An Introduction to Sense of the Community

Sense of Community: A Definition and Theory

David W. McMillan and David M. Chavis

George Peabody College of Vanderbilt University

For several years many of us at Peabody College have participated in the evolution of a theory of community, the first conceptualization of which was presented in a working paper (McMillan, 1976) of the Center for Community Studies. To support the proposed definition, McMillan focused on the literature on group cohesiveness, and we build here on that original definition. This article attempts to describe the dynamics of the sense-of-community force—to identify the various elements in the force and to describe the process by which these elements work together to produce the experience of sense of community.

Review of Related Research

Doolittle and MacDonald (1978) developed the 40-item Sense of Community Scale (SCS) to probe communicative behaviors and attitudes at the community or neighborhood level of social organization. The basis of the SCS was what had been called the “critical dimension of community structure” (Tropman, 1969, p. 215), and it was to be used to differentiate low, medium, and high SCS neighborhoods on its five factors; informal interaction (with neighbors), safety (having a good place to live), prourbanism (privacy, anonymity), neighboring preferences (preference for frequent neighbor interaction), and localism (opinions and a desire to participate in neighborhood affairs). The results of Doolittle and MacDonald’s study led to three generalizations. First, there is an inverse relationship between pro-urbanism and preference for neighboring. Second, there is a direct relationship between safety and preference for neighboring. Finally, pro-urbanism decreases as perception of safety increases.Glynn’s (1981) measure of the psychological sense of community is based on the work of Hillery (1955), augmented by responses to a questionnaire distributed to randomly selected members of the Division of Community Psychology of the American Psychological Association. Glynn administered his measure to members of three communities and hypothesized that residents of Kfar Blum, and Israeli kibbutz, would demonstrate a greater sense of community than residents of two Maryland communities. He identified 202 behaviors or subconcepts related to sense of community, from which 120 items were developed, representing real and ideal characteristics. As predicted, higher real levels of sense of community were found in the kibbutz than in the two American towns. However, no differences were found among the three on the ideal scale, Multiple regression analysis showed that 18 selected demographic items could predict adequately the real scale score (R2 = 6l3, p < .001) but not the ideal score (R2  = .272). The strongest predictors of actual sense of community were (a) expected length of community residency, (b) satisfaction with the community, and (c) the number of neighbors one could identify by first name. Glynn also found a positive relationship between sense of community and the ability to function competently in the community.

Riger and Lavrakas (1981) studied sense of community as reflected in neighborhood attachment and found two empirically distinct but correlated factors they called social bonding and behavioral rootedness. The social bonding factor contained items concerning the ability to identify neighbors, feeling part of the neighborhood, and number of neighborhood children known to the respondent. Behavioral rootedness refers to years of community residency, whether one’s home is owned or rented, and expected length of residency. Using these factors, the authors identified four “meaningful and distinct groups of citizens”: young mobiles (low bonded, low rooted), young participants (high bonded, low rooted), isolates (low bonded, high rooted), and established participants (high bonded, high rooted). In this study, age played a major role in determining attachment.

Examining the relationship between community involvement and level of residents’ fear of crime, Riger, LeBailly, and Gordon (1981) identified four types of community involvement: feelings of bondedness, extent of residential roots, use of local facilities, and degree of social interaction with neighbors. They found that the first two types of bondedness were related significantly and inversely to residents’ fear of crime, while the last two, reflecting behavior rather than feelings, were not related significantly to fear of crime. A plausible explanation for the differential relationships is that variables within a domain (e.g., feelings of bondedness and other feelings) are more likely to be strongly correlated than are variables measured across domains (e.g., feelings and behaviors) (Campbell & Fiske, 1959). Despite the weakness of the study as suggested by such an explanation, we believe that the findings of Riger et al. attest to the force of sense of community in the lives of neighborhood residents.

Ahlbrant and Cunningham (1979) viewed sense of community as an integral contributor to one’s commitment to a neighborhood and satisfaction with it. They found that those who were most committed and satisfied saw their neighborhood as a small community within the city, were more loyal to the neighborhood than to the rest of the city, and thought of their neighborhood as offering particular activities for its residents—the characteristics representing the authors’ conceptualization of sense of community. Also considered to be a contributor to commitment to neighborhood and satisfaction with it was social fabric, a term they used to capture the “strengths of interpersonal relationships” as measured through different types of neighbor interactions.

Bachrach and Zautra (1985) studied the coping responses to a proposed hazardous waste facility in a rural community. They found that a stronger sense of community led to problem-focused coping behaviors—behaviors that attempt directly to alter or counter the threat—and had no bearing on whether emotion-focused coping strategies—efforts to adjust emotionally to the threat—were applied. A path analytic model showed that problem-focused coping contributed strongly to the level of one’s community involvement (e.g., reading reports, attending meetings, signing petitions), and the authors concluded that stronger sense of community may lead to a “greater sense of purpose and perceived control” in dealing with an external threat. In a similar study, Chavis (1983) identified the process of empowerment, which occurs through the development of community. Others have reported consistent findings; Florin and Wandersman (1984) and Wandersman and Giamartino (t980) found high self-reported levels of sense of community to distinguish those who participated in block associations from those who did not.Bachrach and Zautra (1985) reported that they used a “brief, but face valid” sense of community scale on the basis of questions developed by Kasarda and Janowitz (1974) and Rhoads (1982). Their measure included seven items: feeling at home in the community, satisfaction with the community, agreement with the values and beliefs of the community, feeling of belonging in the community, interest in what goes on in the community, feeling an important part of the community, and attachment to the community. The scale was found to be internally consistent (alpha = .76).

The studies reviewed here contributed to our initial understanding of sense of community and emphasize the importance of this concept for research, intervention, and policy. Most important is the recurring emphasis on neighboring, length of residency, planned or anticipated length of residency, home ownership, and satisfaction with the community. Glynn’s (1981) work is particularly important in its recognition of the discrepancies between real and ideal levels of sense of community and in demonstrating the relationship between sense of community and an individual’s ability to function competently within it. The study by Riger and Lavrakas (1981) is especially significant for its conceptualization of the emotional aspect of the experience.

These were the initial studies in the area of sense of community; however, they cannot be expected to contribute an elaborated theoretical understanding of what sense of community is and how it works, and there are some important limitations to which we hope to respond. All of these studies, for example, lack a coherently articulated conceptual perspective focused on sense of community, and none of the measures used in the studies were developed directly from a definition of sense of community. Five of the studies used factor analytic techniques to create, post hoc, their domains and/or subdomains without theoretical or prior empirical justification, a practice about which Gorsuch (1974) and Nunnally (1978) suggest caution. The sixth (Bachrach & Zautra, 1985) defined its domain on the basis of face validity.In addition, all authors assumed that each element in their measures of sense of community contributed equally to an individual’s experience, although the value-laden nature of the phenomenon (as expressed by Sarason, 1974) would lead one to believe that some feelings, experiences, and needs would be more important than others. It is also notable that the studies reviewed did not investigate what was common among their participants regarding their sense of community. Rather, the studies focused on proving the validity of their measures through differentiation of communities or individuals.

Primarily, these studies revealed that the experience of sense of community does exist and that it does operate as a force in human life. What is needed now is a full description of the nature of sense of community as a whole. We begin that process of development with a definition and theory.

A Definition and Theory of Sense of Community

Gusfield (1975) distinguished between two major uses of the term community. The first is the territorial and geographical notion of community—neighborhood, town, city. The second is “relational,” concerned with “quality of character of human relationship, without reference to location” (p. xvi). Gusfield noted that the two usages are not mutually exclusive, although, as Durheim (1964) observed, modern society develops community around interests and skills more than around locality. The ideas presented in this article will apply equally to territorial communities (neighborhoods) and to relational communities (professional, spiritual, etc.).

We propose four criteria for a definition and theory of sense of community. First, the definition needs to be explicit and clear; second, it should be concrete, its parts identifiable; third, it needs to represent the warmth and intimacy implicit in the term; and, finally, it needs to provide a dynamic description of the development and maintenance of the experience. We will attempt to meet these standards.Our proposed definition has four elements. The first element is membership. Membership is the feeling of belonging or of sharing a sense of personal relatedness. The second element is influence, a sense of mattering, of making a difference to a group and of the group mattering to its members. The third element is reinforcement: integration and fulfillment of needs. This is the feeling that members’ needs will be met by the resources received through their membership in the group. The last element is shared emotional connection, the commitment and belief that members have shared and will share history, common places, time together, and similar experiences. This is the feeling one sees in farmers’ faces as they talk about their home place, their land, and their families; it is the sense of family that Jews feel when they read The Source by James Michener (1965). In a sentence, the definition we propose is as follows: Sense of community is 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 (McMillan, 1976).

Membership
Membership is a feeling that one has invested part of oneself to become a member and therefore has a right to belong (Aronson & Mills, 1959; Buss & Portnoy, 1967). It is a feeling of belonging, of being a part (Backman & Secord, 1959). Membership has boundaries; this means that there are people who belong and people who do not. The boundaries provide members with the emotional safety necessary for needs and feelings to be exposed and for intimacy to develop (Bean, 1971; Ehrlich & Graeven, 1971; Wood, 1971).The most troublesome feature of this part of the definition is boundaries. In Wayward Puritans, Kai Erikson (1966) demonstrated that groups use deviants to establish boundaries. He recounted the banishment of Anne Hutchinson as a heretic in 1637, the persecution of the Quakers from 1656 to 1665, and the witch trials of Salem in 1692. For each of these incidents, Erikson showed how the sense of order and authority was deteriorating and how there was a need for an issue around which the Puritans could unite. The community in each case needed a deviant to denounce and punish as a whole.Social psychology research has demonstrated that people have boundaries protecting their personal space. Groups often use language, dress, and ritual to create boundaries. People need these barriers to protect against threat (Park, 1924; Perucci, 1963). While much sympathetic interest in and research on the deviant have been generated, group members’ legitimate needs for boundaries to protect their intimate social connections have often been overlooked.We would like to note two additional points concerning boundaries. First, the harm which comes from the pain of rejection and isolation created by boundaries will continue until we clarify the positive benefits that boundaries provide to communities. Second, while it is clear that groups use deviants as scapegoats in order to create solid boundaries, little is said about the persons who volunteer for the role of deviant by breaking a rule or speaking out against the group consensus in order to obtain attention (Mead, 1918). We think that deviants often use groups, just as the groups use them in the creation of group boundaries.The role of boundaries is particularly relevant to a neighborhood community. The earliest research on community in American sociology focused on the boundaries established by neighborhood residents (e.g., Pack & Burgess, 1921). Park and the Chicago School’s ecological model explains the mechanisms of classes and ethnic groups as they work out spatial relations among themselves (Bernard, 1973): boundaries define who is in and who is out. However, the boundaries can be so subtle as to be recognizable only by the residents themselves (e.g., gang graffiti on walls marking ethnic neighborhoods) (Berger & Neuhaus, 1977; Bernard, 1973). Berger and Neuhaus (1977) see them as creations of social distance—sources of protection against threat—that are necessary when people are interpersonally vulnerable. Such barriers separate “us” from “them” and allay anxiety by delimiting who can be trusted.

Emotional safety may be considered as part of the broader notion of security. Boundaries established by membership criteria provide the structure and security that protect group intimacy. Such security may be more than emotional; gangs, for example, provide physical security and collectives enhance economic security (Doolittle & MacDonald, 1978; Riger, LeBailly, & Gordon, 1981).The sense of belonging and identification involves the feeling, belief, and expectation that one fits in the group and has a place there, a feeling of acceptance by the group, and a willingness to sacrifice for the group. The role of identification must be emphasized here. It may be represented in the reciprocal statements “It is my group” and “I am part of the group.”

Personal investment is an important contributor to a person’s feeling of group membership and to his or her sense of community. McMillan (1976) contended (a) that working for membership will provide a feeling that one has earned a place in the group and (b) that, as a consequence of this personal investment, membership will be more meaningful and valuable. This notion of personal investment is paralleled by the work of cognitive dissonance theorists (Aronson & Mills, 1959; Festinger, 1953). For example, the hazing ritual of college fraternities strengthens group cohesiveness (Peterson & Martens, 1972). Personal investment places a large role in developing an emotional connection (such as in home ownership) and wilt be considered again.

