Relatedness
The basic need to feel connected to, and cared for by, other people.
What it means
Relatedness is one of the three basic psychological needs in self-determination theory: the sense of belonging and secure, mutual connection with others. SDT holds that this need is not a luxury but a nutriment for motivation — when people feel respected, included, and cared for, they more readily internalize the values and goals of their group and engage with autonomous rather than merely compliant motivation. The mechanism is that warmth and acceptance signal safety and worth, which frees people to invest effort and take on the group's purposes as their own, whereas exclusion or coldness depletes motivation and well-being. Relatedness interacts with autonomy and competence; support for connection is most beneficial when it does not come at the price of feeling controlled. It helps explain why belonging interventions, mentorship, and inclusive cultures lift persistence in school and at work, and why isolation undermines it. It matters because the felt quality of relationships is a precondition for durable engagement, not a soft extra, and because environments can be deliberately designed to meet or starve this need.
Examples
Newcomers who feel genuinely welcomed by a team engage and stay far more than those who feel like outsiders, however capable they are.
Runners who join a weekly club keep training for years while equally fit solo runners quietly stop, because the Saturday group gives them people who notice when they are missing.
A first-year student assigned a mentor who remembers her name and asks how she is doing is far likelier to stay enrolled than one left to find her own footing.
First described in Deci & Ryan, SDT.