Individual and perceived community determinants of sense of community: The role of universalistic values

Research on the determinants of the psychological sense of community (PSoC) is of particular importance to community interventions. A cross-sectional study involving 778 residents in an Italian local community explored through a mediation model the effects on PSoC of an individual cultural variable that has been scarcely investigated in PSoC research, that is, values–specifically, universalism–, and a perceived contextual variable, that is, the assessment of community services (a component of residential satisfaction). Results showed that universalism increased PSoC both directly and indirectly, having an effect also on the evaluation of community services, which, in comparison to values, showed a greater direct impact on PSoC. Limitations and implications for community interventions are discussed.     

Psychological sense of community at work: A measurement system and explanatory framework

Organizational research has long dealt with community-related themes such as organizational commitment, workgroup cohesion, psychological climate, and morale. More recently, psychological contracts and organizational citizenship behaviors have approached the concept of community in more specific terms (Rousseau, 1995; Graham & Organ, 1993; Van Dyne, Graham, & Dienesch, 1994). The present investigation integrated the existing literature on community-related variables. This theoretical and empirical foundation was used to operationalize the construct of psychological sense of community in the workplace (PSCW), develop a measurement system and assess its psychometric properties, and test an initial framework of antecedents and consequences of PSCW. A cross-organizational sample of 256 employees partially support the proposed framework. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The mediating influence of organizational characteristics in the relationship between organizational type and relational power: an extension of psychological empowerment research

Processes of psychological empowerment for members of community‐based organizations may be strongly influenced by organizational factors. Using survey data from a random sample of urban residents (n = 974), the present study examines how individual perceptions of empowering features of organizations (group‐based belief system, role opportunity, leadership, and social support) and sense of community relate to participants' psychological empowerment. Relational power, a hypothesized component of interactional empowerment, is examined as the dependent variable. Structural equation modeling highlights a mediating relationship in the development of an understanding of relational power. The study extends prior research on the predictors of psychological empowerment and discusses the relationship between the development of individual member and organizational empowerment. By determining specific features of organizations that are associated with member empowerment, community psychology may be able to better aid organizations in building capacity to enact transformational community change. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Evaluating models of community psychology: Social transformation in South Africa

Tricket (1996) described community psychology in terms of contexts of diversity within a diversity of contexts. As abstract representations of reality, various community psychological models provide further diverse contexts through which to view the diversity of community psychological reality. The Zululand Community Psychology Project is a South African initiative aimed at improving community life. This includes treating the violent sequelae of the unjust Apartheid system through improving relationships among communities divided in terms of historical, colonial, racial, ethnic, political, gender, and other boundaries as well as promoting health and social change. The aim of this article is to evaluate the applicability of various models of community psychology used in this project. The initial quantitative investigation in the Zululand Community Psychology Project involved five coresearchers, who evaluated five community psychology models —the mental health, social action, organizational, ecological, and phenomenological models—in terms of their differential applicability in three partnership centers, representing health, education, and business sectors of the local community. In all three contexts, the models were rank ordered by a representative of each center, an intern community psychologist, and his supervisor in terms of the models’ respective applicability to the particular partnership center concerned. Results indicated significant agreement with regard to the differential applicability of the mental health, phenomenological, and organizational models in the health, education, and business centers respectively, with the social action model being most generally applicable across all centers. This led to a further qualitative individual and focus group investigation with eight university coresearchers into the experience of social transformation with special reference to social changes needed in the South African context. These social transformation experiences and perceived changes needed are explicated. Finally, there is discussion with regard to the evaluation of various models of community psychology in international perspective.     

Which factors explain information exchange and user referral among program implementers?

