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Week 1
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Alternatives to Individualism--
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Citizen participation
Liberation-civil rights movement
Psychology and Individualism
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Us psych. Defined itself as study of individuals
Interventions primarily individualistic
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Historical influences on definitions of problems
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progressive--environment/conservative--individual, biological, narrowly psych.
Services influenced by dominant view
Progressive Period 1890-1914
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Many modern organizations (YMCA, Scouts, BB) originated
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Psych. Clinics (education, outreach), Lightner Witmer
Settlement Houses (Ida B Wells, Jane Addams)
Birth Control (Sanger)
Early civil rights (W.E. B. DuBois NAACP)
Conservative Period 1919-1932
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WW1 and aftermath
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Response to immigration, industrialization, urbanization
4 initiatives
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Client focuses inward
Prohibition, KKK, anti-Semitism, fear of communism,
Social Darwinism--Eugenics, intelligence testing,
1940’s-1960’s Emergence of Community Psychology
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Public health, Eric Lindeman (env. Factors, early intervention, community-based services, strengths, life crises/transitions
Strengthening and supporting existing resources,Gerald Caplan (Preventive psychiatry, Emory Cowen, Seymour Sarason)
VA and NIMH
Kurt Lewin--group dynamics
Civil rights, feminism, peace, gay/lesbian, environment
challenging hierarchies, link social action at the local and national levels
Lecture 2
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Swampscott, 5/65
Community Psychology as Distinctive--4 trends
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Current themes
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Changes in M.H.--deinstitutionalization
Limitations of Fed support--vietnam
Search for identity--Cowen, call for Primary Prevention
Latin America---liberation struggles
Prevention and competence promotion--evidence (drugs, pregnancy, HIV) prevention science
(wellness, sense of community, social justice, citizen participation, collaboraiton/community strengths,
human diversity, empirical grounding)
Community Research, 5 questions
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What will we study
From what perspective of theory and values
positivist
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objectivity/value free neutrality,
understanding cause and effect,
hypothesis testing,
control of extraneous factors,
measurement as source of data,
generalizeable laws, laboratory
but no observer is value free, generalization is limited by culture, history, situations
Alternatives?
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Quasi-experimental designs and statitistical controls are used, Standardized questionnaires, Mulitvariate analyses
(extraneous variables)
Contextualist--gaining a deeper understanding of the local and particular context rather than broad, general laws,
knowing, collaborative partnerships, meanings, qualitative
Lecture 3
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PAR-involving members from the affected communities in al stages of research including
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Why use PAR
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Learn from each other
Address power imbalances
Empower participants
Democratize knowledge
Enhance relevance of research
Connect research to larger social change efforts
Using PAR with domestic violence
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Research design
Implementation
Analysis
Dissemination
Rationale--women were tired of research projects simply documenting problems in communities, wanted benefits
GOALS: understand cultural context of DV, examine access to services, identify women’s ideas for addressing
Conducted 38 focus groups and 16 interviews
Involvement from victim-serving organizations, govt. agencies, advocates, survivors
Research Design--present study as focus group with option for interview
Inclusion criteria-mother-in law
Screening-women decide groups
Facilitators-advocates conduct interviews with clients
Question DevelopmentRecruitment
Analysis and Dissemination-advocate participation in coding, more nuanced understanding of violence and culture
Conclusion]
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Promoted relationships with community members
Fostered diverse participation, shared decision making
Development of culturally competent research methods and analysis
Community-based researchers need
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Longer timelines
Trusting relationships
Shared power among members
Funding is difficult
Lecture 4
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Research Methods in Community Psych. Cont.
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Community research methods can be divided into qualitative and quantitative methods, largely on the basis of whether the data studied are
in verbal or numeric form
Each method has strengths and limitations
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Qualitative methods provide knowledge of what a psychological or community phenomenon means to those who experience it
Quantitative methods provide knowledge useful in making statistical comparisons and testing the effectiveness of social innovations
Quantitative methods
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Quantitative Description (Ben, this is where your description/finding of MA thesis could come in: Measurement and statistical analysis
of standardized data from large samples without experimental intervention
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Randomized field experiments/Experimental design: Evaluation of social innovation, random assignment (I’ve covered this a bit with
the students, ask them if they can define it
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Usually involve intensive study of a small sample
The goal is to understand contextual meaning for the research participants, in their own terms through a participant-researcher relationships
Th researcher uses open-ended questions and listens carefully
Data analysis often involves interpretation of themes or categories in participant responses
Different qualitative methods include:
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Participant observation: Researcher joins community or setting as a member, records personal experiences and observations
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Strengths: contextual understanding, flexible exploration of topics, more standardized than part/obs.