A common symbol system serves several important functions in creating and maintaining sense of community, one of which is to maintain group boundaries. Nisbet and Perrin (1977) stated, “First and foremost of the social bond is the symbolic nature of all true behavior or interaction” (p. 39). White (1949) defined a symbol as “a thing the value or meaning of which is bestowed upon it by those who use it” (p. 22). Understanding common symbols systems is prerequisite to understanding community. “The symbol is to the social world what the cell is to the biotic world and the atom to the physical world. . . . The symbol is the beginning of the social world as we know it” (Nisbet & Perrin, 1977, p. 47).Warner and Associates (1949), in their classic study of “Jonesville,” a midwestern community, recognized the strong integrative function of collective representation such as myths, symbols, rituals, rites, ceremonies, and holidays. They found that in order to obtain smooth functioning and integration in the social life of a modern community, especially when there is heterogeneity, a community must provide a common symbol system. Groups use these social conventions (e.g., rites of passage, language, dress) as boundaries intentionally to create social distance between members and nonmembers (McMillan, 1976). Bernard (1973) mentioned that black leaders used symbols to unify the black community and defy the white population (e.g., Black Power, clenched fist), and Park (1924) offered a rationale for this strategy. Symbols for a neighborhood may reside in its name, a landmark, a logo, or in architectural style. On the national level, holidays, the flag, and the language play an integrative role, and, on a broader scale, basic archetypes unite humankind (Jung, 1912).To summarize, membership has five attributes: boundaries, emotional safety, a sense of belonging and identification, personal investment, and a common symbol system. These attributes work together and contribute to a sense of who is part of the community and who is not.InfluenceInfluence is a bidirectional concept. In one direction, there is the notion that for a member to be attracted to a group, he or she must have some influence over what the group does (Peterson & Martens, 1972; Solomon, 1960; Zander & Cohen, 1955). On the other hand, cohesiveness is contingent on a group’s ability to influence its members (Kelley & Volkart, 1952; Kelley & Woodruff, 1956). This poses two questions: Can these apparently contradictory forces work simultaneously? Is it a bad thing for a group to exert influence on its members to attain conformity?

Several studies suggest that the forces can indeed work simultaneously (Grossack, 1954; Taguiri & Kogan, 1960; Thrasher, 1954). People who acknowledge that others’ needs, values, and opinions matter to them are often the most influential group members, while those who always push to influence, try to dominate others, and ignore the wishes and opinions of others are often the least powerful members.The second question has received more attention than the first (see Lott & Lott, 1965), and the major finding has been a positive relationship between group cohesiveness and pressure to conform. Festinger, Schachter, and Back (1950) and Kelley and Woodruff (1956) considered these correlational findings to be a demonstration of the negative effects of group cohesiveness (i.e., loss of freedom and individuality).

There is a set of studies on consensual validation that provides some balance to the contentions about group cohesiveness and conformity. The consensual validation construct assumes that people possess an inherent need to know that the things they see, feel, and understand are experienced in the same way by others, and the studies have shown that people will perform a variety of psychological gymnastics to obtain feedback and reassurance that they are not crazy—that what they see is real and that it is seen in the same way by others (Backman & Secord, 1959; Byrne & Wond, 1962). Implicit in conformity research has been an assumption that group pressure on the individual to validate the group’s world view is the primary force behind conformity (Cartwright & Zander, 1960; Heider, 1958; Newcomb, 1961; Thibaut & Kelley, 1959). However, consensual validation research demonstrates that the force toward uniformity is transactional—that it comes from the person as well as from the group. Thus, uniform and conforming behavior indicates that a group is operating to consensually validate its members as well as to create group norms.Conformity is not necessarily synonymous with loss of personal choice. A. Hunter and Riger (this issue) caution that many people do try to escape the conformity of the close community in order to express their individual freedom. This emphasizes the need to develop communities that can appreciate individual differences. The group member believes that either directly or indirectly he or she can exert some control over the community. Long (1958) saw that through the leadership role, people can feel that they have influence even when their influence may be only indirect. According to Long, the people in a community sense “a need for a leadership with the status, capacity, and the role to attend to the general problems of the territory and give substance to a public philosophy” (p. 225).

The role of power and influence within a community has been at the head of one of the classic paradigms in sociology (Bernard, 1973). Nisbet (1953) organized The Quest for Community around the ways that power and influence have determined the formation and functions of community. Bernard (1973) believed that as influence is drawn away from a locality, the integration and cohesion of the community are threatened. Voluntary associations act as intermediates (or mediating structures) between the individual and the state (Berger & Neuhaus, 1977) by increasing influence and fostering a sense of efficacy. Through collective action, they cause the environment to be more responsive to the needs of the individual and the small collectivity. Participation in voluntary associations or in government programs yields a sharing of power that leads to greater “ownership” of the community by the participants, greater satisfaction, and greater cohesion (Dahl, 1961; F. Hunter, 1953; Wandersman, 1981). The concepts of power, influence, and participation as they relate to a sense of community can be seen in the growing neighborhood movement, the strength of labor unions, various social movements (Killian, 1964), and the Japanese perspective on management (Pascale & Athos, 1981).

In summary, the following propositions concerning influence can be drawn from the group cohesiveness research:

1. Members are more attracted to a community in which they feel that they are influential.

2. There is a significant positive relationship between cohesiveness and a community’s influence on its members to conform. Thus, both conformity and community influence on members indicate the strength of the bond.

3. The pressure for conformity and uniformity comes from the needs of the individual and the community for consensual validation. Thus, conformity serves as a force for closeness as well as an indicator of cohesiveness.

4. Influence of a member on the community and influence of the community on a member operate concurrently, and one might expect to see the force of both operating simultaneously in a tightly knit community.

Integration and Fulfillment of Needs The third component of our definition of sense of community is integration and fulfillment of needs, which, translated into more ordinary terms, is reinforcement. Reinforcement as a motivator of behavior is a cornerstone in behavioral research, and it is obvious that for any group to maintain a positive sense of togetherness, the individual—group association must be rewarding for its members. Given the complexity of individuals and groups, however, it has been impossible to determine all of the reinforcements that bind people together into a close community, although several reinforcers have been identified. One is the status of being a member (Kelley, 1951; Zander & Cohen, 1955). Berkowitz (1956), Peterson and Martens (1972), and Sacks (1952) have shown that group success brings group members closer together. The literature on interpersonal attraction suggests that competence is another reinforcer (Hester, Roback, Weitz, Anchor, & McKee, 1976; Zander & Havelin, 1960). People are attracted to others whose skills or competence can benefit them in some way. People seem to gravitate toward people and groups that offer the most rewards. Rappaport (1977) calls this person–environment fit.The main point is that people do what serves their needs. But this leaves questions unanswered: How do people prioritize their needs, especially after meeting the basic survival needs? What creates a need beyond that of basic survival? Reinforcement as an organizing principle seems blind and directionless unless it is complemented by other concepts.

One such directing concept is shared values. Our culture and our families teach each of us a set of personal values, which indicate our emotional and intellectual needs and the order in which we attend to them. When people who share values come together, they find that they have similar needs, priorities, and goals, thus fostering the belief that in joining together they might be better able to satisfy these needs and obtain the reinforcement they seek. Shared values, then, provide the integrative force for cohesive communities (Cohen, 1976; Doolittle & MacDonald, 1978). Groups with a sense of community work to find a way to fit people together so that people meet the needs of others while meeting their own needs. (cf. Riley, 1970; Zander, Natsoulas, & Thomas, 1960).

The following summarizes the role of integration and fulfillment of needs in a sense of community:

1. Reinforcement and need fulfillment is a primary function of a strong community.

2. Some of the rewards that are effective reinforcers of communities are status of membership, success of the community, and competence or capabilities of other members.

3. There are many other undocumented needs that communities fill, but individual values are the source of these needs. The extent to which individual values are shared among community members will determine the ability of a community to organize and prioritize its need-fulfillment activities.

4. A strong community is able to fit people together so that people meet others’ needs while they meet their own.

Shared Emotional Connection A shared emotional connection is based, in part, on a shared history. It is not necessary that group members have participated in the history in order to share it, but they must identify with it. The interactions of members in shared events and the specific attributes of the events may facilitate or inhibit the strength of the unity.The following features are important to the principle of shared emotional connection:

1. Contact hypothesis: The more people interact, the more likely they are to become close (Allan & Allan, 1971; Festinger, 1950; Sherif, White, & Harvey, 1955; Wilson & Miller, 1961)

2. Quality of interaction: The more positive the experience and the relationships, the greater the bond. Success facilitates cohesion (Cook. 1970).

3. Closure to events: If the interaction is ambiguous and the community’s tasks are left unresolved, group cohesiveness will be inhibited (Hamblin, 1958; Mann & Mann, 1959).

4. Shared valent event hypothesis: The more important the shared event is to those involved, the greater the community bond. For example, there appears to be a tremendous bonding among people who experience a crisis together (Myers, 1962; Wilson & Miller, 1961; Wright, 1943).

5. Investment: This feature contributes more than just boundary maintenance and cognitive dissonance. Investment determines the importance to the member of the community’s history and current status. For example, homeowners who have invested money and time in their part of a neighborhood are more likely to feel the impact of the life events of that community. Similarly, persons who donate more time and energy to an association will be more emotionally involved. Intimacy is another form of investment. The amount of interpersonal emotional risk one takes with the other members and the extent to which one opens oneself to emotional pain from the community life will affect one’s general sense of community (Aronson & Mills, 1959; Peterson & Martens, 1972).

6. Effect of honor and humiliation on community members: Reward or humiliation in the presence of community has a significant impact on attractiveness (or adverseness) of the community to the person (Festinger, 1953; James & Lott, 1964).

7. Spiritual bond: This is present to some degree in all communities. Often the spiritual connection of the community experience is the primary purpose of religious and quasi-religious communities and cults. It is very difficult to describe this important element. Bernard (1973) calls this factor “community of spirit,” likening it to the nineteenth-century concept of volkgeist (folk spirit). The concept of soul as it relates to blacks and its role in the formation of a national black community is an excellent example of the role of a spiritual bond.

They (blacks] had a spiritual bond that they understood and that white people could not. Soul was an indefinable, desirable something; black people had it but white people could hardly aspire to it. It was the animating spirit behind their music, their dance, and their styles. It even expressed itself in their taste in food, their language, and their speech. Not even all black people shared it. Those who rejected their blackness did not. (Bernard, 1973, p. 130)

This element of shared emotional connection can be traced through Tönnies’ (1957) use of the term gemeinschaft: a social unity based on locale. According to Konig (1968), gemeinschaft’s root, gemeinde (local community), had a long-time original application as “the totality of those who own something in common” (p. 15). Cohen (1976) found this in the related concept of the Bund. Neither gemeinschaft nor Bund nor shared emotional connection as presented here includes the requirement of a small-scale local community. Kasarda and Janowitz (1974) demonstrated that “increased population size and density do not significantly weaken local community sentiments” (p. 338), which further aids us in understanding communities that are not bounded by location.

Future research should focus on the causal factor leading to shared emotional connection, since it seems to be the definitive element for true community. In summary, strong communities are those that offer members positive ways to interact, important events to share and ways to resolve them positively, opportunities to honor members, opportunities to invest in the community, and opportunities to experience a spiritual bond among members.

Dynamics Within the Elements

Now that we have defined the elements of sense of community, we will consider how the subelements work together to create each element and how all work dynamically together to create and maintain sense of community. (See Table 1.)

Five attributes of membership seem to fit together in a circular, self-reinforcing way, with all conditions having both causes and effects. Boundaries provide the protection for intimacy. The emotional safety that is a consequence of secure boundaries allows people to feel that there is a place for them in the community and that they belong. A sense of belonging and identification facilitates the development of a common symbol system, which defines the community’s boundaries. We believe too that feelings of belonging and emotional safety lead to self-investment in the community, which has the consequence of giving a member the sense of having earned his or her membership.