The Program for Psychosocial Care and Comprehensive Health for Victims serves, on a yearly basis, an average of 25,000 users in northern Colombia alone. The program is implemented by multidisciplinary teams comprised of psychologists, social workers, and community facilitators, who step in at the individual, family, and community levels. An attempt has been made to determine the effect generated by the timeframe through which professionals have been engaged with the program-filling positions of centrality and betweenness within the networks of information exchange and user referral, including the potential mediating effect from the structure of the egocentric network of implementers in the two aforementioned networks and the moderating effect of the sense of belonging to a team of professionals. Both centrality and betweenness are positional measures describing the location actors occupied within the network structure. Centrality reflects the nominations made and receipt by an actor in a network and is considered an individual indicator of prominence and power. Betweenness shows the times that an actor act as a bridge among two actors in a network and it is considered an indicator of strategic positioning in social networks. An egocentric network is the local structure of relationships that each implementer maintains with his or her direct contacts. In this study, 112 active implementers were included, mostly women (n = 97, 88.2%), who had been working on the program for 16.9 months on average (SD = 14.7). Through conditional process analysis, it has been shown that the time that the implementers have been working on the program and the sense of belonging to the task team are relevant factors that interact with each other toward explaining the level of centrality and betweenness of professionals in the information exchange and user referral networks.     

Relations among occupational hazards, attitudes, and safety performance

This study examined psychological empowerment and organizational identification as outcomes of occupational context and predictors of occupational safety performance. In this study, 171 hospital employees from 17 units and 21 occupations completed surveys measuring psychological empowerment, organizational identification, and supervisor safety practices. They also completed measures of 2 dimensions of safety performance: use of personal protective equipment and safety participation. These data were merged with Occupational Information Network (O*NET) context ratings of occupational hazards and physical demands. Results indicated that occupational hazards were negatively related to individual-level psychological empowerment and organizational identification, which were in turn positively related to safety participation. Psychological empowerment and organizational identification also interacted with perceptions of supervisor safety actions in the prediction of personal protective equipment use. Results have implications for organizational safety performance and point to the role of occupational context in psychological empowerment and the extent to which employees participate in the safety of their worksite.     

SENSE OF COHESION AMONG COMMUNITY ACTIVISTS ENGAGING IN VOLUNTEER ACTIVITY

The present article attempts to shed light on the direct and indirect contribution of personal resources and community indices to Sense of Cohesion among activists engaging in community volunteer work. The sample comprised 481 activists. Based on social systems theory, three levels of variables were examined: (1) inputs, which included personal resources (self‐esteem, sense of mastery, and sense of coherence); (2) throughputs, which included community indices (organizational commitment, leadership competence, and representation); and (3) outputs, i.e., change in the community which enhances community cohesion. Path analysis revealed interesting results: organizational commitment, representation, and leadership competence fully mediated between self‐esteem and community cohesion; and sense of coherence had a direct positive association with organizational commitment. Moreover, sense of mastery and sense of coherence contributed directly to community cohesion. The Discussion presents an analysis of these findings.     

Validating the formative nature of psychological empowerment construct: Testing cognitive,emotional, behavioral,and relational empowerment components

The literature has recently raised the need to clarify the nature of psychological empowerment. There are theoretical and empirical evidences that this conceptualization may not be appropriate, and therefore other alternatives to the reflective measurement model should be considered. Consequently, serious problems may arise from the measurement model misspecification, undoubtedly compromising the development of empowerment theory and measurement. This empirical study constitutes an attempt to contribute to this debate, not only testing both reflective and formative models of psychological empowerment, to find the most appropriate modeling approach as a higher‐order multidimensional construct, but also validating a measure that assesses cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and relational components in a Portuguese youth community‐organizing context (N = 861). Confirmatory tetrad analyses results suggest a formative operationalization of psychological empowerment construct. These findings are supported by additional theoretical and empirical considerations. Additionally, the 46‐item index for measure psychological empowerment reveals satisfactory psychometric properties.     

