Chapters 3-12 Flashcards
Questions for Conducting Community Research: Who Will Generate What Knowledge, for Whom, and for What Purposes?
- What values and assumptions do we bring to our work?
- How can we promote community participation and collaboration in research decisions?
- How do we understand the cultural and social contexts of this research?
- At what ecological levels of analysis will we conduct this research?
Identifying Values in Community Research
Community psychologists do not view research as value-neutral:
o Need to understand your own values as a “producer of research.”
o Need to understand the values of others as a “consumers of research.”
Types of values to consider
o Social/Cultural
o Scientific
Three Philosophies of Science for Community Psychology Research:
Postpositivist, Constructivist
Critical
Postpositivist
o Epistemology (theory of knowledge): Knowledge is built through shared understanding, using rigorous methods and standards of the scientific community. o Methodology: Emphasis is placed on understanding cause and effect relationships, hypothesis-testing, modeling, and experimental methods.
Constructivist
o Epistemology: Knowledge is created collaboratively in relationship between researcher and participants.
o Methodology: Emphasis is placed on understanding contexts, meanings, and lived
experiences of participants; qualitative methods.
Critical
Epistemology: Knowledge is shaped by power relationships and location within social
systems.
o Methodology: Emphasis is placed on integrating research and action, attending to
unheard voices, and challenging injustice using a variety of methods.
Role of the Community Psychologist Researcher
- Use values to guide your work.
- Use defensible methods.
- Be willing to be wrong (test your ideas).
- Recognize value of opposing views; look for divergent solutions.
- Attend to unheard voices:
o Begin research at the level of those impacted but without a voice, without power. o Participatory community research.
Promoting Community Participation and Collaboration in Research
- Participant-conceptualizer: a person who acts as a community change agent and also conducts research on the effectiveness of those efforts.
- Context counts in data collection: the nature of the relationship between researcher and community members matters.
- Research needs to benefit communities, not just researchers; resist “data mining.”
Four Methodological Issues Involving Culture
- Methods for assessing cultural or ethnic identity
- Assumptions of population homogeneity
- Assumptions of methodological equivalence
- Between-group and within-group designs
Research questions should always what?
Research Questions Should Always Guide the Selection of Research Methods
Quantitative
o Emphasize measurement, statistical analysis, and experimental control.
o Study associations between survey variables: cause and effect.
o Allows for inclusion of more participants.
o Uses standardized measurements.
o Is more generalizable.
Qualitative
o Useful for examining situations, processes, and contexts and attending to unheard voices
of marginalized groups.
o Often used in initial exploration and theory development stages of research.
o Methods: participant observation, qualitative Interviews, focus groups, and case studies. o Common features:
Triangulation
Contextual meaning
Purposeful sampling
Reflexivity: clearly stating researcher assumptions and values
Thick description
Data analysis and interpretation
Multiple interpretations
Methods of qualitative research: participant observation, qualitative Interviews,
focus groups, and case studies.
Kelly’s Ecological Principles
Interdependence
Cycling of resources
Adaptation
Succession
Interdependence
o Different parts of an eco-system are interconnected.
o Changes in any one part of the system will have ripple effects on other parts of the
system.
Cycling of resources
o Systems can be understood by examining how resources are used, distributed, conserved, and transformed.
o Personal, social, and physical resources
o Social settings have many more resources than are commonly recognized; wastes in one
sector become raw materials in another.
o Harnessing under-utilized resources can be a key intervention.
Adaptation
o Focuses on transactions between person and environment.
o Individuals, settings, and systems must adapt to changing conditions cyclically.
Person-environment fit; e.g., enhancing competencies or making environment more friendly.
Succession
o Expects that settings and individuals change over time: as environments change, a more adaptable population will replace a less adaptable one.
o Environments favor some populations and constrain others.
o Focuses on the historical context of a problem.
o Important for problem definition and planning interventions.
Lewin’s Field Theory
Borrowing an analogy from field theory in physics, Kurt Lewin (1951) note that the behavior of a particle as it travels is influenced by many vectors (factors) and their interactions; therefore, it is not possible to accurately describe the behavior without knowing the dynamics of all the vectors. Lewin’s formula is as follows: B = ƒ(P, E)
Individual factors, Social settings, Physical environment
designed to alter:
Individuals’ abilities, Individuals’ perceptions,, Environmental factors
Standing Rules of Behavior
- Some behavior patterns in a setting remain constant even as people change (persons are interchangeable).