Within the context of influence, community influence on the member allows him or her to have more influence in the community. When one resists the community’s influence or tries to dominate the community, one is less influential. People are more likely to choose a leader who listens and is influenceable rather than one whose mind is made up and will never change. So, allowing others to have power over oneself can eventually lead to having influence with them. The last two attributes of influence, conformity (community norms) and consensual validation, are less clear to us. We believe that if people choose freely whether to conform, their need for consensual validation will strengthen community norms. The more a community provides opportunities for validation of its members, the stronger community norms become.

The transactional dynamics of integration and fulfillment of needs are clearer. Communities organize around needs, and people associate with communities in which their needs can be met; people can solve their problems and meet their needs if they have alternatives and resources. Reinforcement at the community level allows people to be together so that everyone’s needs are met. People enjoy helping others just as they enjoy being helped, and the most successful communities include associations that are mutually rewarding for everyone.Shared emotional connection can be represented symbolically in two heuristic formulas. Formula 1 specifies the elements of shared emotional connection. Formula 2 deals with the content of high-quality interaction. (See Table 1.)

Dynamics Among the Elements It is difficult to describe the interworkings of the four elements of sense of community in the abstract. Therefore, the following examples are offered as illustrations.The university. Someone puts an announcement on the dormitory bulletin board about the formation of an intramural dormitory basketball team. People attend the organization meeting as strangers out of their individual needs (integration and fulfillment of needs). The team is bound by place of residence (membership boundaries are set) and spends time together in practice (the contact hypothesis). They play a game and win (successful shared valent event). While playing, members exert energy on behalf of the team (personal investment in the group). As the team continues to win, team members become recognized and congratulated (gaining honor and status for being members). Someone suggests that they all buy matching shirts and shoes (common symbols) and they do so (influence).

Thus, the elements of sense of community operated in a linear fashion. Individuals sought to meet their needs by integrating them with the needs of others. Membership boundaries were set and practice sessions for members only were scheduled. This allowed for shared time and space, which in turn provided shared valent events. Winning facilitated reinforcement for being a member, which engendered influence and conformity.

The neighborhood. Consider a community organizer, whose prime task is the creation of sense of community. First, he talks to people in an area to find out their problems and concerns, that is, what would reinforce them and motivate them to work together (integration and fulfillment of needs). When a common concern emerges (i.e., something they all seem to need, such as a safe neighborhood), the organizer begins to conceive of ways in which the residents can work together to meet their need. Many of the residents have been victims of muggings, robberies, and assaults. Those who have not been victimized are ruled by their fear of becoming a victim. Fear of further victimization is a shared valent event. The community organizer calls a meeting of concerned neighbors with an announcement that explains whom the meeting is for. This sets the boundaries for belonging. At the meeting, the organizer introduces neighbors to one another and tells them about their common concerns. Members elect officers, set up bylaws, and begin to plan and implement programs (influence and salient event). They talk and plan for getting to know one another, and watching out for one another’s safety emerges as a common theme. Other meetings are planned around buffet suppers at members’ homes (another valent event). People arrange travel to and from these meetings in groups for safety. Neighbors begin calling the police when they see strangers in the area, and intruders breaking into homes are caught (influence). The success continues with neighbors feeling a greater sense of community.In this idealized story, one can see how the elements of sense of community were used by the community organizer. He studied needs and thought about their possible integration. He called a meeting of residents, thus creating a potential for membership, and there asked members to discuss the shared valent event of victimization and fear. This led to the formulation of a structured plan and a successful outcome. Members began to accept others’ needs as influencers of their behavior, leading to conformity (going out together in groups). The neighborhood’s sense of community served as a catalyst for participation in local action (cf, Bachrach & Zautra, 1985; Chavis, 1983).

The youth gang. The youth gang is a community generally considered to be composed of alienated individuals. Its formation and maintenance are based on its member’ shared experience of estrangement from traditional social systems and on the security (emotional and physical) that membership provides (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960). Gangs develop both territorial and symbolic boundaries. Gang colors (dress and symbols) and initiation rites serve as the bases for the integration and bonding of members and as important mechanisms for differentiating gang members from others. The gang exerts tremendous pressure on members to conform, and the gang’s status and victories enhance the bonding even more so. The rules to which members conform are based largely on the shared values and needs met by the gang. Along the same lines as college fraternities, youth gangs give members influence over the environment not available to them as individuals (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960).The kibbutz. Before World War II, idealistic Zionists began immigrating to Palestine to establish a new state based on humanistic and religious values. After the formation of the state of Israel, the kibbutzim became primary holders of the new state’s values and cultural norms. The following analysis of the kibbutz movement is based on Cohen’s (1976) work.

The people who formed the original kibbutzim were Jews who expressed a hunger for a rebirth of a Jewish community that was not a minority in a dominant culture, but would be the dominant culture. They hoped to experience Jewish fellowship in a way that integrated the best aspects of the Western European ghetto without the oppression. Many had been displaced from their homes in Europe and were in search of a new home. They gathered, then, in hopes of integrating their needs and out of a shared emotional connection, Boundaries of membership were defined by being Jewish and by sharing the vision and symbols of these Jewish pioneers. Kibbutz members made great personal sacrifices in order to reach Israel and to establish a new viable community on a hostile part of the earth. Their sacrifices were a part of their investment in their new world, and while they made their own sacrifices, they watched their fellow members take great personal risks also. Such a willingness to risk for the community gave members a sense of security that they were among people who cared and whom they could trust. This shared caring engendered a sense of belonging that in turn supported strong boundaries and a willingness for personal investment. These dynamics are all part of the principle of membership.

The pioneering spirit, to create a culture that was not capitalistic and individualistic but based instead on caring and a willingness to share their vision and ideals, kept the communities cohesive and intact for some years. Their resources came in part from the government of Israel, which needed citizens of the new slate to inhabit unproductive lands and make them productive. The kibbutz movement was proud that the government used it as one of the chief socializers of the new nation and as an example to the nation and the world that a state in which human caring is as important as power and economic success could exist. The esteem or pride that came about was a source for change in the values of kibbutzim. Dependent on the outside world for economic support and esteem, the kibbutzim were vulnerable to outside demands for change. The needs of the kibbutz communities thus merged with those of the larger community (integration and fulfillment of needs), and the attributes that were appreciated and valued by the government and the greater culture began to filter into the kibbutzim. Simultaneously, as they received attention from the outside world, their inner strength grew.Once the state of Israel became well established economically, militarily, and politically, it was not as dependent on kibbutzim for socializing immigrants and no longer wanted to support the communities with tax dollars. Consequently, kibbutzim began to feel pressure for economic self-sufficiency. Because of this pressure, many kibbutzim failed and were disbanded or resettled. Others specialized and modernized their means of production. A management structure developed, and power was no longer shared equally. As influence was directed more to the Israeli state, many kibbutzim lost their autonomy. Those that maintained or reinstilled it remained strong.The formation of classes or subgroups within the kibbutzim came about with the introduction of new members, who were less experienced in all aspects of the community’s life. Housing and resources were often allocated on the basis of seniority of membership. This resulted in a status differential between the new and the old. Seniority came to symbolize commitment and stability, creating a shared emotional connection (Glynn, 1981; Riger & Lavrakas, 1981).

The life stages of the members also changed the value orientation of the kibbutz movement. Members were initially antifamily, but as children were born, members began to identify themselves as family units oriented toward the nurturance of new life. The education of members into specialists, who were part of a profession and whose professional problems and challenges were understood only by other professionals who were likely not to be members of the commune, also weakened members’ orientation toward the kibbutz as the primary reference group. These developments highlight the changes in cohesiveness that must occur when values are no longer closely shared or with differentiation.With these changes came economic success and abundance; having more than the community needed for subsistence became a serious problem. How were resources to be allocated fairly? Who got to take trips and who got to continue their education? Did the community want to support members to meet individual interests and needs that were irrelevant or unbeneficial to the community, even if it had the resources to do so? A group’s success in negotiating this problem of integration of resources and needs reflected the success of the community itself. Members needed to feel that they had power in such decisions, yet the community needed to know that members would place the community’s needs high on their list of priorities. Abundance, however, meant that the community was basically secure and that members were more concerned with pursuing their individual needs and interests.Because of the kibbutzim’s organizational success and internal and external changes, cohesive bonds loosened. Day-to-day conduct of affairs became separated from the founding values, and these values were weakened. Life on the kibbutz lost its sacred quality. Social ties rather than idealistic allegiance became the chief integrating force, and subgroups formed.Given all of these problems one wonders how the kibbutzim have survived and prospered for so long as active and thriving communities. One answer is that members have a shared emotional connection. They have lived and worked together; they have fought their country’s enemies and the hostile climate together; and they have resolved these threats (shared valent events) with positive outcomes. This is reminiscent of the song in Fiddler on the Roof that asks how the Jews have managed to balance on the roof when the world is so hostile. The answer is a loud, deep affirmation, “Tradition.” The kibbutzim, even in their short history, have built a tradition. Each has a story of how it was settled and how its life changed and grew as the community struggled successfully to survive. Members are proud of what they have accomplished together. Their shared story is the basis of their spiritual bond.The kibbutz provides a good example of the dynamics inherent in the life cycle of a sense of community. Sense of community is not a static feeling. It is affected by time through changing values and external forces such as commerce, the media, transportation, specialization of professions, economics, and employment factors. This example of the kibbutz demonstrates the number of communities that one can belong to, each meeting different needs (e.g., family, kibbutz, nation, profession, religion). Sometimes these communities are compatible and sometimes their requirements are in conflict. Individual values and needs determine one’s top allegiance in such cases. The layering of communities is very much part of modern life (Fischer, 1982), in which multiple affiliations are based both on territoriality and tradition (neighborhood, city, state, nation) and on what Durkheim (1964) called “organic solidarity” (interests, professions, religion, etc.).A fuller understanding of the variety of communities in our society is essential. The definition and theory of sense of community presented in this article apply equally, we believe, to all types of communities because of their common core, although our four elements will be of varying importance depending on the particular community and its membership. These elements, then, can provide a framework for comparing and contrasting various communities.

Conclusion

The theoretical framework presented here has the potential for a broad range of applications. Dokecki (1983; also Hobbs et al., 1984) has proposed that we should intentionally model public policy around the values of human development and community. He suggested that emerging policies be evaluated against a series of questions that highlight the implications for human development, the family, and the cohesion of a community. Our definition of sense of community influenced the development of Dokecki’s criteria. A clear and empirically validated understanding of sense of community can provide the foundation for lawmakers and planners to develop programs that meet their stated goals by strengthening and preserving community. Glenwick and Jason (1980) have shown that there are many contingencies in a system and that the community psychologist can play a role in identifying and designing mechanisms that reinforce behaviors leading to the development of a sense of community.For example, consider that most governmental assistance programs require individual application. What if it were required that residents apply as a group to receive certain benefits? This would necessitate that specific group activities take place and that a certain percentage of an area’s residents participate in the decision to apply (though all might not want the assistance themselves). A sense of community could develop, especially if appropriate technical assistance were provided to assist in organizing. A situation is thus established whereby members’ needs are met by being part of the group. Facilitation of the other elements in our definition will further strengthen the formation of a sense of community.

Our understanding of sense of community has implications also for community treatment programs for the retarded and mentally ill. Where “community” means more than residency outside of an institution, strategies can be introduced to allow the therapeutic benefits of community to be developed within group homes and to provide for better integration with communities surrounding such facilities.Newman (1981) stated that an understanding of how communities are formed will enable us to design housing that will be better maintained and will provide for better use of surrounding areas (streets and parks) and safety from criminal activity. Along similar lines, Ahlbrant and Cunningham (1979) have shown that people make the greatest investments in home improvements in neighborhoods where there is a strong social fabric.Yankelovich (1981) reported that, in 1973, “roughly one-third of Americans felt an intense need to compensate for the impersonal and threatening aspects of modern life by seeking mutual identification with others,” on the basis of a sense of belonging together. “By the beginning of the 1980s, the number of Americans deeply involved in the search for community had increased from 32% to 47%” (p. 85).It is clear that sense of community is a powerful force in our culture now. This force does not operate just for good, however. In the South, the Klu Klux Klan is gaining in membership and power. Urban vigilante forces are forming to attack and intimidate people in the name of community. Neighborhoods advertised as exclusive communities are fencing themselves in to keep out people who do not belong and to separate themselves from poverty and problems of social justice. As the force of sense of community drives people closer together, it also seems to be polarizing and separating subgroups of people, The potential for great social conflict is increasing—a side of community that must be understood as well. A critical examination of community is essential.It is our wish that this article will intensify the search for ways to strengthen the social fabric with the development of sense of community. Somehow we must find a way to build communities that are based on faith, hope, and tolerance, rather than on fear, hatred, and rigidity. We must learn to use sense of community as a tool for fostering understanding and cooperation. We hope that research on this topic will provide a base on which we can facilitate free, open, and accepting communities. We present the concept of community here not as a panacea, rather, as one of the means to bring about the kind of world about which we and others have dreamed.