An event-related potential study of self-positivity bias in native and foreign language contexts

Self-positivity bias is a common psychological phenomenon in which individuals often associate positive information with themselves. However, little is known about how self-positivity bias is modulated by different language contexts (e.g., a first vs. second language). To this end, we analyzed behavioral and electrophysiological data to examine whether first or second languages play differential roles in the self-positivity bias effect. We used a modified self-positivity bias task which required Chinese–English bilinguals to judge strings of letters or characters as realwords or not and match associations between identity (self, other) and a geometric shape (circle, triangle). The target words in the experiment consisted of positive, negative, and neutral emotional words. The results showed that in the L2 context, the self-positivity condition elicited a smaller N400 effect relative to the self-negativity condition and a larger late positive component effect relative to the self-negativity and self-neutrality conditions. Furthermore, the other-positivity condition elicited a stronger N400 effect than the other-neutrality condition. These patterns did not emerge in the L1 context. We discuss the implications and contributions of these findings to better understand the interaction between emotion and self-concept in different language contexts.     

A dose-response relationship between types of physical activity and distress

This study aimed to examine whether a dose-response relationship exists between psychological distress and types of physical activity (total, occupational, and leisure-time). The study subjects (233 men and 313 women) were recruited for a study on cardiovascular disease in the Yangpyeong community located in South Korea. The type and characteristics of physical activity were measured with a modified version of the Stanford 5 city project's questionnaire by well-trained interviewers using a standard protocol. The Psychological Well-being Index-Short Form was used to assess psychological distress. Both the intensity and duration of time in either total physical activity or occupational physical activity (OPA) were not related to the distress score. However, a long duration of time (1 hr/day) in severely intensive (> or =6 metabolic equivalent) OPA was related to a high distress score in men (14.1 for none vs. 19.7, p-for-trend=0.005), even after the adjustment for leisure-time physical activity (LTPA). A long duration in time (1 hr/day) in LTPA was related to a lower distress score in men independent of their OPA (16.7 for none vs. 13.1, p-for-trend=0.02). In conclusion, the dose-response relationship of physical activity on psychological distress appeared to differ among the different types of activities. The type of activity may be an important determinant of whether physical activity produces psychological benefits.     

Personal networks,social media,and community cohesion in the strategies of peace‐building agents in Colombia to counteract the segregation of displaced populations

As part of the “Colombian Peace Process,” victim assistance programs, actions for the reincorporation into civilian life of ex‐combatants, and demobilized persons of the armed conflict have been developed as well as innovative instances of intervention in cases of posttraumatic stress. In this study, we surveyed 143 community leaders from the Department of Atlántico (Colombia), participants in a program for capacity building in rehabilitation and mediation strategies. With a mixed design in which we combine the analysis of personal networks, psychometric scales, and qualitative interviews, we describe the use that community mediators make of their personal skills, their personal network, and social media in their actions to confront social trauma and promote coexistence in the local community. The results show a significant relationship between the density of personal networks and the psychological sense of community. Paradoxically, the high social cohesion of the communities of people displaced by political violence seems to pose objective difficulties in reducing trauma. In the discussion, we indicate that the sociogeographic segregation derived from housing policies becomes an obstacle to the effective functioning of the coexistence and reintegration programs of victims and demobilized persons of the armed conflict. In this context, social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp are little used by community mediators in the development of their activities, which they perceive as reinforcing largely the dynamics of segregation of the displaced population.     

Social class as moderator of the relationship between (dis)empowering processes and psychological empowerment

This study examined whether social class moderated the relationship between empowering and disempowering processes and psychological empowerment (PE) in a sample of individuals from five community organizing initiatives (N=490). Hierarchical regression analyses were used to test the relationship between community participation (CP) and alienation on the intrapersonal and interactional components of PE. For the intrapersonal component of PE, CP and alienation were, respectively, positive and negatively predictive. Social class was positively related to the intrapersonal component of PE, and no interaction effects were detected. For the interactional component of PE, CP was not a significant predictor, and alienation was a significant positive predictor. Social class was a negative predictor, and interaction effects between independent variables were detected. These paradoxical relationships between social class and the components of PE are pertinent to empowerment theory and measurement. Implications for social policy, community interventions, and evaluation are explored. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Threat‐conditioned contexts modulate the late positive potential to faces—A mobile EEG/virtual reality study

