The Science of Mattering: Why Feeling Significant is so Significant
By Zach Mercurio, PhD.
Author and Meaningful Work Researcher, Modern People Advisory Board Member.
Original work published on Zach Mercurio. See our Mattering at Work Masterclass series.
Think about the first time you realised you mattered. What happened? How did you feel?
Chances are your moment of mattering impacted and moved you. Most likely, you felt important because of what someone else said or did.
Feeling significant is a basic human desire and a critical factor for mental, emotional, and physical well-being in life, school, and work.
Mattering is also dependent on others, and fulfilling this vital human desire is a community endeavour.
In other words, others around you know they matter because of you.
So, what is mattering? Why is mattering so important? And, how can we learn to create the experience of mattering for others?
The power of Mattering
For Jane, one sentence changed her perceptions of herself and her job. The self-worth that followed sustained her motivation and pride for 18 years.
Jane hopped around from one cleaning job to the next in what she described as a difficult life. After a family member she was caretaking for died, she knew she had to get a more stable job to survive.
That led her to take a custodial job at the university where I teach. When I spoke to Jane for a study on what makes work meaningful, I asked her, “Why did you stay?”
She told me that in her first training, a supervisor pulled out the dictionary and defined the word custodian for her as “a person who has responsibility for or looks after something.”
Despite being told her whole life that cleaning was an unskilled and dirty job, she said, “realising I was looking after these buildings and everyone in them changed my belief patterns and has inspired me for the last eighteen years. I finally realised I mattered.”
Jane credits one sentence from a supervisor for fuelling her energy and sense of self in work for 18 years.
Jane felt like she mattered.
The science of Mattering
Researchers find mattering is the feeling that we’re a significant part of the world around us, it’s the belief that we’re noticed, important, and needed — right now.
While studies show experiencing mattering as Jane did increases a sense of self-worth and motivation, research also finds it reduces the risk of severe depression, anxiety, and can save lives.
Why?
First, mattering influences self-esteem, the confidence in one’s worth.
Researchers Robert Chavez and Todd Heatherton from Dartmouth College find self-esteem resides in the frontostriatal pathway of the brain. This pathway connects the medial prefrontal cortex, which deals with self-awareness, to the ventral striatum, which influences motivation.
Individuals with higher self-esteem seem to optimize this pathway, leading to more positive self-knowledge, self-worth, and increased internal motivation and energy.
Feeling significant is also found to increase serotonin levels, sometimes called the “confidence molecule” that influences overall mood and lowers anxiety.
Experiencing mattering also reaffirms that we contribute to others and that we have a purpose. A sense of purpose is associated with increased dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin, also known as the “happiness trifecta,” the neurotransmitters that control for mood, movement, and motivation.
Mattering may also help us live longer.
In the 1970s, Harvard scientist Ellen Langer studied two groups of nursing home residents, controlling for numerous risk factors. She gave plants to each of them. Researchers told the first group that they were directly responsible for keeping the plant alive. They told the second group that the staff would take care of the plant.
After 18 months, twice as many patients in the first group were alive.
As a global pandemic continues and calls for social reform expand, mattering is especially urgent, leading many to examine their significance as never before.
I think mattering is a public health issue, and cultivating it is an essential skill.
How to create experiences of Mattering
Studies show mattering has three components:
Attention — the realization that others notice us and that they’re interested in what’s going on in our lives
Importance — the perception that others care about us and see us as uniquely significant and important
Dependence — the feeling that someone else relies on us, that we are needed
To cultivate mattering, ensure people feel noticed, important, and needed
As individuals, mattering means making sure the people around us regularly know that they’re needed and indispensable.
In schools, mattering means making sure that every student knows their presence is what makes the classroom complete.
In workplaces, mattering means ensuring all people know that they’re not disposable and that they and their work are essential for the whole.
In society, mattering means rebuilding systems so that every person experiences their humanity as dignified, affirmed, and valued.
