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Lesson 1: Introduction to Community and Community Psychology

Section One: Welcome to Community and Community Psychology When you hear the word “community”, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Do you think about the neighbourhood you grew up in, your Facebook friends, or the religious organization you attend? As you will see during this course, community is a complex construct that is increasingly recognized and appreciated both among those who are trying to build (sustain or destroy) community and those who are interested in studying it (e.g., community psychologists or other social and health scientists). Whether we are researchers, activists or students, community and its impacts (both negative and positive) play an important role in our lives. Community, and why it matters, is the focus of Module 1, which consists of three lessons during which I will introduce you to the concept of community, community psychology in general, community service-learning (CSL), and community psychology theories. Lesson 1 will introduce you to community and community psychology.

Roseto Pennsylvania Welcome to the borough of Roseto Pennsylvania. If you were to drive from New York City to Roseto, Pennsylvania, it would take you approximately 2 hours. Roseto Pennsylvania is named after Roseto Valfortore, Italy. In 1882, the first 11 Rosetans moved from Roseto Valfortore in Italy to the USA to start a new life. By the year 2000, Roseto had approximately 640 households with a population of just over 1600. In the early 1960s, Dr. Stewart Wolf, a faculty member in the medical school at the University of Oklahoma, met a physician who worked in Roseto, Pennsylvania. During a conversation, the physician told Dr. Wolf that he had rarely found someone under the age of 65 years old with heart disease in that small town. This may not sound surprising to you— but consider that this was the 1960s, a time when heart attack was the leading cause of death among men under the age of 65 in the United States. (Not to mention that cholesterol lowering drugs were not available at this time!). Thus, not seeing heart disease in men under the age of 65 years old was virtually impossible. Like any curious mind, Dr. Wolf decided to investigate with a colleague of his, John Bruhn, a sociologist. Together, they discovered that almost no one under the age of 65 years old had died in Roseto, Pennsylvania (or even showed signs) of heart disease. Equally surprising was that men over the age of 65 years old died about half as often from heart disease when compared to the United States as a whole. Finally, they found that the death rate of all causes in Roseto, Pennsylvania was 30-35% lower than what would be expected. The Roseto Mystery Solved . Roseto is indeed an anomaly! Why? Well, turns out that Dr. Wolf and Bruhn, busy crunching numbers related to eating, family trees, geography, etc., failed to take a good look around (at least at the beginning!). It turns out that Roseto had one secret ingredient –

something unique to the town. People in Roseto made it a habit to stop on the street to chat, visit one another, and cook and eat together in their backyards. Their homes housed three generations (i.e., grandparents, their children and their grandchildren). They attended church and other community events regularly. The town had 22 separate civic organizations. Respect for others was established based on an egalitarian ethos that discouraged those with a lot of wealth to flaunt their successes and helped their less successful neighbours to conceal their struggles and failures. In conclusion, Roseto illustrates that health is impacted not only by genetics, lifestyle and geography—but also by community.

Section 2: What is Community “The idea that we belong to communities and that these communities provide benefits and responsibilities is one that has gained a growing appreciation in the last decade” (Bess, Fisher, Sonn, & Bishop, 2002, p. 3). But what are those communities? In the next part of this lesson we will explore which communities are important to you and then we will define community.

Community as Defined by Community Psychology There are multiple different definitions of community in community psychology. A commonly used definition is by Seymour Sarason. He defined community as “the readily available, mutually supportive network of relationships on which one could depend” (1974, p.1). Seymour Sarason taught at Yale University from 1945 to 1989 and is considered an important leader in the founding and development of community psychology. You will learn more about Seymour Sarason again when we discuss ‘sense of community’ and ‘psychological sense of community’. Other definitions in community psychology follow. Bret Kloos, Jean Hill, Elizabeth Thomas, Abraham Wandersman, Maurice Elias, and James Dalton define community as “a larger grouping of individuals who may not know all the other members but who share a sense of mutual commitment” (2010, p. 6). Geoff Nelson and Isaac Prilleltensky suggest that “At the most basic level, the word community implies a group or groups of citizens who have something in common” (2010, p. 103) Finally, before discussing community in detail, Colleen Loomis provides a summative definition: “From the many and varied conceptualizations of community one may argue that a community is the end result of organized communal life (Alinsky, 1971) comprised of people who have some degree of

