Knowing when hybridization occurs

[Katie Bart 1I]

How do you know when hybridization will occur? Does it only occur when an atom forms more bonds than the number of unpaired electrons it has?

[Ziyan Wang 3J]

It always occur if the atom has more than one electron domain.

[Sydney Myers 4I]

It is mainly helpful to know the hybridization when bonding occurs because it can help visualize which bonds are placed where. Like double bonds can be comprised of a hybrid orbital and a regular orbital, because the bond is counted as a single region of electron density.

[Sukanya Mohapatra 2G]

Hybridization occurs everytime there are multiple electron domains.

[Rohan Kubba Dis 4B]

Basically, if molecule has more than one bonding site (ie usually 3 atoms or a lone pair), hybridization will occur. If you think about it, hybridization is directly related to the number of bonding sites as well: eg. 3 bonding sites= sp2, 4 bonding sites=sp3 and so on and so forth.

[Jingyao Chen 4H]

The purpose of hybridization is to result in an overall lower energy level. Therefore, I think as long as there's bonds that involves the p orbital, there will be hybridization between s and p to form an energy level in between.

[Matthew Chan 1B]

Orbitals hybridize whenever the resulting molecule will be lower in energy.