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Defining A Community’s Developmental Paths

Stages of Community Development

This article will have many stages that have exactly the same organization. The article will have review of theories of human developmental stages. Then it will discuss our stages one at a time. Each stage will be defined first. Then the tasks to be accomplished at that stage will be discussed. Then the resources needed at that stage will be discussed. That will be followed by an historical example that illustrates that stage in history.There are several renditions of how groups or communities move through various developmental stages. Most of these have five stages that have a great deal in common with Freud’s stages of human development. The most quoted article in psychology circles is Shepard and Bennis (1959). In business management theory there are the famous terms forming, storming, norming, and performing.

We are less circumspect about the origins of our theory. We are borrowing most of our theory structure from Erik Erikson (1950). We believe this is permissible because of the system’s theory concept “Synomorphy.” Synomorphy means that what is lawful at one level of a system is lawful at all other levels. If Erikson’s stages make sense at the individual level then they can/should also make sense for a community’s life span.We make two additions to Erikson’s eight stages of development. One is “conception.” Erikson doesn’t mention the formation and development of the neonate, but that is a dramatic and important part of human development. Nor does Erikson mention the stage after death. In a community, after the community had disintegrated, the remaining disparate parts are required to move through the experience of “termination.”

The Ten Developmental Stages

As mentioned earlier we have added two stages to Erikson’s original eight. We have also renamed some of the stages to make them more applicable to communities. Our terms for each stage are: (1) conception; (2) contracting; (3) authority; (4) evaluation; (5) accountability; (6) communion; (7) mission; (8) generativity; (9) integrity; and (10) termination.A theory of community development should do two things: first it should respect that development is not necessarily linear. Here for the sake of clarity we talk about development as if it moves from one stage to the next, but that is not necessarily true. Although we might conjecture that healthy development moves linearly from one stage to the next, with each stage building on the strengths and skills discovered in the previous stage.

Fate, however, plays in any developmental process. Death (or what we call termination) can come next to birth (or what we call conception). Civil War can pull the mature community that had been busily engaged in the productive mission stage (or what is our stage seven) backwards into what we think of as stage three, the authority stage. This is the stage that most resembles adolescent rebellion.Perhaps we can get away considering our stages as a path if we imagine that path to be a circle and our circle has internal paths connecting all of the stages. But for simplicity’s sake we will describe the stages linearly and number them stages 1-10.The second thing that a theory of community development should accomplish is that is should be able to describe the community’s functions, mood institutions and philosophy. In each stage these community elements should be different. They should reflect the developmental stage in which they exist.

To this end we will first define the stage, then we will describe that particular stage’s emotion, religion, government, expectations, economy and its particular philosophical tension. This last element is a nod to Erikson. He titled each of his stages with a polarity. His first stage was titled Basic Trust versus Basic Mistrust. His second was titled Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt. To Erikson the polarity represented the individual organisms emerging critical periods versus structure of social institutions. For Erikson humans and society developed together. “Each successive stage and crisis has a special relationship to one of the basic elements of society, and this for the simple reason that the human life cycle and man’s institutions have developed together” (p. 250).

Our goal then is to adequately define each stage of community development and to predict its institutional and philosophical correlates. The reader will have to judge the extent to which our goals were accomplished. To us this chapter feels as if we have written a high school term paper. There are some good ideas here. There is an organized outline that we use to discuss them, but we have only begun to scratch the surface of what this might become. We will be satisfied just to get the discussion started with the beginning of a useful theoretical template.Each stage presents the community with certain tasks that must be accomplished, challenges that must be met, and ordeals that must be survived in order to proceed to the next stage. To meet these challenges a community needs different sets of assets and skills to manage the different challenges that each stage presents.

To discover what these challenges were once again we turned to individual psychological theory. Freud talked about defenses that people create to protect themselves from anxiety. And the by-product of these defenses was that they imprisoned us away from our authentic selves. To be healthy, Freud contended, we must overcome these defenses.From these assumptions analytic psychology has developed a set of defenses that therapists can help their patients identify. These defenses have been eloquently collected and described by Nancy McWilliams (1994). We do not agree with the Freudian theory of defenses against anxiety and imprisonment presented above. Rather we would suggest that what Freud and others call defenses are really natural developmental tasks or challenges that must be passed along the human developmental journey.

However, just because we may disagree with what to call these things (i.e., “challenges” or “defenses”) we do appreciate the richness of McWilliams collection and description of these what we will choose to call developmental tasks. It is from McWilliams that we gathered most of our list of developmental challenges. We parceled these tasks among the various stages where appropriate and we added a few of our own.In our discussion at each stage we also offer a set of resources that a community needs to cope with the developmental tasks at each stage. We call these “coping resources.” These come from our common sense that the reader may consider nonsense and uncommon.At the conclusion of each stage we will describe a period in American or world history that represents that stage.In each stage we will describe the particular stage expression of these dimensions.

Stage One, Conception Defined

The first stage is conception. This stage represents the expulsion of a seed that by itself cannot become life. The seed of an idea hits a nurturing vessel that carries the seed. Then the idea begins to gather resources, light, air, water and the seed and its vessel join in an explosion that creates exponential growth. This, in a community, is a very exciting time. It precedes birth, but it includes the dangerous profound and exciting part of giving birth. In a community this is the stage where yearning meets vision and vision begins replicating itself in the minds of others, until the vision has a critical mass and can begin life free from the protection of a womb. This stage includes passion, desire, hunger and yearning.There is the introduction of the idea of an “us,” a group that we can join. There is a searching for similarities, for bonding principles that people share.Roles begin to emerge. One role at this stage is that of the initiator, salesperson, or seducer.The person who plays this role advocates being together. Another role is receptive but reluctant audience or willing participant. This role provides the resistance that creates the exciting tension in the formation of the community. This is the role of the member to be persuaded. The shared energy feels good and excitement compounds upon excitement and suddenly all parties begin to jump into water over their heads. At this moment there seems to be no limits to the possibilities.When we are in stage one we come together with intense longing. We are hungry for something and we don't know exactly what. We have needs that we have ignored or long postponed. We want things to change. We want a revolution in their life. We have been struggling alone for our identities as separate beings. What we are longing for now is a new merger - a connection beyond ourselves. We are willing to risk developing a new role in a community. We are staking out new interpersonal territory.Consider a budding business. People are wanting to do something different with their work life, but they know their strengths do not compensate for all their weaknesses. So they look for people who can do what they can't. The longing is the same. The hunger and empty feelings are the same. The arena is business. Suddenly, we believe we have found a fit, someone to fill the hole, to satisfy our longing. Inhibitions are dropped for what seems like no reason except that they just are. It's mystical. Logic does not apply. Logic is replaced by hope. In this stage members are growing, learning quickly. Their shared discoveries are exciting. They have found in others people they can talk to, people who at long last understand and care. The fit feels right. Membership and belonging bring security and calm to members.

For this member will take risks. To hell with what others think. Here members leave their past affiliations. If it is a business community, members have found people to share a vision with. For this vision, they will risk it, leave their jobs, and take little or no pay until the venture becomes productive. The first stage is exciting and frightening. The risk reward ratio is high here. The work involves developing trust and moving through the remaining stages holding on to as much of the passion as possible. Passion is stage one’s most important product. The community will be using stage one’s passion and stage one’s memories throughout the remaining stages.

Stage One Thinking

Each stage has a certain way of addressing intellectual thought. In stage one the cortex is not often used. Thinking tends toward the magical. Logic is suspended and replaced by hope. Members believe their longing has found its satisfying source. Often a charismatic leader brings members together. Thinking is confined to two categories “them” and “us.” This thinking helps clarify boundaries. People tend to think that the leader knows.

Stage One Emotion

In each stage there is one dominant emotion. In stage one that emotion is desire/excitement. Here desire seems to overwhelm logic. Our hearts control our behavior. We compete to prove our worth. All this because we want with a capital W. We are intensely aware of what we want and less aware of what others want. Our strong desires encourage risk-taking.

Stage One Religion

Each stage has a certain way of expressing its faith. In stage one we use magic and superstition to try to explain our powerful emotions. We justify our risky joining behavior by believing that we have found a communal home and that together we are “destiny.” “We are meant to be.” We invest ordinary things and events with magical meanings. Community symbols emerge. Colors or flags or uniforms define “us.” These things become powerful symbols of community and security. They serve the same purpose as our pacifier once served or our blankie or our teddy bear. We pull them out to look at them to remind us we are a part of something and that we rest in the security of our community.

Stage One Government

In each stage a certain form of government emerges. The dominant monkey rules in stage one. This is not necessarily the man. Imagine the childhood game rock/paper/scissors. A rock smashes scissors; a paper covers a rock and scissors cut paper. Just as in that game, beauty and feminine charm often tops strength. In stage one there is very little competition for power. The power belongs to the visionary. In this stage there is too much passion to discuss something and take a vote. Here dominance is clearly established and accepted.

Stage One Expectations

Each stage creates a certain set of expectations for what is coming in the community’s future. In stage one along with magical thinking comes unrealistic expectations that we can have what we want. We believe life’s conflicts are over; that we will live happily ever after. We believe this community will be a perfect fit for us; that “somewhere there’s a place for us.” We expect for life to be easier now that we have found our place where we will belong.

Stage One Economy

In our discussion of a community’s economy we succumb to the temptation of seeing the community’s economics evolution through the history of the expansion of the medium of exchange from barter to banking. Of course as psychologists we are primarily interested in social trading. In stage one the exchanges are limited to face-to-face exchanges. This is a barter economy. There are of course, quid pro quos, but because most of them are physical and easily understood, the exchanges do not require much trust. In this stage there is usually a great deal of time spent together or time spent striving to be together. There is little outside competition for member’s attention. Therefore a barter economy is sufficient.The social economy is limited to consensus trading (McMillan, 1997). This means that people joining the community reinforce what each other believes and thinks. For example, members may join because they all like the same music (e.g., the symphony guild) or because they believe that Jesus Christ is their personal savior and the only way to heaven (e.g., the Baptist church). The social trade is I will reinforce your reality as you reinforce mine and together we will promote the same world view. This protects “us” from the challenge of differences.

Stage One Philosophical Tension

In each stage there is a polar philosophical tension represented by two opposing positions. In this initial stage there are two opposing questions: (1) should I join? Or (2) should I protect my independence? Of course, it is stupid to join and believe that you will find happiness. This requires the suspension of doubt. But the desire is so strong that passion easily convinces the intellect with the help of magical thoughts. Once the decision to join is made the relationship moves on to the second stage.

Developmental Tasks at Stage One

Each stage has its own set of developmental challenges. If these challenges are met the community is healthy prepared to move on to the next stage. There are three major temptations at this stage that must be faced overcome or avoided. They are: (1) splitting; (2) intellectualization; (3) hedonistic narcissism.

Splitting      

In the beginning the community tends to see he world in two categories “good for us” or “bad for us.” People are seen as “on our side” or “against us.” At this stage to be community often idealizes those who join and demonizes those who refuse.When members fail the community in some way the temptation is to scapegoat that member rather than to see the mistake as a collective one.Succumbing to splitting will create a simplistic community mythology that will eventually demonize every member, because every member will eventually make some mistake. Splitting will cut the community off from people with resources that the community needs. But because these people decided not to join, the community may refuse to trade with them.If the community does not see reality with a third category that creates shades of gray (or even new color) then the community will not be able to manage the world and life as it is, complex and beyond categorizing into one polarity.

