affiliation may be more likely to express that need, if the interaction was warm and compassionate yet, where as a person with low need for affiliation conveyed little inclination to care whether the interaction was compassionate or not.

Gratitude
'Gratitude' is derived from the Latin word 'gratia', which means 'grace', 'graciousness', or 'gratefulness'. Gratitude operates in terms of being grateful to someone, being grateful for something, being grateful to a person for something in particular or the tendency to experience gratitude as ongoing across situations (Snyder & Lopez, 2007).
Research by UC Davis psychologist "Robert Emmons", author of " Thanks!: How The New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier", shows that simply keeping a gratitude journal and regularly writing brief reflections on moments for which we're thankful, can significantly increase well-being and life satisfaction."Robert Emmons" suggests that focusing our gratitude over people for whom we are thankful rather than circumstances or materialistic items will enhance the benefits we experience.
Gratitude may also convey many benefits for couples. Perhaps the most apparent potential benefit is through its role as a positive expression of appreciation to a partner.
Past research has shown that an individual who expresses gratitude is not only providing a positive expression to a partner but is also conveying an acknowledgement, and appreciation for the partner.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE Gratitude And Relationship
To have and to hold: Gratitude promotes relationship maintenance in intimate bonds, study done by Gordon, Amie M.; Impett, Emily A.; Kogan, Aleksandr; Oveis, Christopher; Keltner, Dacher show that people who feel more appreciated by their romantic partners report being more appreciative of their partners.

Gratitude as a Motivator and a Detector of Maintenance Behaviour, Kaska E. Kubacka, Catrin
Finkenauer et al founded that feelings of gratitude toward a partner stem from the partner's relationship maintenance behaviors, partly because such behaviors create the perception of responsiveness to one's needs. Lambert, Clark, et al (2010) found that expressing gratitude to a romantic partner or a close friend led to the expresser's increased sense of communal strength, or responsibility for the partner's well being. Algoe, Gable and Maisel (2010) found that gratitude predicted increased relationship satisfaction for both benefactors and recipients. This study provides important findings establishing gratitude as a relevant factor among romantic couples.

Affiliation Studies
The Study 'Tend and Befriend-Bio-behavioural basis of Affiliation under stresses, conducted by Shelley E. Taylor, found that positive affiliative contact significantly reduces not only psychological, but also biological stress responses.

Affiliation And Gender
Women have consistently scored higher than men on enjoyment of social interaction, agreeableness, and have tended to be more sociable.
It has also been found that women tend to form dyad affiliations, where they bond with the "other" one-on-one and go on to do this "bonding" with many individuals. Men, on the other hand, bond in larger groups. However, it has also been found that men have larger social networks. Women have more intimate affiliations while men are more oriented towards exercising their power. (Rose, 2009) Hypothesis:-It was hypothesized that need for affiliation and gratitude will be more in people who are in a relationship from those who aren't and there will also be gender differences in gratitude and need for affiliation.

Participant:-
A total of 210 participants (both male and female) were taken for the study where 50% were in a relationship and 50% were single. The age group of participants was 18 to 24 years.

Procedure:
Participants were contacted directly as well as google forms were created to survey. The participants were instructed to mark the responses honestly and were told that their forms will be kept confidential. The data was analysed using statistical tests.    Table 3. shows three different age groups (18-20, 21-22, 22-24) and their level of significance in the need for affiliation. In the age group of 18-20 and 21-22, affiliation is significant at .004 but it is not significant for the age group 22-24.  Table 4. shows that there is a significant difference .030 in females in their need for affiliation.  -tailed) .002 N 210 210 **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). Table 5 shows a negative correlation at .002, calculated using Pearson correlation. Negative correlation indicates that with increase in gratitude, need for affiliation will decrease and with increase in need for affiliation gratitude will decrease and vice versa.

DISCUSSION
The aim of the present investigation was to study if there were any significant differences between people who are in a relationship from those who aren't on their need for affiliation and general life gratitude. For this, a sample of 210 youth between age group 18-24 were taken and tested. Four results came out of this investigation.
We made our first hypothesis stating that the need for affiliation and gratitude will be more in people who are in a relationship. With the help of t test we analyzed the data and results showed that there is no significant difference among committed and single. There can be various possible reasons for such results; one of them could be the increase in the use of social networking sites from where need for affiliation may be fulfilled by connecting with many people. Also having a loving and caring environment with family and friends can lead to increase in their general life gratitude and fulfillment of one's need for affiliation rather than by being in a relationship. In 2002, a study was conducted on 10% students of Ohio State University, "Ed Diener" and "Martin Seligman", conducted a study on personal happiness. They found that the most salient characteristics shared by the students who were very happy and showed the fewest signs of depression were "their strong ties to friends and family and commitment to spending time with them. In one study people were asked about their mood on random occasions.
We know that our thinking keeps on changing as we grow and gain experience; we divided the population into 3 age-groups; 18-20, 21-22, 23-24 to study diversity among age-differences. We then analyzed the gratitude and need for affiliation among the three age groups separately and founded that, in the age group 18-20 and 21-22, the mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level but not for the age group 23-24. However, there were no differences on their general life gratitude. This meant that need for affiliation is more in the age group of 18-22 and low for the people of age group 23-24. The age group between 23-24 are grown ups, where the focus is more on making carriers, settling in life or even planning to make a family whereas the age group between 18-22 are developing their base in educational institutions and to grow in lives and also due to neurological changes.
We also assessed the gender differences between male and female on their need for affiliation and gratitude and found that there was a significant difference (.030) in females in their need for affiliation thus our hypothesis was accepted. This result is supported by many studies. Stewart and Chester (1982) in their research showed that women scored higher in need for affiliation than men. Studies by Oetzel (1966) show that girls and women exceed boys and men on diverse measures of need for affiliation and interest in and positive feeling for others. Garai and