- Settings have rules (explicit and implicit) that maintain the standing behavior pattern.
- Behavior settings occur within physical settings.
Four Processes/Circuits
Program circuits
Goal circuits
Deviation-countering circuits
Veto circuits
Program circuits
-agenda and routines that guide the standing behavior pattern.
o Due to tension/embarrassment, newcomers are motivated to learn cues and behaviors. o Helps facilitate the goal circuit.
Goal circuits
—the purpose for the social setting; satisfy goals of individuals. o Lack of consensus reduces effectiveness.
o Accepted and understood by all members.
Deviation-countering circuits
-strategies to eliminate/reduce non-program behavior.
o Training individuals for roles and correcting behavior to improve performance.
o Sometimes ineffective.
o Sometimes in conflict with goal circuit.
Veto circuits
—exclusion of deviant persons from a setting.
Underpopulated Settings
- Settings with as many or more individuals than roles:
o Members easily recruited to fill roles.
o Some members are marginalized or left out.
o Vetoing circuits (behaviors to screen out potential members) common because
replacements are available.
- Settings with more roles than individuals:
o Increases members’ sense of responsibility for maintaining the setting.
o Offers members opportunities to develop skills they might not otherwise have learned. o Increases diversity of persons participating, attracting unused resources.
o If too underpopulated, a setting might “burn out.”
Limitations of Barker’s Behavior Settings
- Focus on behavior, overlooking cultural meanings and other subjective processes.
- Focus on how settings perpetuate themselves and mold behavior of individuals, but ignores how settings are created and changed and how individuals influence settings.
Moos posited that participants share perceptions of a setting based on three dimensions:
-Relationships—mutual supportiveness, involvement, cohesion
- Personal development—the extent to which personal development is fostered in a setting;
emphasizes individual autonomy and skill development.
- System maintenance and change—emphasis on order, clarity of rules and expectations, and
control of behavior
Moos developed social climate scales for variety of microsystem and organizational settings:
- Answers are aggregated to form a profile across the dimensions.
-Assesses additional setting qualities:
o Physical features
o Organizational policies and norms
o Supra-personal factors
- Adding together the individual factors in setting—balance of gender, ethnicity, disability, class, etc.
- Comparisons of social climate perceptions can be made between different stake holders.
- Lead to conversations about intervention.
- Can track changes in climate over time.
- Social climate scores have been associated with individual and setting outcomes.
- Satisfaction, performance, well-being, adjustment, cohesion, influence
- Can be problematic due to unclear score interpretation.
Moos’ Social Climate Scales
-Ward Atmosphere Scale (WAS)—assess psychiatric ward social environment
- Community-Oriented Programs Environment Scale (COPES)—assess psychosocial environment
of transitional, community-oriented psychiatric treatment programs
- Family Environment Scale (FES)—measure perceived family qualities among other scales
- Used to compare and evaluate settings and to match client’s needs and abilities with setting
Types of Communities
Locality-based communities—city blocks, neighborhoods, small towns, cities, rural regions.
Relational communities—internet-based groups, student organizations, mutual help groups,
religious congregations, workplaces.
Community functions
Help find meaning in everyday life.
Provide sense of community and belonging.
Provide important community services.
Valuable for members of oppressed populations.
Can challenge forces of mainstream culture
Neighboring
informal contacts and assistance among neighbors.
Place attachment
emotional bonding to the physical environment.
Citizen participation
Citizen participation
Social support
overlaps but distinct from sense of community; social support is more specific, intimate.
Psychological Sense of Community
Sarason (1974):
o The perception of similarity to others.
o An acknowledged interdependence with others.
o A willingness to maintain this interdependence by giving to or doing for others what one
expects from them.
o The feeling that one is part of a larger dependable and stable structure.
Psychological Sense of Community: McMillan and Chavis (1986):
o A feeling that members have of belonging.
o A feeling that members matter to one another and to the group.
o A shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together.
