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Community Psychology Exam PrepChapter 1: community Psychology
Definition of community psychology
Difficult to capture the complexities in a single definition.
1. Concerns the relationship of individuals with communities and societies. By integrating
research with action, it seeks to understand and enhance quality of life for individuals,
communities and societies.
2. It is an emerging branch od applied psychology concerned with understanding people in
the context of their communities, using a variety of interventions (including prevention,
health promotion and social action) to facilitate change and improved mental health and
social conditions for individuals, groups, organizations and communities.
3. It is about an attempt to find alternatives to dealing with deviances from societal-based
norms. It is an attempt to support every persons right to be different without the risk of
suffering material and psychological sanctions.
4. It focuses on social issues, social institutions and other settings that influence groups
and organizations. The goal is to optimize the wellbeing of communities and individuals
with innovative and alternative interventions designed in collaboration with affected
community members.
Some Key characteristics
Social relevance: refers to socially responsive psychological praxis and deals with the issues
people experience
Ecological nature: focuses on people in interaction with their social and psychical
environments. People live in multiple social systems and in physical settings and behavior can
only be understood only in terms of these interactions. Community psychology has a holistic
focus and studies the fit between people and their context.
Multilevel perspective: it encourages a multilevel perspective on human interaction. Behavior
should be studied as part of interpersonal interaction in microsystems as part of organizational
and communal structures and as part of cultural perspectives. All these levels of interactions
influence all behavior. Intervention should focus on the most relevant level to facilitate change.
Promotion of wellbeing: it focuses on making psychological knowledge useful to ordinary
people in order to develop resources and enhance capacities and to promote wellbeing and
social change to allow for equally distributed health. Various strategies can be used – social
change and agency to achieve higher levels of social justice.
Focus on diversity: it accepts the diversity of people and respects the rights of all. Differences
between people are seen as resources that could contribute to development rather than as
threats.
Democratic Participation: uses a democratic style of collaboration and partnership with
community members in research and interventions where the psychologist forms part of this
interaction. Community psychology implies building personal relationships with and between
people.
Community psychology:
,Focuses on the interaction between individual and community as well as on community
characteristics, culture and processes that influence the lives of people.
Aims to enhance quality of life through intervention
Social Psychology:
Studies the interaction of people with their social environment, without a strong focus on
interventions
Sociology focuses mainly on the study of community processes.
Definition of Community
Can refer to people in a specific geographical area and time.
Can also refer to a social system, a construction of a way of life or to a sociopolitical
organization.
Community in South Africa has assumed a racial connotation.
In apartheid: the concept was used to emphasize the difference between racial groups. Each
group had a distinct culture. Same concept was used to strengthen the sense of solidarity in the
black consciousness movement.
Community psychology – understood as working with underprivileged black people and the
concept of community came to be interpreted as black townships.
Thus the concept can be problematic, it can recall apartheid terminology and create the notion
of homogenous and unified communities. The concept needs to develop further.
Community as a location
Boundaries demarcate the periphery of neighborhoods, cities, and states and can be identified
on a map.
Interpersonal relationships in communities are often based on proximity and shared
experiences and not always by choice.
Community in terms of geographical location can be described as:
Demographic characteristics: the social characteristics of residents in the area such as gender,
social class, or family life cycle.
Land use, quality of housing: the development in the area such as high-density housing,
informal settlements or large farms
Infrastructure or formed organizations: the development of organizations such as schools
churches or shops.
Community as a network
Essential functions of a community such as socialization, role fulfillment, goal achievement and
support are achieved by interacting in groups.
Community can be defined as a network of people who share some common characteristics,
values or interests. People in social networks need not live in the same geographical area, but
can work together or belong to social organizations.
,A person feels part of a community to the extent to which the following characteristics are
present:
Membership: a feeling of belonging to a group (sense of belonging)
Influence: the extent of mutual influence between the person and the group
Fulfillment of needs: sharing of values and resources in the group in order to satisfy individual
needs.
Shared emotional connection: people feeling connected through shared emotional experiences.
A community may be considered a social system, with its interacting members comprising
various subsets within.
These subsystems are both interrelated and interdependent as they interact with one another.
When interacting with people, psychologists become part of the communities through
connecting, understanding and building webs of interconnections.
Community as a Constructing of a way of life
Communities are socially constructed and exist within ideology and history. This perspective:
defines community as evolving and created through interaction.
A space where crisis and possibilities of interrelatedness of people, ideas and issues can be
encountered.
Shared experiences contribute to creation of a way of life, influenced by socio-historical context
and meanings created by people.
Meaning attached by people to reality is informed by physical and social context.
Community as a sociopolitical organization
Concept of community has a sociopolitical meaning that reflects the political histories and
beliefs of people in a given context.
Community can form a collective power structure that promotes a specific cause and influences
decision-making.
Comprehensive definition
A community is a specific system of action which arises when a human population
(demography) settled in a given territory (geography) establishes structural arrangements to
organize itself in order to live and survive (economics) as a group. It develops interactive
relationships among its components (sociology) and defines shared ways of thinking feeling
and acting (cultural anthropology) which are internalized by all its members and with which
each individual member identifies to a particular degree (socialization) according to their
personal living experiences and inherited characteristics (psychology).
Complex system.
Values and Goals of community psychology
, Aims to advance certain values in communities.
Values involve the underlying philosophy that guides all activities in a field of study, while goals
are more specific aims of interventions.
Values: still evolving, can be applied at all levels of social ecology. It is important to promote
these values in a balanced way.
Most important values and goals are the following:
Promotion of health and wellbeing
Is a central value? Included prevention of physical and mental health issues and promotion of
health at all levels of the community.
Gives psychology a proactive character. “Equipping people with resources to cope effectively is
the best way to forestall dysfunction”
Focus on reducing incidence of problems and promotion of wellbeing to counter psychological
traumas thought promotion of strengths and competencies in collaboration with community
members. Focus is also on promotion of interpersonal and communal wellbeing.
Caring and compassion
Based on care and compassion for people and concern for their wellbeing. Wellbeing is
promoted by creating shared emotional experiences and feelings of belonging by encouraging
social support or self help movements.
Goal of these interventions is captured by the concept of sense of community – where people
care about one anther and feel that they belong to a community.
“Perception of a similarity to others, an acknowledgement of interdependence by giving to or
doing for others what one expects from them and the feeling that one is part of a larger
dependable and stable structure.”
If people experience a sense of community, they feel that they belong to or fit into a community,
a sense that they can contribute to it and share its values.
Self-determination and participation
Strives to foster self-determination and participation to promote the level of empowerment in
communities.
Empowerment – people can control over their own affairs and convey a sense of personal
control whether on an individual or social level.
Empowerment is not a passive process. It means believing in people’s capacity to solve their
own problems and mobilizing them to participate in community decisions. This brings
attention to the social structures that prevent people controlling their lives.
On a community level, empowerment means modifying social structures so that reallocation of
power is made possible.
Empowering interventions are based on collaborative relationships and facilitation of
resources and sensitivity to the cultural setting.
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