In everyday life, the motivational value of faces is bound to the contexts in which faces are perceived. Electrophysiological studies have demonstrated that inherent negatively valent contexts modulate cortical face processing as assessed with ERP components. However, it is not well understood whether learned (rather than inherent) and three‐dimensional aversive contexts similarly modulate the neural processing of faces. Using full immersive virtual reality (VR) and mobile EEG techniques, 25 participants underwent a differential fear conditioning paradigm, in which one virtual room was paired with an aversive noise burst (threat context) and another with a nonaversive noise burst (safe context). Subsequently, avatars with neutral or angry facial expressions were presented in the threat and safe contexts while EEG was recorded. Analysis of the late positive potential (LPP), which presumably indicates motivational salience, revealed a significant interaction of context (threat vs. safe) and face type (neutral vs. angry). Neutral faces evoked increased LPP amplitudes in threat versus safe contexts, while angry faces evoked increased early LPP amplitudes regardless of context. In addition to indicating that threat‐conditioned contexts alter the processing of ambiguous faces, the present study demonstrates the successful integration of EEG and VR with particular relevance for affective neuroscience research.     

COMMUNITY READINESS AS A MULTIDIMENSIONAL CONSTRUCT

Both the organizational studies literature and the community psychology literature discuss the importance of readiness when implementing change. Although each area emphasizes different characteristics, several common themes are present within the literature. The current study integrates and applies organizational and community psychology literature in evaluating community readiness in the context of a school-community-university collaborative prevention model. Results demonstrate (a) that there is substantial agreement between members of community prevention teams on the level of readiness of a community; (b) that readiness is a cohesive, but multidimensional, construct related to hypothesized community and individual characteristics; and (c) that there is small to moderate agreement between members of prevention teams and their "agency directors." These results support the notion that clear "theories of change" need to be formulated before deciding how to assess community readiness, as assessments will vary due to several factors: the type of respondent, the level in which analyses are conducted, and the specific community domain (i.e., school, workplace collaboration, collaboration experience) investigated.     

Illness centrality and well-being among male and female early adolescents with diabetes

OBJECTIVE: We examined the implications of illness centrality for psychological and physical health among male and female early adolescents with type 1 diabetes. METHODS: We interviewed 132 adolescents before or after a routine clinic appointment. We measured the extent to which they defined themselves in terms of their illness, their views of the illness, psychological well-being, self-care behavior, and metabolic control. RESULTS: Females scored higher on illness centrality than males. Illness centrality was related to poor psychological well-being when the illness was perceived in negative terms, but only for females. For males, illness centrality was unrelated to psychological well-being. Illness centrality was related to poor metabolic control. CONCLUSIONS: The extent to which adolescent females define themselves in terms of their illness is most problematic when the illness is perceived in highly negative terms. Future research should examine how illness centrality and views of illness change over the course of adolescence.     

NETWORK STRUCTURE,MULTIPLEXITY, AND EVOLUTION AS INFLUENCES ON COMMUNITY‐BASED PARTICIPATORY INTERVENTIONS

This study applies an ecological perspective to the context of community‐based participatory research (CBPR). Specifically, it examines how endogenous and exogenous factors influence the dynamics of CBPR partnerships, including the tendency toward reciprocity and transitivity, the organizational type, the level of resource sufficiency, the level of organizational influence, and the perceived CBPR effect on organizations. The results demonstrate that network structure is related to the selection and retention of interorganizational networks over time, and organizations of the same type are more likely to form partnerships with each other. It shows that the dynamics of the CBPR initiative presented in this article were driven by the structure of the interorganizational networks rather than their individual organizational attributes. Implications for sustaining CBPR partnerships are drawn from the findings.     