Four Elements of Sense of Community (McMillan and Chavis, 1986)
Membership, Influence, Integration and fulfillment of needs, Shared emotional connection
Four Elements of Sense of Community, Membership
-the sense among community members of personal investment in the community and of belonging to it.
o Boundaries
o Common symbols (help define boundaries and identify members)
o Emotional safety
o Personal investment (often not monetary; investment of time, energy) o Sense of belonging and identification
Four Elements of Sense of Community: Influence
o Both the power that members exercise over the group and the reciprocal power that the
group exerts on members.
- The more cohesive the group, the greater its pressure for conformity.
o Vertical relationships between individuals and the overall community.
Four Elements of Sense of Community: Integration and fulfillment of needs
Integration and fulfillment of needs
o Horizontal relationships among members.
o Shared values (ideals that can be pursued through community involvement) o Exchange of resources
Individuals participate in communities in part because their individual needs are met there.
Four Elements of Sense of Community: Shared emotional connection
o The definitive element for true community.
o Deep bond; often know it when you see it or experience it.
o Strengthened through important community experiences such as celebrations, shared
rituals, etc.
Social Capital (concept developed by Bourdieu and Coleman)
- Idea of social relationships providing resources (capital) in the same way that wealth does. o Fostered and developed through societal structures.
- Putnam (2000) extended idea of social capital benefiting communities and societies, not just individuals.
- Paxton (1999) hypothesizes two components: objective associations (social networks) and subjective/emotional ties (norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness).
Bonding and Bridging
-Bonding—refers to creating and maintaining strong social-emotional ties, usually in groups of similar persons that provide belongingness, emotional support, and mutual commitment.
- Bridging—refers to creating and maintaining links between groups or communities.
o Reaching out to other networks to gain access to more diverse resources.
Key Dimensions of Human Diversity
culture, race, ethnicity, gender, Social class, ability/disability, sexual orientation, age, spirituality and religion
Intersectionality
- Idea that multiple dimensions of culture and identity often overlap.
- Community psychologists should not/cannot focus on only one dimension of diversity.
- Supports systematic investigation of how dimensions of diversity can affect power, opportunity,
and functioning.
- Multiple dimensions of strengths, resources, and intervention points.
Socialization in Cultural Communities
- People are socialized to a particular cultural context.
- This process is ongoing throughout our lives and takes place in every community in which we
interact.
- Sometimes the process is explicit, often it is implicit.
Individualism and Collectivism
- Broad framework useful for understanding diversity of cultures.
- No culture can be exclusively individualist or collectivist.
-Individualism (independent self)
o Sense of unique identity.
o Strong, clear boundaries between self and other.
o Self-reliance and competition.
- Collectivism (interdependent self)
o Individual achievement should be attained through group success.
o More fluid boundary between self and other.
o Group security and harmony.
Acculturation
—changes in individuals (behaviors, emotions, and identity and values) related to the contact between two (or more) cultures.
- Acculturation must be understood as related to multiple ecological levels and examine changes in host settings as well as individuals.
Berry’s Model of Acculturation Strategies
Separation, assimilation, marginality, biculturality
Berry’s Model of Acculturation Strategies: Separation
individuals identify exclusively with culture of origin.
Berry’s Model of Acculturation Strategies: Assimilation
individuals give up identifying with their cultures of origin to pursue identification
with dominant culture.
Berry’s Model of Acculturation Strategies: Marginality
individuals do not or cannot identify with either their culture of origin or with the
dominant culture.
Berry’s Model of Acculturation Strategies: Biculturality
-individuals identify or participate in meaningful ways with both their
cultures of origin and the dominant culture.
o Identity
- Strong individual identity
- Strong cultural identity
o Cognitive and Emotional
- Knowledge of both cultures
- Positive attitudes about both cultures Bicultural efficacy
o Social and Behavioral
- Communication competence
- Repertoire of behavioral skills
- Social support networks within both cultures
Liberation and Oppression
- Oppression occurs when a dominant/privileged group unjustly holds power and resources (economic resources, status and influence, sociopolitical power, interpersonal connections, power to frame conflict) and withholds them from an oppressed/subordinate group.
- Often based on characteristics fixed at birth or otherwise outside personal control—“unearned” (e.g., White privilege, patriarchy, socioeconomic status).
Hierarchy contributes to internalized oppression, i.e., the sense that one’s oppressed group is inferior.