interdependence and shared connection (emotional, work, etc.) (Heller, 1989) who communicate with each other (Sarason, 1974) and have influence on the collective (McMillan & Chavis, 1986)” (2013, p. 2).

Section 3: More Science on Community and Wellness . Meet Susan Pinker. Susan is a journalist and a developmental psychologist with postsecondary degrees from both McGill University and University of Waterloo. In 2014, Susan wrote the book, The Village Effect: How Face-to-Face Contact Can Make Us Healthier, Happier and Smarter. In the book she describes the impact of personal connections and communities to health and wellbeing. In her own words, Susan Pinker illustrates in the book how “physiological immunity, enhanced learning, and the restorative power of mutual trust derive from face-to-face contact with the people in your intimate circle” (2014, p. 7). You may think that this seems odd because we tend to think of health, happiness and wellbeing as driven by things like food, exercise, holding power such as money and social status, and so on. However, Susan Pinker argues that “our relationships – the people we know and care about – are just as critical to our survival” (2014, p. 7). . We will now dive into three (out of the many) studies Susan Pinker presents in her book. The first study demonstrates how loneliness decreases health and increases mortality in old age (Luo, Hawkley, Waite, & Cacioppo, 2012). The second study provides an example of how social capital (we will learn more about social capital in Lesson 2) impacts mortality rates (Lochner, Kawachi, Brennan, & Buka, 2003). The final article is a meta-analytic review illustrating the link between social relationships, morbidity and mortality (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, & Bradley, 2010). Loneliness, Health, and Mortality in Old Age: A National Longitudinal Study This study examined the effect of loneliness on the mortality rate of adults over 50 years old. Over the course of six years, the researchers evaluated the correlation between loneliness and mortality and found that the relationship between both variables is dynamic and reciprocal. In other words, the participants’ loneliness affected their health outcomes and, concurrently, their health outcomes affected their feelings of loneliness (Luo, Hawkley, Waite, & Cacioppo, 2012). Social Capital and Neighborhood Mortality Rates in Chicago This study examined the relationship between social capital and health outcomes in 342 Chicago neighbourhoods. The researchers defined social capital as “measured by reciprocity, trust, and civic participation” (Lochner, Kawachi, Brennan, & Buka, 2003, p. 1797). Through the use of community survey data, the researchers discovered that high social capital in a neighbourhood was associated with a lower death rate. Specifically, social capital was correlated with decreased mortality due to heart disease as well as decreased mortality overall (i.e., all causes of death averaged together).

Section Four: Community Psychology-History and Context . Now that we have defined and discussed community and its impact on health and wellbeing, let us move on to figure out what community psychology is. Let’s start by defining psychology.

Psychology has changed over the years. Definitions of psychology range as far back as the 19th century. In 1896, Wilhelm Wundt, who is considered one of the founding fathers of psychology, defined psychology as the “total content of experience in its immediate character” (Walsh, Teo & Baydala, 2014, p. 3). . Today, psychology is often defined as the “scientific study of behavior and mental processes” with four primary goals: description, explanation, prediction and influence (Wood, Wood, Boyd, Wood, & Desmarais, 2011, p. 4-5). Community psychology identifies an additional goal of first understanding the contexts surrounding what is being studied. To do this, we may need to look as far back as the 1930s.