Using the Heart and Head Together

McWilliams term for this defense is called “intellectualization.” Sometimes a community can be tested and challenged beyond its limits. When that happens the community looks for ways to avoid being overwhelmed by feelings. Cutting off feelings by engaging cognition is one way that a community has of protecting itself from frightening feelings. In such instances the only information given and received in a community have to do with facts, ideas, explanations and theory, not feelings.Emotions are the spiritual energy that bonds people together. If a community turns them off then the juice that attracts people is gone. The community becomes dry, boring and without passion. At the conception stage passion is a community’s primary resource. The task here is to use the heart and head together.

Hedonistic Narcissism

In McWilliams’s world this is called the defense of “sexualization.” A community in the first stage tempts members to join because it will be fun, gratifying in some way. If a community advertises only its benefits without explaining the sacrifices required to join it will attract people expecting to receive and they will not be prepared to give back.If people join to get and not to give, the community will have very little emotional depth. Soon everyone will feel exploited and used, but not cared for or known beyond the surface.The primary task here is to inspire people to make sacrifices for the common good; to find rewards in doing what they collectively agree is the right thing to do; to make it clear that joining is not the path of least resistance, but it can be, in the end, the path that leads to honor, justice and integrity.

Resources Needed at Stage One

To meet the developmental challenges at each stage there are a set of resources that will be especially helpful. There are six resources that a community needs at the conception stage. They are: (1) shared yearning, (2) members readiness for adventure, (3) imagination to share a vision, (4) willingness to suspend doubt, (5) a projection of acceptance and belonging and (6) the ability to merge.

Shared Yearning

At stage one people need to bring to each other a shared yearning for something beyond what they can have alone. They need to speak together about the empty space they feel inside, the hunger and the unmet needs. The strength of this shared yearning is the basic ingredient to the glue that will create the bond at stage one. At later stages shared history will replace this yearning somewhat, but at the conception stage this shared passion for what might be, but isn’t yet is profoundly powerful.

Readiness for Adventure

Potential members must be ready to jump on the collective ship, to leave their past lives behind. A community invites its potential members to a new way of being and thinking. If the member becomes a part of the community something must be let go of in order to join. This may mean not having time for some old activities or friends or family. It may mean letting go of old sources of security. This is both frightening and exciting. For some it is difficult. For others it is easy to cross the threshold of membership without completely knowing what to expect.

Imagination to Share a Vision

At the conception stage there is no entity to point to and say that’s what or who the community is. There is only a vision of what could be. This means that people must be able to see in their minds eye what might be possible if they work together. Unless people can see this vision they won’t be able to join because they won’t have any clear sense of what it is that they are joining.

Willingness to Suspend Doubt

A community at this stage needs “true believers.” These are people who have the capacity to suspend their doubts and have faith that transcends reason. At this conception stage the community isn’t yet. In order to create it together, they must believe that it can be created. When the inevitable opposition comes and reasons for why it can’t be done are presented, members need to answer with faith that it can. Since no one can predict the future accurately all the time, those starting a community must put doubts aside and take a leap of faith forward together.

Projection of Acceptance and Belonging

Part of the leap of faith is that people believe that they will be accepted by fellow members. There is no reason to believe that they won’t be rejected. Therefore members need to conjure their confidence and project on to others the belief that they will be liked and that they will belong. Fear of rejection will destroy initial bonding at this stage. There is no history to use to counter this fear at conception. At this stage all members have to fight fear with is what courage they can generate to believe.

The Ability to Merge

For a community to work, members must have the skill to accommodate others, to conform to the specific needs and demands that members have of each other. This requires tolerance and the ability to sacrifice their own desires for the good of the whole. People must be able to give up the desire for complete autonomy. Members must understand that everyone has to give up some part of themselves to create a community.If members don’t have this skill, coming together will create tension and angry explosions. A community cannot survive unless there is give and take among its members.

The Conception Stage in History

In United States history there are clear examples of the conception stage. The vision came form John Locke and John Calvin, Rousseau and others. These ideas began to grow and ferment in the American colonies when England tried to tax the colonies without giving them representation in the vote. The conception language which created the explosive growth of the notion of a new nation was “Taxation without representation is tyranny.” This idea was repeated over and over in the Federalist Papers.Shots were fired. The rebellion of the British Colonies gathered strength. Then in 1776 the Declaration of Independence was signed and a nation was born. The United States emerged from the conception stage into the contracting stage.

Stage Two, Contracting Defined

The second stage is called contracting. In this stage a community defines itself. The excitement of stage one is replaced by caution. This is the “Oh my God what I have done” stage. All members at this stage are frightened that they may not understand what they have gotten into. Here the community sits down and makes clear the obligations, duties, rewards and benefits of membership. Members begin to read the fine print of belonging. They smile and appear happy to be on the team, but inside they are trying to figure out how this community works and what belonging is really going to cost them.In this stage the yearning that was such a powerful part of conception meets the reality of the limits of the resources available. Members are beginning to see that they are part of something different than they imagined. This is as true of the original visionaries as it is of a new member. In this stage fate, and the environment meet the vision and the vision must change to become real. When the vision changes to accommodate the possible then everybody must sit and define what the community is. Mission statements are written or spoken. By-laws are created or re-examined. The vision is put into words that become precedents for the future.This structure is created to contain members urge to flee. As members begin to see that the community is not what they imagined they have buyers remorse. Members’ doubts and fears are kept private. Behind their smiling faces they wonder what they have committed to. In stage two, contracting, the members make clear what the community is and is not.

Members observe how they are treated in this clarifying stage. If their fears are not addressed, if they are taken for granted, they will leave the community. The community, as it becomes real and concrete, must find roles for its members. Members must feel these roles respect their skills and desires or this will become another reason to leave.

Stage Two Thinking

The magical thinking of stage one is fragile. It is now giving way to doubt and second thoughts. The passion is wearing off, but is certainly not gone and we don’t want to lose it by voicing our doubts. Yet, we can’t seem to push the doubts out of our mind. We wonder what is below the initial vision of our community. What is beyond the words? The ideas are interesting, but we can’t help wondering how they might use them against or for us? In stage three you will find out. In stage two it is difficult enough to think these heretical thoughts, yet alone express them.

Stage Two Emotion

Fear is the major emotion. Anytime we are thinking a thought that is not politically correct or that we know is dangerous. We are afraid. We jumped in the water at stage one. In stage two we wonder if we shouldn’t have stepped in carefully one foot at a time. We are afraid we might drown. We try to cover our fear with a smile. We don’t want to lose a good thing if that is what we have, but we don’t want to be consumed by a force we cannot control. Fear and doubt are our constant companions in stage two.Balance is stage two’s most important product. The questioning of our relationship to the community hopefully transfers the power role to people who can execute not just imagine. This transfer of power can create a better balance of power. This balance of power is important for the conflict at stage three.

Stage Two Religion

The question here is to figure out what pieces of the magic of stage one is real. It was in this stage of the development of civilization that the Jews consolidated the gods into one and decided that the only god worth worshipping was a god that did not require human sacrifices. Hopefully in stage two we discover that the symbols that should nurture our relationships represent values of respect, compassion and forgiveness. This is the time to identify false magic and to hold on to what is true and eternal.

Stage Two Government

Members begin to understand that dominance or the will of the stronger party as the governing force can destroy a relationship. There is a wish for law to rule rather than person. It was at this stage that civilization invented primogeniture so that power transitions did not destroy the clan. There is still not enough structure at this stage for a democracy or for a government that allows power to be invested in principles, values, and norms rather than persons, but the relationship is taking steps in that direction. Perhaps the dominant position has shifted once or twice and the community has learned something from the pain of these power shifts when power belonged to persons rather than principles.

Stage Two Expectations

The clear expectations of stage one are breaking down, as are the clear lines of dichotomous thoughts of “in” or “out.” Now you are not sure what to expect. Questions emerge here and that is as it should be. They will be answered in the contests that come. You see that you can’t have your cake and eat it too as you thought in stage one. You are beginning to understand that the relationship will require sacrifice, but you have no idea how much. What in stage one seemed so certain, no longer does.

Stage Two Economy

Here there is the beginning’s of a medium of exchange. The issue in stage two is trust. As the community demonstrates the strength to entertain doubt and contain ambiguity, trust emerges. The more trust the easier it is to invest value in a symbol, like the coin of the realm. Trust and the economic symbols represented by a medium of exchange builds trade which engenders more trust. In the American frontier this is when fur and whiskey were used as mediums of exchange.The social trading of consensual trading continues on the surface at the stage. Below the surface doubts and questions are forming. Differences are emerging but are not discussed. In stage three these differences will become either obstacles or resources, but at this stage these differences are like Tulips in February. They are beginning to surface, but they are difficult to notice.

Stage Two Philosophical Tension

The philosophical tension at this stage is even more basic than in stage one where the question was “in” or “out.” That question remains but it is based on the answer to another question: Do I have enough reason to trust or do I have sufficient reason not to trust? In stage two, the doubting stage, the pendulum swings between trust and mistrust. If there is enough reason to trust, we move on to stage three where we test our decision once again. In the next stage the test will be in behavior not in internal conversations with one’s self.

Developmental Tasks at Stage Two: Contracting

There are three developmental tasks at stage two: (1) Keep the communication flow open (2) people speak desires (3) working past pretense.

Keep the Communication Flow Open

McWilliams calls this task “the defense of repression.” We call it the task of openness. There is a tendency for a community to “kill” or punish or at the very least ignore the bearer of bad news. Given the euphoria that is part of stage one it is easy for a community of “true believers” to push aside feelings that they don’t want to feel or information that would force a change in the original vision or plan.A community survives on accurate information and courageous discussions of feelings. Dissent is a burden that a healthy community bears gladly.

Speak Desires

This task is the converse of McWilliams “sublimation defense.” Because stage two requires members to cope with a great deal of ambiguity until they figure out how the community works, members often do not speak out what they want. In this stage they wait and look for a place where they can express their desires.Often they do not find the right time at this stage to express what they want. If members don’t add the energy of their desires into the community mix of desires, then they push their energy into resentments and passive aggressive behavior that can sabotage themselves and the community.

Working Past Pretense

McWilliams uses the term “dissociation” where we use the term pretense. At stage two members are not sure what is happening around them. So they smile and nod and appear to understand and give assent where actually they don’t. This may be necessary behavior at stage two because members aren’t sure of the community rules and norms.Before the community can move on to the next stage “going along to get along” must stop. Members must figure out what is happening, stop pretending and honestly express their feelings and opinions.

Resources Needed at Stage Two:

These are: (1) curiosity (2) willingness to obey the rules (3) secure confident members and (4) patience.

Curiosity

Members need to be open to learning new ways of doing things. It’s like learning how to dance with a new dance partner. Both people need to be curious about how they will dance together. As the community begins to define itself and as members begin to learn the community’s structure, the curiosity and openness pays off both for the member and the community. Learning the community’s norms gives the community competent members and it give members a way to use the community’s social infrastructure to meet their needs.

Willingness to Obey the Rules

The Magna Carta required that King John know and obey the law. This made no man above the law. It is much easier to follow the rules if the rules apply equally to everybody. Not all communities have consistent rules and they suffer when they don’t. But a community won’t survive unless it has an authority structure to which members are willing to submit.At this stage the community is still forming and defining its rules and roles. Members must be willing to cooperate with whatever structure emerges at this stage.

Secure Confident Members

This is an asset that is valuable at every stage, but it is especially valuable in the contracting stage. For members to merge together they must have flexible ways of thinking and acting while at the same time having a clear sense of self. This is the definition of true self-confidence. People who are both strong and flexible can accommodate as well as assert. If members are only flexible then their commitment soon becomes hollow. If members are rigidly strong they will break like glass under pressure. But if members are strong like a steel wire that bends and has integrity that brings it back to where it was, then the community members will be able to merge together and make room for the integrity of each member. At stage two where the community’s concrete is setting members’ flexible strength is especially helpful.

Patience

Probably more than at any other stage contracting requires patience. The community at this stage seems chaotic, mostly because so much is unknown. If members can be patient and yet at the same time express their opinions and feelings then the norms and rules that emerge will include their needs and accommodate those of others.