Limitations: generalizability limited, less standardized, interpretation can be difficult
Focus group interviewing: similar to interviewing, but conducted with group to elicit shared views
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Strengths: good relationship with community, and context
Limitations: Generalizabiltiy limited, sampling and data collection are not standardized, researcher affects setting
Qualitative interviewing of individuals: Collaborative approach, open-ended questioning, intensive study of small groups
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Strengths: allows group discussion, esp.. useful for cultural understanding
Limitations: similar to those cited above, less depth of understanding individual
Case studies: Study of single individual, organization, or community over time
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Strengths: measurement in context, practical, longitudinal
Limitations: less control of confounds,
Qualitative methods have a long history in psychology and have distinctive features
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Strengths: Standardized methods, some control of confounds, practical
Limitations: Less control of confounds
Interrupted Time Series designs: Longitudinal measurement of one or more settings before and after an intervention
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Strengths: standardized methods, control of confounding factors, understanding of cause and effect
Limitations: Difficulty finding suitable control groups in community settings, generalizability issues
Nonequivalent comparison group/quasi-experimental designs: Similar to above, but without random assignment
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Strengths: generalizability, standardized methods, study of variables that cannot be experimentally manipulated
Limitations: Reliance on prior knowledge/data sets, often decontextualized, limited understanding of cause/effect
Strengths: Understanding setting in depth, understanding changes in time, benefits cited above
Generalizability limited
Conclusions
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Strengths and limitations to all choices
Qual.. And quant. Methods can be integrated in a single study or in multiple related studies to offer advantages of both approaches
Lecture 5
 Ecology--the reciprocal relationships between
individuals and social systems with which they
interact.
 Behavior of individuals cannot be understood
without consideration of ecological context
 Ecology Context
 The settings or surroundings that impinge on an individual
including the ;physical environment, the social occasions
that occur (e.g., classes, shopping, having lunch).
 Kurt Lewin aruged that B = f(P,E)
 Theories of personality--bandura, murray etc.
emphasized * person and context
 Environmental psychology, even temperament
researchers
Barker
 Setting theory focuses on how behaivor settings perpetuate themslelves
and mold the behavior of individuals
 Behavior Is not simply a physical place but a place, time and a standing
behavior pattern.
 Business, ducation, government, religion, voluntary association
 Some embedded in larger
 Settings have a set of rules, implicit and explicit, that maintin the standing
behavior pattern
 Manning theory--diffusion, responsibility
 An optimally populated setting--more players than roles
 Underpopulated-more roles than members
 Moderate understaffing may lead to greater skill or personal development and
greater commitment among members.
Kelly
 Adapted concepts for the biological field of ecology
 Interdependence--a system has multiple related parts; change in one
affects the others
 Cycling of resources-any system can be understood byexamining how
resources are dfined, used, created, conserved, and transformed.
 The interdependence can be understood by charting the cycling
 Adaptation
 Individuals cope with the constraints or demands of an environment using
resources available there
 Successsion
 Ecologies change over time, and understanding the other 3 priciples must
be understood in terms of that pattern of change.
Murray
 Individuals seek to satisfy needs in environments, but those
environments also provide opportunities or constraints on satisying
those needs
 He termed the latter process the “press” of the environment
 One measure of the press is whether the persons share a common
perception of that environment
Moos
 Developed Social Climate Scales to assess the shared perceptions of a
setting among its members
 Based on three pim,ariy dimensions to characterize any setting
 Relationship dimenions
 Personal development
 System maintainance and change
 Widely used and related to range of outcomes
Others
 Sarason--Describe how settings function by creating predictable
relationships among members
 Seidman proposed that settings could be understood in terms of social
regularities--routine patterns of social relationships among elemntes
within a setting over time.
 SR perpsective--searches for patterns of behavior that reveal
relationships among setting members
 Role relationships might include teacher-student, therapist-client, etc.
 Reveal informaton about power, resources, and inequalities in the
setting
 Attempts to change a setting are undermined by s.r.
Key Dimensions of Human Diversity
 Culture:
 Shared language, social roles, and norms, values, and attitudes
 expressed in what the society or group seeks to transmit (e.g., by
educaiton or example) to young generations
 Race
 Not necessarily a biological variable--variation within > between YET
 Defined on the basis of physical criteria
 More than simply ethnicity
Key Dimensions of Human Diversity
 Sexual Orientation
 Refers to attraction, emotions, and self-concept
 Not necessarily expressed
 Best understood as continuum
 Ability/Disability
 Physical or mental disabilities
 Many will experience a disability at some time in their lives
 Community psych. Most focused on mental dis/illness
 Age
 Brings changes in work, health care, etc.