Social Issues in the 1930s, 1940s, 1960s that Influenced the Development of Community Psychology . In your research you may have come across events such as those related to the aftermaths of World War II, the great economic depression, the Holocaust, the Indian Act, Roosevelt’s New Deal to create safety nets in the USA, the Vietnam War, and the civil rights and women’s rights movements. In North America, the 1960s were a time of strong social reform and change including changes to the health care system. On the one hand there was a movement to reform the mental health system towards more community-based interventions. There was a movement toward prevention rather than treatment due to the recognition of the inability of the healthcare system to treat everyone. It was also the time when group dynamics and action research became popular. To give you a better understanding, in particular with regards to the link between community psychology and community mental health, please read pages 54-69 of the chapter below.

The Development of Community Psychology in Canada and Elsewhere . The chapter you just read is very much focused on the context and developments of community psychology in the USA. It is also important for you to understand that not everyone agrees with the way community psychology history is told. There are several scholars who suggest that there has been a good deal of historical distortion. Some scholars such as Richard Walsh (1987) suggest that the founders of community psychology in the U.S. are being portrayed more radical than they were in reality. Others, such as Ann Mulvey (1988), point out that feminist agenda was not fully incorporated in community psychology for a long time and that community psychology was dominated by male voices. With regards to community psychology in Canada, according to Walsh, Teo and Baydala (2014), community psychology developed differently: “Although the term “community psychology” was used in the U.S. at the Swampscott Conference for Community Mental Health … and is sometimes thought to have originated there (Revenson & Seidman, 2002), William Line (1897-1964) introduced the term “community psychology” in 1951 to capture the way that Canadian Psychology, as he conceived it, had developed into a science of social policy (Babarik, 1979). In the 1940s and 1950s, Line and some colleagues at the University of Toronto promoted community research and action. Even earlier, the psychologists who gathered in 1939 to form

the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) stated a commitment to studying people in the context of their communities. From the early twentieth century, public mental health education and social intervention were integral to some segments of Canadian Psychology” (pp. 392-394). Finally, according to Stephanie Reich, Manuel Riemer, Isaac Prilleltensky and Maritza Montero (2007), community psychology (or what one could consider community psychology) developed very differently internationally. The authors suggest that: “Whereas some may consider community psychology (CP) a young field developed in the United States in the 1960s, it actually has a long history internationally” (p. 1). The authors go on suggesting that community psychology in Latin America has its roots in liberation and social justice rather than the discipline of psychology. Furthermore, while the discipline is growing in some countries it is declining in others.

Hence, while community psychology’s history in North America is linked to contexts both in the USA and Canada, as a discipline it has diverse origins and foci internationally – even within the North American context.

Section Five: Defining Community Psychology Now that you have an idea of the context and the origins of community psychology it is time to present some definitions of community psychology. Bret Kloos, Jean Hill, Elizabeth Thomas, Abraham Wandersman, Maurice Elias and James Dalton (2012) suggest the following definition: “Community psychology concerns the relationships 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” (p. 12). Richard Walsh, Thomas Teo and Angelina Baydala (2014) suggest the following definition: “Community psychologists aim to study individuals in their social contexts, focusing on strengths instead of deficits, while striving to prevent illness and disease by means of social change instead of adjustment to existing institutions” (p. 392). Finally, Carolyn Kagan and Mark Burton (2007) suggest the following definition: “Community psychology offers a framework for working with those marginalized by the social system that leads to self-aware social change with an emphasis on value-based, participatory work and the forging of alliances. It is a way of working that is pragmatic and reflexive, whilst not wedded to any particular orthodoxy of method. As such, community psychology is one alternative to the dominant individualistic psychology

typically taught and practiced in the high income countries. It is community psychology because it emphasizes a level of analysis and intervention other than the individual and their immediate interpersonal context. It is community psychology because it is nevertheless concerned with how people feel, think, experience, and act as they work together, resisting oppression and struggling to create a better world” (Burton, Boyle, Harris & Kagan, 2007, p. 219).

