Shankar Vedantam

One of the things that Morris Rosenberg wrote was, to believe that the other person cares about what we want, think, and do, or is concerned with our fate, is to matter.

So that's how he defined what mattering was.

One of the fascinating things that Morris Rosenberg and others have noticed is that there's almost a cyclical pattern in mattering.

So we can matter a lot when we're small children because, of course, we can be the apples of our parents' eyes.

But then when we hit adolescence, we sometimes might experience a trough.

And again, when we are adults and we have careers and the careers are thriving, we can again experience a peak.

But then as we retire and as we move into adulthood,

you know, our retirement years, we can experience another trough.

So it's not like mattering is one linear thing across the lifespan.

It often has this pattern of waxing and waning.

So when we don't have this feeling that we matter, when we feel invisible, you say that this can produce very powerful effects.

Talk about the effects of not mattering on social anxiety, Gord.

are you saying in some ways that as people perceive that they are not important in the eyes of others, in some ways they become less important in their own eyes, that it triggers self-criticism, self-hatred?

So people who feel like they don't matter also end up experiencing more conflict with their friends and family members.

What's the connection here, Gord?

So it's almost like a vicious cycle.

I think that I don't matter to you.

Maybe in response, I derogate you or I hold you at some distance.

You perceive me now as being standoffish.

And now I have even more evidence that I don't matter to you.