Community participation in a low-income neighborhood: The salience of sociodemographic characteristics,perceptions and experience of violence,and neighborhood attachment

While community participation may serve as a vehicle to improve health and socioeconomic outcomes for residents in poor communities, little research exists on the individual factors that influence community participation, particularly in contexts where violence is exceptionally high. This study examined the relationship between sociodemographic characteristics, perceptions, and experiences of violence, neighborhood attachment, and community participation in a low-income, under-resourced neighborhood in Johannesburg South Africa. The study used baseline data from 300 randomly selected households and multiple linear regression to assess the relationship between individual factors and community participation. The results suggest a high level of community participation, with religious organizational membership the most common. Being female, employed, and fear of violent crime were positively associated with community participation. Future research should include mixed methods and transdisciplinary research approaches for building our understandings of social justice and transformation-oriented community participation.     

An examination of ethnic identity as a mediator of the effects of community participation and neighborhood sense of community on psychological empowerment among urban youth of color

Empowerment research has made important contributions toward understanding youth development, well‐being, and activism; however, it has failed to consider the impact that ethnic identity has on psychological empowerment (PE) and among related empowerment predictors (e.g., community participation and neighborhood sense of community [SOC]). The present study focuses on examining the mediating role of ethnic identity between community participation, neighborhood SOC, and PE. Using structural equation modeling path analysis techniques among a sample of Hispanic and Black youth (N = 1,480) from an underresourced community, this study examines the mediating role of ethnic identity between community participation, neighborhood SOC, and PE. Community participation and neighborhood SOC had a positive direct effect on both ethnic identity and PE. Both community participation and neighborhood SOC also indirectly affected PE through ethnic identity. This study supports the mediating role of ethnic identity and the direct effect of ethnic identity on PE. Results point toward the importance of ethnic identity with PE and in the empowerment process. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Profiles of ethnic-racial socialization from family,school, neighborhood,and the Internet: Relations to adolescent outcomes

Given that ecological models of development highlight the interacting influences of multiple environments, further research is needed that explores ethnic-racial socialization from multiple contexts. The current study explores how families, schools, neighborhoods, and the Internet jointly impact academic outcomes, critical consciousness, and psychological well-being in adolescents, both through socialization messages and experiences with racial discrimination. The research questions were: (a) What profiles of multiple contexts of socialization exist? and (b) How are the different profiles associated with academic outcomes, critical consciousness, and psychological well-being? The sample consisted of 1,084 U.S. adolescents aged 13–17 (M = 14.99, SD = 1.37; 49% girls) from four ethnic-racial groups: 25.6% Asian American, 26.3% Black/African American, 25.3% Latinx, and 22.9% White. The participants completed online surveys of socialization and discrimination from four contexts and three types of outcomes: academic outcomes, critical consciousness, and well-being. A latent profile analysis revealed three profiles: Average, High Discrimination, and Positive School. The Positive School class had the most positive academic outcomes and well-being. The High Discrimination class reported the highest critical consciousness. Their academic outcomes and well-being were similar to the Average group. The findings support complexity in perceptions of socialization from different contexts and the associations of socialization with youth outcomes.     

Early parenthood in a community context: neighborhood conditions,race–ethnicity,and parenting stress

Research has highlighted the role of intrapersonal and family characteristics on stress, but less attention has been paid to the potential influence of the community context and racial‐ethnic differences in early parental experiences. Using an ecological model, this study examines the impact of neighborhood‐level social disorder and social cohesion on parenting stress and whether this is universal across mothers of different race–ethnicities in a sample of mothers of young children in large U.S. cities. Study findings show that neighborhood context is significantly associated with parenting stress and minority parents experience less stress than White parents in higher‐disordered neighborhoods. Findings highlight the need to improve community conditions, social support, and resources to reduce parenting stress. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.