Core values of community psychology

Community psychology

Community psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with person environment interactions and the ways society affects individual and community functioning. Community psychology focuses on social issues, social institutions, and other settings that influence individuals, groups, and organizations.

Supporting core values of community psychology

Values: values are the idea or the principles about what is morally right or wrong.

Characteristics of values

1. Values are emotional: individual own the values with which they are emotionally attached.
2. Values are goal oriented: values guides us to set goals and achieve goals. If individual violates or moral values, it leads toward anxiety.
3. Values are social: Every culture and community have distinctive values.
4. Values are spiritual: values origin is basically the religion of the culture or society. i.e. Muslims values are originated by Islamic values.

Uses of values

1)      Values help clarify choices for research and actions.

2)      The discussion of values helps to identify when actions and supported values do not match.

3)      Use to understand distinctive values

4)      Use to understand distinctive spirits

Seven core values in community psychology

• Individual and Family wellness
• Sense of community
• Respect for human diversity
• Social justice
• Empowerment and  citizen participation
• Collaboration and community strengths
• Empirical grounding

1)      Individual and family wellness

Individual wellness: physical and psychological health, including personal well-being and attainment of personal goals ( Cowen, 1994). Family wellness: When everybody’s needs in the family are met- reaching a balance between pursuing personal aspiration and contributing to the well-being of other family members.

Indicators of wellness: Resilience, Social and emotional skills, Personal well being and life satisfaction. Collective wellness: Health and wellness of communities and societies. It’s a broader concept.

2)      Sense of community:

The perception of belongingness, interdependency and mutual commitment that link the individual in collective unit or perception of similarity to others. McMillan & Chavis (1986) define a sense of community as "a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members' needs will be met through their commitment to be together.“ In western culture, the sense of community is very low because people are selfish and self centered as compared to eastern countries.

•      Sense of community is composed of four elements (McMillan & Chavis's, 1986)

        i)            Membership: being able to recognize most people in your community.

      ii)            Influence:  whether the community members feels that their community is able to solve the problem that arises.

    iii)            Integration and fulfillment of needs: the extent to which the individual feels that they can get what they need from society.( neighbors, blocks).

    iv)            Shared emotional connection: the extent to which individual feels  that have bonds with others in their community

Sense of community is not always positive, it can either be negative. Sense of community eliminates the diversity in community. Sense of community is Balanced by Social justice and respect for human diversity.

3)      Respect for human diversity:

Required for understanding individuals in communities. Respect for human diversity means accepting, understanding and celebrating the uniqueness of every individual as a result of the many variables that shape an individual’s attitudes, behaviors and perspectives. Respecting diversity allows individuals to acquire new ideas, skills and solutions, and thus improves the collective strength of the group as a whole.

Example: conducting research on Kalash culture. Translating the scale in their language is not enough, we have to even gave respect to their values, codes, believes, sense of orientation by changing the scale, goals of research and orientation.

Moral relativism:

Moral relativism is the view that moral judgments are true or false only relative to some particular standpoint (for instance, that of a culture or a historical period). One can hold strong values without ignoring others. i.e eating beaf in pakistan is morally acceptable but in india it is immoral. Respect for human diversity is balanced by social justice and sense of community.

4)      Social justice:

Fair and equitable allocation of resources, opportunities and power in a society as a whole. Every individual have equal right to use and enjoy resources equally i.e. education, money, health services and other services offered by state. Social justice is Balanced by citizen participation.

Have to types of social justice

•      i) distributive justice: fair allocation of resources at social and community level.

•      ii) procedural justice: whether the process of collective decision making includes a fair representation of citizens.

5)      Citizen participation and collaboration empowerment

Citizen participation: Democratic decision making process that allow all the members of community to have meaning involvement in decisions affecting the community.

Empowerment: Enhancing opportunities for people to control their own lives, both individually and collectively. This works at different level of analysis i.e. micro-system level; giving power of decision making to women; women empowerment.

6)      Collaboration and community strengths:

Establish collaborative relationships between community psychologist, citizen and the process of work they have to do. Avoid typical role of expert (community psychologist) and layperson (citizen). Focus on individual and community strengths.

7)      Empirical grounding:

The practice or procedure of anchoring theoretical terms to scientifically measurable or observable events. The extent to which this is possible for a particular theory is a measure of the value of that theory. 

•      Integration of research into community actions by basing actions on empirical research findings whenever possible.

•      Can be done in both qualitative and quantitative way.