 Socioeconomic Status/Social Class
 Often involve race, ethnicity, and gender in the US
 Religion and Spirituality
Oppression Theory
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Oppression Occurs when an asymmetry or unequal relationship is used to unjustly grant
power and resources to one group and withhold them from another
How are they sustained
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Cultural myths become so ingrained that they are not noticed and seem natural
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Social myths
Neighborhood racial tipping point--8%
Institutional oppression
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Reliance on exams
Corporations and women
Interpersonal relationships
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Recognizing asymmetry would create dissonance, tokens or best at assimilating
People who hold power are motivated to continue to do so
Intergroup relations
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A distinction between in-group and out-group provides a basis for stereotypes and prejudices
Prejudices of those in the dominant group have more effect because of the status of that group
Oppression Theory
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First order vs.. second order change
Three requirements for dimantling oppression
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Critical awareness
Leadership of the subordinated group
Collective action
Assumptions of Oppression perspective
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asymmetric or unequal relationships
Dom/Sub membership determined by factors beyond control of individual.
Resources of dom. Group include $, status, influence, power, framing
Multiple forms of opp. Exist
Social myths rationalize system
Oppressive systems create prejudice
Dehumanizes both oppressor and oppressed
Acculturation
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Separation
Assimilation
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Marginalization
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Pursue identification with the dominant culture
May be strong yet not total
May feel necessary under powerful systems of oppression
Not identifying with culture of origin OR dominant culture
Integration, biculturalism
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Seeking to identify in meaningful ways with both cultures
Bicultural competence
Knowledge of both cultures
Respect for these cultural elements without assumptions
Interpersonal behavioral skills for working within culture
Supportive relationship
Seymour Sarason
Psychological sense of community:
“the perception of similarity to others, an
acknowledged interdependence with others, a
willingness to maintain this interdependence by giving
to or doing for others what one expects from them, the
feeling that one is part of a larger dependable and
stable structure. “
Psychological sense of Community
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A sense of sharing an emotional bond, trust, and caring in a community.
Yet there is a diminishing sense of community
 Declining volunteerism, charitable contributions, voting
 participation in self-help groups has increased and other forms (email, IM, etc.
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Types of Communities
 Locality-city blocks, neighborhoods, etc.
 Relational not limited by geography (internet discussion groups, mutual help, religious
congregations, labor unions, etc.)
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Levels of Communities
 Groupings of individual. Who may not know all the other members, yet who share some
sense of mutual commitment
 Mediating structures--religious congregation---mediate between indiv. And wider
communities
McMillan-Chavis Model
 Four major elements define the sense of community
 Membership-The sense of having invested part of oneself in the
community, and of belonging to it.
 (boundaries, common symbol, emotional safety, sense of
belonging/identification, personal investment)
 Influence-The power than members exercise over the group and the
exert on members
 Integration and fulfillment of needs-shared values among members, as
well as the exchange of resources and satisfaction of individual needs
among members
 Shared emotional connection-A “spiritual bond” based on shared
history among members
Self-Help Groups
 A focal concern--problem, life crisis, or issue affecting all
members
 Peer relationships-rather than unequal
 Reciprocity
 Experiential knowledge
Religion, spirituality, and communities
 Important force in community life
 Volunteerism, charity, resource for personal coping
 Religion vs. spirituality
 A wider set of beliefs and practices associated this personal awareness
of a transcendent power
 90% of poll respondents believe in God
 Involved in Community life. Meet primary human needs for:
 meaning and understanding
 Community and belonging
 Act as counterbalance to values of individualism and wider society
 Provide meaning to oppressed
 Social Advocacy
 Public positions taken by religious institutions
 US civil rights---faith-based change initiative
Neighborhood
 Integral
 High sense of neighborhood identity, internal interaction, external
linkages
 Parochial
 High sense of neighborhood identity, high internal interaction, low
external linkages
Neighborhood
 Diffuse
 High sense of neighborhood identity, low internal interaction, low
external linkages
Neighborhood
 Stepping Stone
 Low sense of neighborhood identity, high internal interaction, high
external linkages.
 Transitory
 Low sense of neighborhood identity, low internal interaction, high
external linkages
 Anomic
 Low sense of neighborhood identity, low internal interaction, low
external linkages
Research
 Measuring sense of community
 Strengthened by
 Physical features
 Community organizations
 Diversity within communities
 Sub communities
 sense of “we” ---hurricane example
Strengthening, can increase conflict among