- Multiple identities lead to layers of Privilege and Oppression.
- Human tendency for positive in-group attitudes and out-group stereotypes and prejudices.
- Important for us to realize our ethnocentric bias in defining and solving problems.
Liberation Perspective
- Defines the oppressive system as the problem and focus of change efforts. To truly dismantle oppressive systems, action must liberate the oppressed group and the dominant group.
- Seeks fundamental structural change in relationships, power, and resources; i.e., it is a second- order change strategy.
- Emphasizes collective action.
- Paulo Freire (an important theorist of liberation) proposed three resources are needed for
dismantling oppression:
o Critical awareness and understanding of the oppressive system.
o Involvement and leadership from members of the subordinated group. o Collective action.
When SOC and Diversity Conflict
- Sense of community tends to emphasize group member similarity, not diversity.
- The importance of diversity or community can vary for individuals depending on cultural context.
- Need systematic consideration of community-diversity dialectic in community psychology work.
When Culture and Liberation Conflict
- Arises when cultural practices are oppressive.
- Key principles:
o Cultural values often contain contradictions.
o Cultures are continually evolving in response to external and internal conditions.
o Cultural transformation needs to be initiated from inside the culture by its own members.
Risk Factors
aspects of settings, communities, and persons that are associated with problematic individual outcomes such as personal distress, mental disorders, or behavior problems.
Protective factors
strengths or resources for coping associated with positive individual outcomes.
Distal factors
-predisposing processes which shape stressors, resources, coping processes, and outcomes (not direct triggers of a problem).
o Distal contextual factors—cultural traditions, economic conditions, social and political forces, environmental hazards, neighborhood processes, family dynamics.
o Distal personal factors—genetic and other biological factors, personality traits, patterns of thinking, chronic illness, ongoing effects of prior life experiences.
Proximal stressors
directly trigger or contribute to a problem
o Major life events, life transitions, daily hassles, disasters, vicious spirals.
Stress Reactions
- The personal experience of stress may include physiological, emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and social components.
- Appraisal—the process of constructing the meaning of a stressful situation or event.
o Involves the extent to which the situation is seen as challenging, expected or unexpected,
controllable or uncontrollable.
o Also involves our assessment of our available resources to combat the stressor.
Coping
- Individuals activate resources for coping with stressors, often from many ecological levels.
o Interventions to promote change: organizational consultation, alternative settings, community coalitions, prevention and promotion programs, crisis intervention, case management.
o Types of resources: material resources, social-emotional competencies, social, cultural,
and spiritual resources. Coping Processes
o Problem-focused o Emotion-focused o Meaning-focused
Reappraisal/“Reframing”—altering one’s perception of the situation or its meaning.
Positive outcomes
o Wellness—more than absence of problems; strengths. o Resilience—adapt, maintain, or recover functioning.
o Thriving—grow beyond prior levels.
o Empowerment—gaining access to valued resources.
- Problematic outcomes—distress, dysfunction, clinical disorders
Empowerment
- An intentional, ongoing process centered in a local community, involving mutual respect, critical reflection, caring, and group participation, through which people lacking an equal share of resources gain greater access to and control over those resources.
- Includes cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components.
- Empowerment and empowering practices can transfer across multiple levels of analysis, but
empowerment does not necessarily transfer across levels.
- Empowerment is contextual: it is influenced by histories, values, and experiences.
o Empowerment of one group could be at the expense of another.
o “Feeling empowered” doesn’t always lead to actual influence on collective decisions.
Citizen Participation
- A process in which individuals take part in decision making in the institutions, programs, and environments that affect them
- Citizen emphasizes rights, competencies and collaborative relationships, whereas client emphasizes needs, deficits, and hierarchical patient-doctor relationships.
- Voice in deliberation of community issues and decision making.
- Citizen participation tends to be more effective when done in a collective process.
