Need to Belong Scale

The Need to Belong Scale (NTBS; Leary, Kelly, Cottrell, & Schreindorfer, 2001) is a 10-item self-report of the desire for acceptance and interpersonal attachment — how much a person wants to form and maintain close bonds. Items are rated from 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely), some are reverse-scored, and a higher total reflects a stronger need to belong.

Internal consistency in undergraduate samples has been acceptable (α around .80–.83; Watt & Badger, 2009; Pickett, Gardner, & Knowles, 2010). Importantly, the scale is only minimally correlated with rejection sensitivity, indicating that wanting to belong and fearing rejection are distinct constructs.

It shows the expected pattern of relationships — links to acceptance-based self-esteem and to sensitivity to social cues after exclusion — while remaining unrelated to negative affect and to verbal or math ability, which supports its discriminant validity (Pickett et al., 2010).

“If other people don’t seem to accept me, I don’t let it bother me.”

Illustrative only. During administration items are presented one screen-set at a time; response-key direction is never shown to respondents.

Item responses are summed within each scale (reverse-keyed items recoded first) and expressed as a population percentile against the cited reference sample, with a reliability-based confidence range where α is published.

Winarick, D.J. (2024) dissertation sample (N = 118). N2B per-item mean (10 items, 1–5; 3 items reversed). Published reliability: Leary et al. (2013), Journal of Personality Assessment, 95(6), 610–624 (α = .74).

Leary, M.R., Kelly, K.M., Cottrell, C.A., & Schreindorfer, L.S. (2013). Construct validity of the Need to Belong Scale: Mapping the nomological network. Journal of Personality Assessment, 95(6), 610–624.

Leary, M.R., Kelly, K.M., Cottrell, C.A., & Schreindorfer, L.S. (2013). Construct validity of the need to belong scale: Mapping the nomological network. Journal of Personality Assessment, 95(6), 610–624.