The Contracting Stage in History

The United States struggled to complete its birth. The revolution required courage and sacrifice for an ideal of a new way of life. The birth of this nation required a nurturing midwife in France, but the main work was done by the collective mothers, the thirteen states and their leaders. The contracting stage was perhaps this country’s finest moment. First the Articles of Confederation were drawn, but these were too loose to hold a country together. Then the constitutional convention was held in (1789). The framers of the constitution defined a model document supplemented by the Bill of Rights. The product of the work of this nation at this time in its history was arguably the best social contract ever written between a community and its people. The creation of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights was the end of the stage two contracting for the United States.

Stage Three, Authority Defined

Stage three is the authority stage. In stage two group norms are established. The rules of the game are defined. Stage three is where the structure created in stage two is tested. The gloves come off. The pretense of stage two is dropped. Stage two was the flight stage. Stage three is the fight stage. This is the stage of power struggles. Boundaries are crossed to determine whether or not they are real. Various roles are created and assigned. The lines of authority are drawn and challenged. Here we discover where the power lies in the community and how the community makes decisions.

Community members challenge each other and they challenge the person perceived to be in charge. Ways of resolving disputes emerge from these challenges. A working governance structure that can make decisions is tested and clarified. The question of who is in charge is answered along with the determination of a clear process of decision-making.The rules learned at stage two are broken. The contract is renegotiated. There is a fight for autonomy and power that can destroy a community’s infrastructure. The false smiles in stage two are gone and members go for the jugular. The task at this stage is to learn from the conflicts. The conflict demonstrates the flaws of the plan defined in stage two. In stage three the community must create a decision making process that works. It must protect and change that process while empowering its members. This decision making process should be able to take in new information and with it create a decision that will be followed by the collective. Hopefully a system of justice comes from the work at this stage. Members need to know where they have power. This question needs to be answered here.

Stage Three Thinking

Imagine couples in the first three stages walking on the beach together. In stage one they would be clinging to each other talking about how much they have discovered that they have in common. Stage two couples would be close, holding hands, less talkative, but available and interested. Stage three couples would be arguing. They would not be holding hands. They might be gesturing and would occasionally be embarrassed by their sharp tones and loud voices. They would be arguing about the ways they are different, wondering why the other won’t change to be more like them. Most of the time our thoughts at this stage concern conflicts. How do I get what I want? Where can I make the decision? How do we settle this argument so that we don’t have it again? What should I say next that will win the argument? This is the stage where law and order begins. Conflict over the authority position teaches the couple that values, norms and principles should rule over persons. This is the beginning of a civil society. Warlords give way to governments. Cowboys give way to sheriffs.

Stage Three Emotion

What else, but anger? Well there is also fear when one stages one and two have failed to create a balanced, equal power base. If the power base creates equality all members are angry trying to find their place of authority. The fight for dominance leads them to the fight for transcendent values. Conflict and fighting inevitably use anger as the dominant emotion.By now we know that we are not going to get what we expected in stage one. We are trying to fight to keep as much of the dream as we can. Each person wants the others to change. They are both disappointed and angry. If the anger transcends person and proceeds to fighting for values then stage three will produce community growth.

Stage Three Religion

In this stage laws emerge from faith. The only way to sustain a civilization or a relationship is for laws rather than persons to govern behavior. This was the stage where the Ten Commandments emerged from Judaism. In English history this is where King John signed the Magna Carta.If a relationship is to cease having constant conflicts when differences are discovered, norms must emerge. Faith helps bring peace through law and the discovery of principles and values that transcend the relationship. Faith allows all competitors to save face and gives them an opportunity to serve something beyond their own interests.

Stage Three Government

Finally we can talk about the point of this stage. It is government. In stage one the point was feeling. In stage two it was thinking. In stage three the point is to discover decision-making tools that help us keep the peace. These tools are part of good government. They are rules that members can serve without losing any dignity, rules that serve the community, its children and its societal context. The discovery of laws of governing our behavior helps us know what to expect of one another. It helps us negotiate differences. With laws differences become tolerated. As the community progresses through the next two stages, differences become resources rather than impediments. Stage three creates civil order.

Stage Three Expectations

The magical thinking, that “happily ever after,” that came from stage one, is gone. It is replaced by the recognition that one should expect conflict. Differences, in reality, are what brought us together. We got together because one of us had a line and the other a pole. Together we could provide for our community. We should expect differences and we must have ways to deal with these differences. We cannot expect to be alike or even compatible without the help of a transcendent authority, an authority that serves the community as it serves individuals. We should expect to be challenged by the relationship to live within standards that require loyalty to one another and to laws, norms, rules and principles that govern us. The more of these there are the more we know what to expect. The clearer our expectations the better we can dance together and integrate our differences, attach our lines to our poles and catch a fish.

Stage Three Economy

In stage three we are no longer tentative. We are revolting. Conflict tests the community. Reality replaces pretense. We are no longer living in our dreams worlds. Expectations are becoming reality based. Real trust is emerging from conflict. Real exchanges are taking place.No real trades happen when both people have the same things. Trade only comes with people with different things. Even though it is rough, real trade is happening. In civilization this is when gold and silver become a universal medium of exchange. With a universal medium of exchange there could be universal trade that was not dependent on having the exact thing I want from you when you have the exact thing I want. We can use gold to delay our gratification until you have something I want. Law becomes the basis of our ability to trust that delay of gratification is possible and gratification delayed will come. The medium of exchange is becoming more convenient as trust builds.In this stage the differences have emerged. The community must deal with them. They can be used in what McMillan (1997) calls Complementary trades. Essentially this means integrating differenced with each member contributing their unique skills and perspectives to the advantage of the community. This is “you can sing and I can play the piano. Let me accompany you as you sing.” Together then with consensual trades the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts. In stage three the differences have emerged, but they are viewed more as obstacles then as resources.

Stage Three Philosophical Tension

Here the tension is between whether to blame the other or carry the shame yourself. The reason that this tension between blame and shame exists is because in this stage it has become clear that the original goals and expectations will not be met. Members have failed to reach their ambitions. With this as a given what do they do? Most of them defend themselves first by blaming the community or another member. After sometime of each blaming the other it becomes clear blame will not solve their problems. When the blame question becomes irrelevant transcendent laws can emerge. Decision making processes can be put into place given the respectful assumption that differences will always exist.This cannot happen so long intellectual weapons of blame are sought and fired. Constructive decisions can only come when power creates mutual respect and mutual respect transforms into mutually agreed transcendent principles. Otherwise there is no solution.

Developmental Tasks at Stage Three: The Authority Stage

There are four tasks that need to be accomplished at the authority stage. They are: (1) Valuing truth (2) Fighting corruption (3) Encouraging personal accountability (4) Valuing the deviant.

Valuing Truth

This task covers the same ground as McWilliams “denial defense.” It has much in common with the stage two task of keeping the flow of communication open. They overlap but they are not exactly the same thing. In stage three fighting is natural and healthy (through painful and dangerous). Members must be encouraged to come out in the open with their feelings. Test their ideas in the fray. The community’s strengths will be discovered in the contest.It is easy for members to become numb in the face of adversaries. This should not happen. Numbness at this stage will only make the community lose sight of its members and their strengths. Although members want to win and dominance is a member’s goal at this stage, the community is watching looking for what members do well and where they can contribute in the community. The community needs for everybody to speak out, compete and participate.

Fighting Corruption

This is what McWilliams calls “the defense of undoing.” At this stage members can desire dominance so much that they may lie or cheat. And when caught members may try to bribe their way out the natural consequences. If they are effective they weaken the community as a whole. The sorting out process that is the essential work of stage three and also the remaining stages becomes compromised by corruption. It is essential for the community’s well being that the contests go on and that their processes be protected from corruption. The whole community benefits when the playing field is level and rules are enforced fairly.

Valuing the Deviant

In this stage there will appear to be winners and losers. It is easy to value the winner and punish the loser. The winner may have represented the current strength that the community needed at that time. But at some other time the community may need the skills and the resources of the member who lost in one particular contest. It is important that we celebrate all contestants. It is their collective energy that brings out the best in the champion. Community champions cannot discover their strengths without contests and adversaries.People and ideas that are out of favor at one time will likely be needed at others. A community’s strength can be judged by how it treats its members who are on the community’s margins.

Resources Needed at Stage Three: Authority

There are five important resources needed at the authority stage. They are: (1) passion, (2) empathy, (3) dedication, and (4) respect for one’s adversary.

Passion

Perhaps passion is the most important resource to the authority stage. In order to participate in the various contests for power and community roles, members must bring their passion to the struggle. Passion will inspire their best effort. Passion will help members expose their true feelings. Passion gives the contest a sense of importance and a level of intensity that makes the contest meaningful and important to the participants and the community as the audience. Without passion a contest has no honor and no heart.

Empathy

Though the combatants are often to blinded by their passion to consider the feelings of others, the community needs to have empathy and compassion for those who did not win, especially for those who were hurt or wounded in the contest.The nurture function is especially important to a community at the authority stage. So many people can be hurt here. If they aren’t cared for and cared about they could leave the community or band together as a rival community (see the story of Robin Hood).

Dedication

The contests at this stage could easily degenerate into contests of persons, not a contest for the community. If winners use their strength only for the good of themselves and not as a resource to the whole, then the community becomes the resource of that person.However, if the winners are dedicated to the community good and are willing to serve principle over person then the contest serves to strengthen the whole community. This dedication requires all combatants, winners and losers, to submit to the community’s rules and principles. This is civilian control of the military.

Respect for One’s Adversary

This is the concept of the worthy opponent. A contest is created by two masters of a skill who each ask the other to test them. The test discovers their strengths and weaknesses. It creates information that they can use to improve themselves. The better a member’s opponent the better she will become. Because of this contest and her opponent, a member will have more to offer the community.This value is in sharp contrast to the tendency to demonize or humiliate an adversary, choosing to make them an enemy rather than giving them the respect of a worthy opponent.

The Authority Stage in History

The conflict between the states over slavery and human dignity was precisely a stage three event. The question was where did the power reside, in the individual states or in the Union. In 1865 the Civil War ended and this question was resolved. It was clear where power resided and how the United States, as one nation indivisible, would make its collective decisions.

Stage Four, Evaluation Defined

The evaluation stage is stage four. This stage and stage five, the accountability stage, overlap a great deal. It can be difficult to tease them apart. In these two stages the community is deciding whether or not to disband after all the struggle of stage three. In stage four the question is: Now that the community has defined itself and has a system for making decisions, designating roles and assigning power, now that members know how this community works and where each member stands in it, is it worth it to continue?This is the first question that must be answered in the evaluation stage. The first three sessions taught the community a great deal. Two of the things learned in the first three stages are one, that things are not at all as members imagined them in the beginning and two, making this community work is going to require a great deal of sacrifice. At stage four members will wonder if they will get their time, effort and money’s worth? Given what hard work it will take to keep the community going, do they want to continue as members?

Here members withdraw to lick their wounds from the battles fought in stage three. The fight for dominance has been fought. There are real winners and losers. It is time to reflect on what members have in belonging to their community. What have they learned through all this pain and hard work? Do they have enough excitement for the reality, given that the fantasy is now gone? Even though the community is not what members thought it would be in beginning, has the work that the members have contributed created a feeling of attachment? Has the work created a new collective wisdom that will provide the skills and resources to be successful as a community within the now possible? And is “the now possible” going to be rewarding enough for the community to stay together?Yes, will be the answer if members can depersonalize behavior. This means that members need to be mature adults, rather than blaming adolescents saying it is not my fault. Problems need to be solved as a collective by the community rather than through personality conflicts.Conflicts need to be seen in systems terms. This is a difficult perspective to sell to members. If members can see their community in these terms, the community can see different actors playing different roles advocating for different important community values. Conflicts arise from healthy tension among value roles. Conflicts considered from this perspective do not cause so much harm. It is not about a person.Members must evaluate whether their commitment contain their disappointment. Is it acceptable to members that they cannot have their way? Does the community offer members enough to compensate for the loss of what they had hoped for? Can members contain their impulses to injure others? If members can answer these questions with a “yes,” then this is the beginning of a working community.

