Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides

By Geoffrey Lawrence Cohen
W. W. Norton & Company
 September2022
Organizational Behavior
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We live in enormously polarized times. From politics to race, religion, gender, and class, division runs rampant. In 2020, 40 percent of each political party said that supporters of the opposing party were “downright evil.” In 2019, hate crimes reached a ten-year high in the United States. One in five Americans suffers from chronic loneliness, with teenagers and young adults at increasing risk. Social ties at work, at school, and in our communities have frayed. How did we become so alienated? Why is our sense of belonging so undermined? What if there were a set of science-backed techniques for navigating modern social life that could help us overcome our differences, create empathy, and forge lasting connections even across divides? What if there were a useful set of takeaways for managers and educators of all stripes to create connection even during challenging times?

Selected Editorial Reviews
This is perhaps the richest book on belonging you’ll ever read.… The inspiration one draws from every page of this book is an enhanced sense of what is possible. It revives the very thing we need most in these times: hope.
Claude M. Steele, author of “Whistling Vivaldi”
This book shines piercing illumination on one of today’s most timely topics—the causes and consequences of belonging to modern social groups. Importantly, it maps scientifically grounded routes to minimizing the harmful consequences while optimizing the positive ones. The world needs this book.
Robert B. Cialdini, PhD, author of “Influence and Pre-Suasion”