You're 10 years old, trying to show your father a self-portrait you made at school while he talks on the phone. He waves you away without looking. Later, at dinner, you try telling him about the fight you had at school with your best friend, but he's scrolling on his phone, nodding without hearing. Before you go to bed, you ask to call your mother, who's on a work trip. Your father tells you to "leave her alone."

That night, in bed, you feel a strange hollow emptiness that weighs more than your body. You worry you're disappearing, though you can see still yourself.

This is what it feels like to not matter.

Now, consider another child. When she enters the room, her father looks up. When she speaks, her father sets down his phone. When she is upset, he asks about her feelings. This child grows up with the assurance that she is seen, valued, and valid.

The key difference between these two children is not perfect parenting or constant attention, but something psychologists call "mattering."

Mattering may be our most basic human need. It's a core component of self-concept: our internal sense of who we are.

At the root of every disagreement, fight, and war is the need to matter. We react strongly to any suggestion that we might be erased. To live, we must matter. As infants, we thrive only if our parents care for us. As adults, to help others, we must first feel we are worth helping.

There's a specific feeling that comes with irrelevance: the realization that your presence or absence makes no measurable difference. That you could vanish, and the space where you stood would close seamlessly; a quicksand existence. 

In 1981, sociologist Morris Rosenberg was studying adolescent self-esteem when he noticed something that existing theories couldn't explain. Some teenagers with loving families and strong social connections still felt fundamentally insignificant. Others, with fewer obvious supports, felt vital and valued. The difference wasn't in how much they were loved, but in whether they felt they mattered.

Rosenberg introduced the concept of mattering—the sense that we are significant to others and make a difference in their lives. It's not about being liked or loved, but about being necessary.

Morris wanted to quantify the extent to which people feel they matter.

Working with Claire McCullough, Rosenberg created a five-item scale called The General Mattering Scale.

They identified three fundamental ways people register their significance:

Awareness: Others notice you exist. They remember your name, acknowledge your presence, and recognize you as more than background.

Importance: Others invest in you. They care about what happens to you, are concerned with your well-being, and pay attention to your thoughts and experiences.

Dependence: Others need you. They turn to you for help, advice, and resources. You provide something they cannot easily replace. 

Rosenberg later added two elements: ego-extension (others are invested in your successes and failures) and the noted absence (you'd be missed if you were gone).

Think about the people in your life right now. Do they notice when you're absent? Do they invest time in you? Do they depend on you? Would they miss you?

If you're struggling to answer yes, what you're experiencing is a deficit in mattering. And that deficit has measurable consequences.

In the early 2000s, sociologist Gregory Elliott at Brown University developed the Mattering Index and began studying its effects on adolescents. In a study of over 2,000 young people between ages 11 and 18, he found that adolescents who felt they mattered less to their families were significantly more likely to consider suicide.

Elliott believes that the sense of mattering begins in childhood, and children raised to feel insignificant grow to feel unworthy and without value. The consequences for those deprived of early reflection and significance are steep.

When you believe you don't matter, you feel drained of energy to face. Feeling unworthy saps your resilience.

Elliott's research showed this pattern held for other destructive behaviors. Adolescents who felt they didn't matter were more likely to engage in violence, abuse substances, or hurt themselves and others. Mattering was a protective factor against almost every form of self-destructive and antisocial behavior. 

The findings extended beyond adolescence. Adults who feel they don't matter are more depressed, more anxious, less satisfied with their jobs and relationships, and less resilient in the face of stress. 

A recent study analyzed thousands of posts on Reddit's suicide watch forum. Nearly 70% contained explicit expressions of not mattering: "I just want to matter." "No one cares about me." "I could disappear and nothing would change."

Elliott documented something even darker: in analyzing the factors behind adolescent violence and destructive behavior, he found that feelings of not mattering were consistently present. The perception of insignificance becomes a motive for destructive action—an attempt to force significance through violence when significance cannot be achieved through connection.

Rosenberg and McCullough created a simple five-item scale to measure mattering:

• How important are you to others?
• How much do other people pay attention to you?
• How much would you be missed if you went away?
• How interested are others in what you have to say?
• How much do other people depend upon you?

These aren't comfortable questions. They force you to confront how you actually exist in other people's lives versus how you'd like to exist. They distinguish between inclusion and essentialness.

You can belong to a group yet feel optional, or be loved but still question whether you’re needed. Mattering goes beyond belonging, being liked, or being valued in abstract terms. It’s the concrete sense that your presence makes a difference.

So, what makes a difference?

Research reveals some patterns. Having children increases feelings of mattering because children genuinely depend on you in irreplaceable ways. Jobs with autonomy, complexity, and responsibility matter because they position you as someone whose judgment is essential.

But childhood emotional neglect predicts lower mattering in adulthood, suggesting that early messages about insignificance become internalized and self-fulfilling. Relationship strains erode mattering. Work-life conflict diminishes it.

The good news: mattering is malleable. Organizations can structure work to increase employees' sense of significance. Schools can implement practices that make students feel essential. Families can prioritize making members feel necessary rather than simply included.

Mattering might be our most fundamental unmet need. We talk about wanting to belong, be loved, or valued. But often, we simply want evidence that we make a difference; that we're not optional.

Those who feel they matter to others can call on their own strength when they feel vulnerable. Those who feel they don't matter feel vulnerable and fragile all the time.

The good news is you can cultivate mattering in your own life. Start by recognizing which contexts and relationships make you feel significant and invest more there. Show up consistently. Let people depend on you, because mattering works both ways. When you make others feel they matter; when you really notice them, invest in them, need them, you create the very conditions that allow mattering to flourish in your own life.

Do you feel you matter? Let me know in the comments!

Until next week, I will remain…