Stage Four Thinking

In a civilization this is when institutions are formed. In American history this was after the Civil War. In the American west, when the Civil War was over, this was when the schools and churches were built, when the land became safe for women and children. The rule of law had clearly been established. Power comes from law, not people’s desire. Trade partnerships are now based on reality not dreams and projections. There is real order and that order is worth sacrificing some things for. Goodwill is emerging again after all that conflict. Transcendent principles are begetting more transcendent principles. We are moving toward democracy and one person one vote, but we are not there yet. So much has happened in stage three. This is a time for reflection and for digesting what we learned from the passion and profound conflicts that were part of that stage.

Stage Four Emotion

Sadness is the most intelligent human emotion. Members need their best sense as they reflect on and learn from the conflicts of stage three. As we grieve the losses of our stage one dreams, sadness is our dominant feeling. Grieving and letting go of those old dreams is the work at this stage. Sadness is what we feel the most of at this stage. Luckily sadness eventually bores us and after we have used its good sense to evaluate what we learned from stage three, we move on to the next stage.

Stage Four Religion

In the history of civilization this is when law, God and nation merged. This is when the Jews became God’s chosen people. In Roman history it is when Caesar became a God. In English history it is when Henry the Eighth became head of the church.The point here is to put metaphysics in its place. Magical thinking won’t work for us. We have real work that we cannot expect magic to create. The Jews, the Romans, and the English, had nations to build and these nations needed to come before the clerics, rulers before the prophets, the emperors before the priests, the king before the pope. Our God must serve our community just as our community must serve our God.Of course we can see the seeds planted here for the demise of these empires and even in the dissolution of our communities if they do not successfully negotiate the work at the remaining stages.In this stage we begin to see the introduction of psychological dynamics. In the Bible this is where the story of Esau and Isaac introduces the construct of sibling rivalry and competition. Also in the Bible this is where Joseph successfully resolves his sibling rivalry with strength, forgiveness, compassion and discovery of the unconscious when Joseph gained his power by interpreting the Pharaoh’s dreams.In this stage communities must use their faith to serve the community. They must be patient and understanding of their partner. They must use their faith to stop the blame and shame. To do this they must understand and have compassion for themselves and their mates. This requires a deeper more communal faith than the faith they have had before. This faith must help them process the sadness that comes from their failure to have their stage one dreams come to fruition.

Stage Four Government

The government at this stage is most likely to be a delegated oligarchy. Communities are moving toward democracy and decentralized power. There are particular areas of expertise. These areas are in place while norms continue to be built, rules that each party can use to argue their position, but for now until more laws and social norms are created, a negotiated peace through delegated authority arenas will have to do.

Stage Four Expectations

In this stage norms are emerging. The more norms that emerge the stronger the trust. As norms emerge the areas of individual dominance decrease and the easier decision making becomes. We can now expect that sacrifices for the community will reward us. Our investment in a relationship infrastructure improves our quality of life. Now we do not have to pretend to keep the peace. Goodwill can grow on the basis of the truth. Kindness can re-emerge, without us fearing abuse or exploitation.

Stage Four Economy

In a civilization this stage is where a nation state backs a currency. Gold is no longer the medium of exchange. There is enough trust in the nation state to use minted coins as a medium of exchange.In a community trades are being based on truth not on exchanges of dream making. The possible and probable are what we use to bargain with. This increases goodwill and trust. Though we may not be happy with reality, we know members are loyal to their community and what it has to give them. Their loyalty is battle tested. The greater their trust, the more they can trade. In the remaining stages the goodwill that grows will only increase the frequency of our trade. In this stage we now have trade it all its human social varieties.In social trading members are now shopping among the differences. They are imagining a complementary trade. They are evaluating whether or not they can integrate other members differences with theirs. Oh they know that a fit can be forced. Stage three proved that, but can a fit be enjoyed? Can one member appreciate the differences that another member brings? Can they together become more than they were separately? In stage four these are the questions being asked. The focus is on the differences beyond each member, that surrounds them. Can they use them? Or will they be overwhelmed by them?

Stage Four Philosophical Tension

The temptation to blame remains. The question here is whether to regress backwards into blame and into the conflicts of stage three or move forward by acting constructively, building norms and an infrastructure for decision-making. Member’s egos remain fragile. The battles have wounded them. Members can be so confused at this stage that they will not know whether blame bombs will heal us or whether they have the strength to forgive and move on. Are we strong enough to look honestly at ourselves and wonder what it would be like for anyone to be our partner? This question is the beginning of the next stage, accountability.

Developmental Tasks at Stage Four: Evaluation

There are three tasks to be accomplished at the evaluation stage. They are: (1) stay engaged, (2) promote individuality, and (3) assertiveness.

Stay Engaged

After the struggle of the authority stage it is natural for members to withdraw and lick their wounds and replenish their strength and resources. It is tempting to withdraw so far from the community’s center and to become so self-focused that members lose their sense of community. It is important for a community to stay connected to its members as they naturally withdraw to evaluate what they learned at the previous stage. McWilliams calls this the defense of infantilized withdrawal (look up)

Promote Individuality

This idea is what McWilliams termed “the defense of identification.” When the authority stage is over there is a tendency of members to mimic or to conform to the standards of the winners. This is a natural part of the evaluation stage and in some ways a healthy response to stage three because the things the winner did worked. But not everything the winner did had an impact on the victory. The uniqueness of each member need to be protected because someday the community may need their unique talents.

Assertiveness

This is basically the same notion as McWilliams “the reversal defense.” After the conflicts of the authority stage some members are so caught in their compassion for others that they resist challenging these wounded in stage three. They spend so much energy nurturing and being careful to protect that they stop asserting themselves. They do not express their ideas, needs or desires. They don’t want to muddy the water for fear that more painful struggle will ensue.This can become patronizing and disrespectful to the people they are trying to protect. It certainly takes a great deal of interest and excitement away from the community. The community needs to be sure that nurturing doesn’t snuff of the community’s fire and passion by encouraging all members to assert themselves.

Resources Needed at Stage Four: Evaluation

There are three resources needed at the evaluation stage. They are: (1) sanctuary, (2) compassion, and (3) investment.

Sanctuary

Members are not ready to quit the community yet, but they are thinking about it. Even the winners of the community contests have the same question: Is all this worth it? The contests of stage three have left everyone exhausted. Members need a safe place and enough time in their retreat to answer the stage four questions. For a time the contests need to stop. Peace, quiet and reflection are needed here.

Compassion

Members who lost the stage three contests are especially prone to leave the community at this stage four. They wonder if they have anything to contribute and if they do, they wonder if the community appreciates what they have to offer.The community needs to offer them compassion and appreciation for the hard work they expanded that did not reward them with a prize. These members need understanding and encouragement to practice, rest and return with new ideas of roles they can play.

Investment

Those who lost the contest for the dominant roles have a great deal to offer the community. The community needs to invest time, energy, space and resources to these members so that they can discover the strengths they have that can create new important community roles.

The Evaluation Stage in History

What is the value of being a collective was asked two times after the Civil War. The occasions for these questions were two economic depressions. The depression of the 1890’s was finally resolved by World War I and the depression of 1929 wasn’t resolved until the end of World War II.The Southern part of the United State was in a severe depression after the Civil War. The rest of the country joined the depression in 1890. The economic boom of resources and trade that came from the expansion of the United States from Sea to Sea was over by 1890, as was the first stage of the Industrial revolution. The railroad transportation infrastructure was complete. It would be years before the radio and electronic phase of the industrial revolution began. With the economic wounds of the Civil War came the question of: Can the people really come together other than by force? Alvin York, a farm boy from Tennessee, symbolized the thousands of Southern Americans that joined the army in the Spanish American War and then again in World War I to fight a common enemy. With World War I the evaluation stage was complete.

Stage Five, Accountability Defined

If these evaluations questions are answered in the affirmative then the community enters stage five, accountability. So the community, from the work at stage four, sees that it can exist. Members have learned from the evaluation stage that they have to play their roles and work together. Members want it to continue because they still see promise and hope for something of value, but can they really do it? Can they return? After examining themselves, can members answer that they have what it takes to play their collective roles responsibly?Members have learned that they have a working authority structure that can contain destructive impulses and achieve resolution of disputes. They can trust their community to get things done. Members had hoped that the community could make them happy. After evaluating the realities members know what the community can and cannot do for them. Members are willing to give up their illusions of dominance and have accepted that they have a role with limits.In this stage members are still reflecting. In stage four the question to the members was: is it worth it to remain? In stage five the question that members must answer is: can they hold up their end? Can they, without making excuses or blaming someone else, do their job? Members now are clear that the community will not become heaven on earth. It will not fix everything for anybody. Belonging does not entitle them much as it burdens them. If the community is going to give something to its members it is up to each member to work for it. It won’t just come along magically with the status of membership. If its not working for members then they know that they are responsible to make if work for them. It won’t be given to them. They are the ones that must grow and change. Their community is not a womb.In this stage members learn that it is their job to find happiness in the community. Members must have the strength to take care of themselves, meet their own needs and still have something left over to give to their community. In stage five members stop blaming others and find the courage to require sacrifice from themselves. If the answer to the stage five questions from most of the members is “yes I can take care of myself and still I have something of value to contribute to the community,” then the community moves on to stage six.

Stage Five Thinking

In this stage thinking about blame is seen by members as a lost cause. There is no power in becoming or being a victim. Here the goal for members is to be responsible to contribute to the community, at least, do their part and understand and forgive fellow members. In this stage compassion is introduced. As members wonder what it must be like for others to work with them in the community, members begin to see that it might not be easy for their fellows. As they tell the truth about themselves they understand admit that working with them may be difficult. When members admit this they are adding compassion to accountability. At this point members are becoming responsible compassionate contributors to their community.

Stage Five Emotion

Shame is the most socially responsible emotion. Shame is the basis of love. We are naturally ashamed if we injure someone we love. Because we care we want to be accountable, to right the wrong, to reweave the fabric of the relationship we have torn.We all make mistakes. We all hurt the people we love. A community that doesn’t have the capacity to reweave tears will have no real fabric. Shame is the basis of accountability.When shame is pushed on members by others, who use disgust to make them feel shame, and when shame surprises members, they naturally defend against it. When this happens shame is toxic. But when members intentionally approach shame and choose shame as their path to accountability, then shame teaches and challenges and expands member’s hearts. Members find the best of themselves in stage five. They are humble, responsible and accountable. If there is one stage where community members are lovable and should be proud of themselves, it is here.

Stage Five Religion

In stage five we put in place the foundation for redemption inside a community’s faith. It begins with the concept of confession of sin. Members acknowledge to fellow members that they have screwed up and fallen short of a community standard. They are not sure that we can meet that standard. Member’s confess that the thing that is wrong with the relationship is them. They are sorry. In response to their confession they do not promise perfection but they do promise to do better. They are not sure our better will be good enough.Here members offer their shoulders as big enough to carry the blame and take the ego blow. When blame is taken out of the community in this way the community is free to work together instead of working to find fault. Here is one of those places where it is easy to see that the development of a relationship parallels and requires the development of individual members. This sets the stage for the redemption and grace that are part of the next stage.

Stage Five Government

In stage five members are ready for representative government. They do not expect to be entitled. They understand it is not “what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” They are ready to bear the burden of citizenship in their community. Members are ready to respect that other members have a right to vote and influence the community just as they do. Members are ready for “one person, one vote” government.

Stage Five Expectations

In the first two or three stages members thought the function of the community was to serve them. Members felt entitled. In this stage members’ entitlement skin has been shed for the skin of competence, mastery of the self and accountability. Members no longer expect to be taken care of by their community. They expect to use accountability to avoid the victim role and to achieve mastery over themselves. Members expect to take care of themselves and to have enough left over to have something to contribute to the community. Members expect to continue to grow and learn by being responsible for themselves, their feelings and their behavior.

Stage Five Economy

Here we have an economy that can build wealth. This is the economy of paper money. The gold standard is not required. As both people are responsible and accountable, our currency can stand alone for value. In this economy of accountability, collaboration is rewarded. Failure is learned from. What is learned from failure is the basis of the next risk members take together. Because members freely give their taxes to their community members can build their community’s infrastructure. Governments build roads, train rails, schools and medical facilities. Communities build the infrastructure for their work. The community life has an effective structure to contain and direct energy and conflict. A community is ready to work.In the social economy the focus continues to be on the question of whether or not complementary trades can be made. Rather than being external members as in stage four, in stage five members looks at themselves. They have discussed valuable resources in the differences that others possess. They are wondering whether or not they have any skills and resources that they can use in a complementary trade.