Concepts and Values in Community Psychology . You will have found that there is much overlap among definitions of community psychology. Those overlaps include, but are not limited to: ● ● ● ● ●

The relationship between individuals and their contexts (e.g., communities, societies, social contexts, social systems) Social change rather than individual change Value-based, participatory research and action Integrating research and action Creating a better world and enhancing quality of life

To accomplish these principles community psychologists employ theoretical frameworks and conduct research systematically. In order to achieve the goals stated above, community psychology has long recognized the role of values as central to the discipline (Rappaport, 1977, 1984; Sarason, 1978). One of the first examples includes the eminent 1977 book by Julian Rappaport titled, “Community Psychology: Values, Research, and Action”. The value of social change, in particular, has a long history in community psychology. At the same time, there has been much debate about the utility of overarching and/or central concepts in community psychology in achieving the value of social change. Suggested overarching concepts include, but are not limited to: ● ● ● ● ●

prevention and promotion (Cowen, 1991, 2000) ecology (e.g., Kelly, 1966) wellness (e.g., Cowen, 1994) psychological sense of community (e.g., McMillan & Chavis, 1986; Sarason, 1974) empowerment (e.g., Rappaport, 1981, 1987)

Furthermore, the past several decades have seen a growing awareness of and interest in issues of power (e.g., Riger, 1993; van Uchelen, 2000) and oppression and liberation (e.g., Bond, Hill, Mulvey, & Terenzio, 2000; Nelson & Prilleletensky, 2009, 2010; Watts & SerranoGarcia, 2013), leading some community psychologists in North America to focus on (and use the term) social justice as a tool to create social change in their scholarly endeavors (e.g., Fox & Prilleltensky, 1997; Prilleltensky, 2001; Sloan, 2005).

Community Psychology: Values . As a result, some areas in community psychology (in particular in Canada) have developed specific values over the decades. These values include (but are not limited to):

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Contextual / Ecological Perspectives Prevention and Promotion Community, Sense of Community & Psychological Sense of Community Individual and Family Wellness Power and Depowerment Respect for Human Diversity Social Justice Empowerment and Citizen Participation Collaboration and Community Strengths Empirical Grounding Commitment to Action, Research and Theory

Don’t worry if you are not too sure about each of the values above with regards to their meaning, definitions and what that means in the context of community psychology. For now, simply make a list of them so you remember them. Over the duration of this course, we will be focusing on each of these values. For some of you, considering the role of values in psychology may sound strange because you may have been taught that science / academia should be objective. An objective science requires that researchers remain unbiased and therefore, they must not allow values to interfere with the research process. In other words, they must remain valueneutral. Community psychology argues that pure objectivity in studying psychosocial phenomenon is not possible and all social science research is subjective, influenced by underlying values and assumptions. This is one of the many ways community psychology is different from traditional areas of psychology. Making values explicit is central to research and action in community psychology—something that we will learn about at length throughout this course.

Lesson 2: Community Service Learning and Making a Difference as a Student

Section One: Citizenship and Engaging with Community In his book, “The Psychology of Citizenship and Civic Engagement”, Mark Pancer examines the development of civic engagement and the factors that influence the degree to which individuals engage with their communities as active citizens. Civic engagement is often associated with… ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Being involved in your community Volunteering Being an active citizen Contributing to help solve a problem or issue in your community Participating in community events Being a member of a community group (e.g., recreational group, advocacy group, religious membership, etc) Voting

Let’s begin by completing Mark Pancer’s survey about civic engagement.

Civic Engagement . We have been introduced to the concept of civic engagement, considered some of the ways in which we can be ‘civically engaged’, and we have even calculated our own scores of civic engagement. However, we have yet to concretely define what civic engagement actually is! Here are some definitions for us to consider. ●

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The American Psychological Association defines civic engagement as “individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern” that can “take many forms, from individual volunteerism to organizational involvement to electoral participation”. Robert Putnam (1996), a political scientist, describes civic engagement s...