Qualities of Empowered and Engaged Persons
Critical awareness, partcipatory skills, sense of collective efficacy, sense of personal participatory efficacy
-participatory values and commitment, relational connections
Qualities of Empowered and Engaged Persons: Critical Awareness
understanding how power and sociopolitical forces affect personal and community life.
o Questioning the legitimacy of existing social conditions and authority
o Learning to see problems as social practices that can be changed
Qualities of Empowered and Engaged Persons: Participatory skills
o Articulating community problems and alternative visions
o Building collaborative relationships and teamwork and resolving conflicts o Identifying and mobilizing resources
Qualities of Empowered and Engaged Persons: sense of collective efficacy
belief that citizens acting together can be effective in improving community life
Qualities of Empowered and Engaged Persons: sense of personal participatory efficacy
an individual’s belief that she has the capacity to engage effectively in citizen participation and influence community decisions (requires participation).
Qualities of Empowered and Engaged Persons: relational connections
social support, including bonding ties and bridging ties.
Empowering and Empowered Settings
Empowering Settings—foster member participation and sharing of power in group decisions and actions.
o Systematically create opportunities for members.
o Characterized by solidarity, member participation, and diversity and collaboration
Empowered Settings—exercise power in the wider community or society, influencing decisions
and helping to create community and macrosystem change. o May or may not be empowering for members.
Community Organizing Techniques: Community coalitions
bring together broad representation of citizens within a locality to address a community problem.
o Often focused on organizational level
o Coalitions’ model of change tends to: articulate a mission, write action plans, build
legitimacy, seek funding, implement programs.
Community Organizing Techniques: Consciousness raising
increasing citizens’ critical awareness of social conditions and
energizing their involvement.
o Relationship building is often precursor to other action.
Community Organizing Techniques: Social action
—identifies obstacles to empowerment and creates constructive conflict to remove them.
o Based on need and resource assessments by citizens who have identified weaknesses in the power structures.
o Social action tends to be grassroots action, visible action in social arena, and an overt expression of power and protest.
Community Organizing Techniques: Community development
—uses collective action to build up community resources in terms of economic and political development, improved social and physical environments.
Community Organizing Techniques: Organizational consultation
—professionals work as consultants to make changes in an organization’s policies, structure, or practices.
o To be considered a social change intervention, the work needs to involve organization’s role in broader community/society (i.e., not just improving worker productivity).
Community Organizing Techniques: Alternative settings
creating a new resource when existing organizations, agencies, or settings are not satisfactory, often offered in contrast “mainstream” options (e.g., mutual help organizations, women’s shelters).
Community Organizing Techniques: Use of technology
use of internet and social media as a means of connection and communication.
Approaches to Effective Community Change
- Community betterment approach—attempts to improve specific aspect of community functioning using top-down approach.
- Community empowerment model—uses bottom-up approach in which community members have primary control of change efforts.
o Can increase community capacity and strengthen sense of community.
Elements of Effective Community Change Initiatives
- Sense of community
- Implement actions
- Disseminate information
- Multiple areas of action
- Local control
- External linkages and resources
- Interpersonal networks
- Organizational alliances
- Plausible theory of community change—draw upon social science research and citizen
practical experience to link action to social change
- Effective intensity—involve changes that are strong enough to make a detectable difference in
everyday life.
- Long-term perspective—genuine group decision-making takes more time but often leads to
more sustained changes.
Public Policy as a Social Change Strategy
- Public policy work involves seeking to influence public decisions, policies, or laws.
o Develops recommendations regarding issues, framing how social issues are understood
and offering alternatives.
- Based upon research and program evaluation
o Using community and prevention science.
o Use community organizing techniques
- The process of policy decision making is not always about what works:
o Most popular ideas and problem definitions o Money
o Whose voices are heard the most or loudest
Key Aspects of Community Psychology
- Concerned with linkages and relationships at different levels of analysis: individuals, microsystems, organizations, localities, and macrosystems.
- Integrates research with action.
- Guided by values.
- Collaborative and interdisciplinary.
Community Psychology Values
- Prevention - Sense of community - Respect for diversity - Social justice - Social change - Empowerment - Collaboration - Citizen participation - Emphasis on strengths and competencies - Empirical grounding - Action research
Factors Influencing the Emergence of Community Psychology
- Prevention perspective on programs in living
- Reforms in mental health systems
- Group dynamics and action research
- Movements for social change and liberation
- Optimism regarding social change
The work of community psychologists
- Community organizing and coalitions - Group process skills - Community development - Consultation and capacity building - Program development, implementation, and evaluation - Research and policy - Create alternative settings