Stage Five Philosophical Tension

The tension here is between the concepts of responsibility vs. incompetence. The question is: will members give up and use the passive defense of “I’m not good enough so I quit” or “you should fire me?” Or will members use the fact that they are not good enough as a challenge to get better? Will the community exploit members confession of inadequacy, use it against them by saying, “Yeah you are right. It is all your fault?” Or will the other members join in the introspection, confession, and accountability?If the relationship can do the heavy lifting ego work at this stage, it will reap the brief but wonderful rewards at stage six.

Developmental Tasks at Stage Five: Accountability

There are three tasks that must be accomplished at stage five. They are: (1) return from the retreat, (2) encourage accountability and (3) no excuses.

Return from the Retreat

McWilliams uses the terms “the defense of isolation” for this developmental task. Return from retreat or isolation/detachment has a great deal in common with the task we call stay engaged or what McWilliams also calls infantile withdrawal. There is a difference. In stage four we recognized that some detachment was necessary for evaluation to take place. We just did not want the detachment to become a disconnect. Here the task is to return to the community with the wisdom learned at stage four. The wisdom learned from the evaluation stage becomes clear in stage five. And that wisdom is that members are responsible for their own happiness. They must meet their own needs. The community’s purpose was never primarily to please them. In stage four members figured out that they could survive without the community if they wanted to. It is a risk to return from this evaluation stage and try to contribute to the whole. Their contribution may be rejected. Some members will be tempted not to return. The job at stage five is to take the risk, come back, and try again with the insight that they don’t need to be rescued, and they don’t have to blame others. They return from their sanctuary with this vision of being accountable for one’s self and see if that new insight might make a difference.

Encouraging Accountability

(I don’t know what McWilliams calls this. Someone will have to look it up, but I think it is projection of blame). In the stress of contests that are part of the authority stage, shame can be quite painful. Stress can create mistakes. Facing mistakes and learning from them is one of the most important resources of a community. When members blame others for their mistakes they don’t get to learn from what happened. The pain of shame is the tuition paid for wisdom. When the community is the audience, both the member who made the mistake and the community, have a learning opportunity. It should not be wasted. A community should honor and reward members who have the courage to walk into the pain of the shame that comes from caring when one fails.

No Excuses

McWilliams uses another term to describe this task. She calls it the defense of rationalization. To avoid being accountable, community members are tempted to use their considerable cognitive skills to build walls that protect them from blame. Benjamin Franklin is quoted by McWilliams as saying “so convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason to do everything one has a mind to do.”Members can use their rationalizations to build intellectual walls that protect their isolation. At this stage it is their job to see through their walls and to return responsibly to the community work.

Resources Needed at Stage Five: Accountability

There are three resources that a community needs to cope with the challenges of the accountability stage. They are: (1) good ears, (2) courage, and (3) strength.

Good Ears

The community must listen to its members at every stage, but especially at this stage. Ears that hear and understand the feelings and needs of members will provide a bridge that will help members emerge from the retreat of the previous stage. Though caring and understanding can’t solve problems for others, it can create a climate where people can take care of themselves.

Courage

It is difficult to return from an evaluation retreat. It is easy to hold on to the victim role and blame others and demand a rescue that will never come, thus justifying one’s staying away. To give up blaming others, to give up the role of the persecuted, and see that it is each member’s job to be responsible to care for themselves, takes courage. This courage is particularly needed at stage five, the accountability stage.

Strength

To return a member must have something to bring back. Members must believe in their strength. They must have the confidence that they can take care of themselves and have enough energy, time, and money left over to give to the community.

The Accountability Stage in History

After the depression of 1929 there were many demagogues who promised to use the government to help the common man. The government created work projects to employ the masses. Huey Long and Father Coglin tried to win power by making promises to use the government to end poverty. Citizens were frightened and wanted the government to rescue them. But spending money that taxes couldn’t support did not seem to be a real answer.Hitler and Japan gave the United States its answer to the questions of self-doubt that are part of stage five. Americans could no longer afford to look to the government to rescue them. Every citizen had to pitch in to help fight the war. Feeling sorry for themselves was no longer an option for United States citizens. Each citizen had a sacrifice to make. Women left home and went to work; young men and many women joined the army. Industry had tanks planes and guns to make. Every citizen felt the duty to buy war bonds to support the war effort. Women, who were not working, knitted bandages for the wounded. President Kennedy summarized the lessons learned from this time in the famous quote from his 1961 inaugural address: “It’s not what your country can do for you. It is what you can do for your country.” These words indicated that the United States had completed stage five.

Stage Six, Communion Defined

The communion stage never lasts long. It is a period of bliss and renewal. Many of the feelings of excitement and hope that were part of stage one are in the communion stage. The community has come of age. It is no longer petulant adolescent, blaming others, and feeling entitled or looking for a handout. Community members know their jobs and they are glad to do them.

They are confident in the ability to take care of themselves and they have plenty left over to give others. The confidence and vision of the conception stage returns here.Members have emotionally preserved through some difficult times. Their passion and spirit of Stage One has survived the buyer’s remorse of Stage Two, the rebellion of Stage Three, the dropping of the blame defense in Stage Four and the self-doubt of Stage Five. The spirit has re-emerged in Stage Six to discover a community where commitment is solid. Our fellow members can be trusted not to blame us when blame is not merited and to be accountable for their mistakes. Members emerge in Stage Six to find themselves stronger, smarter, better community members.

Members do not have to be so careful. Mistakes will be made, but mistakes will be forgiven. Because of this ability to forgive and learn from mistakes members can depend on each other. If members do not get what they need they can take care of themselves and members enjoy being needed.The past is part of our legacy, not a resource for guilt and innocence. Old battles are over. The community knows how to heal member hurts.There is a temptation to project unmet needs back onto the community at this stage, but members can quickly recover their strength and emotional balance. Members do not require entitlements.In a business relationship, this would be the stage after the lawyers were out of the business, after the contracts were signed, after you fought over the decisions of exactly what the business would look like, where it would be, after you found your part of the capital and when the business began a cash flow and your first profit check was written. The real work has yet to be done, but you know you can do it together. Your commitment to the work ahead is solid now.In marriage this stage often comes prior to the conception of a first planned pregnancy. The parties feel the marriage is strong enough to bear fruit. This confidence is empowering. There is great excitement about the conception project. The birth heralds a new beginning with new roles and new challenges in the context of a relationship that had some difficulties but offers much promise.

Stage Six Thinking

Power dominance and competition have given way to accountability, cooperation and collaboration. It is not about me anymore. It is about us. Blame/shame is not something members give to others. It is something members are strong enough to carry themselves. Member philosophy is to reflexively look for what they have to contribute rather than what do the community has that they can take. Now that members no longer expect magic, it sometimes happens. Members are not keeping score. Members want to give to others. They want to sacrifice because they enjoy contributing. Members are proud, when after they have taken responsibility for themselves they have something substantial to offer the community. As members take on their blame and responsibility and other members take on blame there is a sum now of over 100 percent. Our collective cup runneth over. It’s amazing.

Stage Six Emotion

It’s joy. Who would ever have thought that joy would resolve shame, but it does. Joy is the product of accountability just as mastery is the product of responsibility. As member’s competence grows, as they work on learning from their mistakes, members become proud that they can do this. They are proud that other members of their community can do this too. Joy comes not because members have achieved perfection, or their goal, or their destination. Joy comes because members have discovered how to grow and learn. Even though this process is painful and they feel the hurt of shame because of it, this process is a great improvement on the blaming, fighting, resentment and recriminations that can be a part of stage three. Members are happy to know that they are strong enough to handle reality and responsibility. Members are pleased with themselves that they have discovered the path of accountability that will lead them always toward improving their character and their soul.

Stage Six Religion

In stage five we implied that the community would discover something special in its faith at stage six. Confessing sins freely has created the foundation for redemption and grace. The basic requirement for experiencing redemption and grace is that members understand that they have not earned it and they do not deserve it. Otherwise how can members have meant their confession of sin and request forgiveness?Redemption and grace come unexpectedly out of a life that expects nothing more than being responsible and accountable. If members keep up contributing their part, (mentioned in stage five) then accountability creates the setting for grace and forgiveness. Eventually grace and redemption will come to community members. As members work to be accountable suddenly the community may cross some magical threshold and members dance with their partners. They know how the other moves and the other member knows how they will move. They can take for granted their collaborative movements. Oh, what a joy to discover collaborative creativity and community harmony.The problem is communities cannot take grace for granted. Sooner or later members will fall out of step. Members then must return to what they know will work and that is accountability and keeping score for themselves to be sure they contribute their part.

Stage Six Government

In this stage the government is strong enough to search for justice. Given that its citizens can obey the law and are accountable, the government has the luxury of fine-tuning. Laws can be adjusted so that they fit the community better. As time changes what is fair and equitable changes. This means that members need to change how they treat each other. Roles need adjusting. Assignments need re-negotiating. Precedents need to be changed to fit current circumstances.At this stage justice is not used to make up for the past or to create special entitlements or new fiefdoms. Because the community treasures accountability, no special favor or treatment is being asked from the government. Rather members simply want the laws to help the community work so there is no undue burden on either party. Members are not expecting justice they are striving for justice.

Stage Six Expectations

Members do not expect to get it right the first time, but they do expect that they can grow and learn, practice and improve until they can get it right or achieve some acceptable approximation of right. Members expect to be responsible and accountable. They expect their work to support their commitment. Members expect their heart to support their work. They do not expect perfection of themselves. Members expect competence. They do not expect anything of their community, but that they carry most of their weight if they can and members expect to have enough to take care of the rest and ourselves. What a great feeling to have this belief.

Stage Six Economy

In this stage the community’s economy has discovered banking. Banking makes it possible to transform traders into entrepreneurs. It allows the combination of imagination, vision and informed risk to reap rewards. In stage five, accountability created the trust that would allow members to lend and to borrow knowing that the decision to lend would be rewarded with interest. Members now can borrow and expect to be held accountable for their debt. Members can ask for more than they deserve right now and other members will gladly give it to them, knowing that in the future they will be rewarded with interest.In the context of accountability most of the time these loans will be repaid as specified. And when they are not all parties learn, grow and work until the debt is repaid and then they risk together again. In a nation such banking activity and risk taking creates wealth. In a community it creates an abundance of internal security and collaborative strength. The community will need all of this for the next stage.The social trades in stage six are finally real complementary trades. In stage six there is a recognition that differences have been integrated. In this stage there is an acknowledgment and a celebration that the community is truly more than the sum of its parts. Our differences have become assets. Having done this now, the members have the confidence that they can do this kind of trading again. In stage seven they will have to.

Stage Six Philosophical Tension

The forces that must be balanced here are mutuality versus the self. The questions the members ask are: Am I really competent enough to take care of myself and have something left over to contribute to my community? Can I avoid the temptation to give first because I have discovered the joy of giving? Only if I continue to be responsible for myself will I continue to be a resource and deep well of strength for my community. The challenge at stage six is not to be seduced by the joy of giving so that members forget to take care of themselves. This is important because all their strength will be tested and exhausted in the next stage.

Developmental Tasks at Stage Six: Communion, Staying Grounded in the Lessons of the Past

At the communion stage there is one primary task with two parts. The primary task is to stay grounded in the lessons learned in stages four and five. The two parts are to resist the temptation to arrogance and to resist the temptation that the community will take care of all members’ needs. The first part requires humility and the second part requires accountability.These two parts are connected. After stage five some members feel very confident that they can take care of themselves and have plenty left over to give to others. Often these folks see themselves in a star player role or as a person with an indispensable talent. This temptation to arrogance fits with the second part of staying grounded. Other members are so impressed by the newly discovered strengths and competencies of their fellow members that they develop the unrealistic notion that the community will take care of them. This leads them to regress to earlier stages when members saw in their community only the promise of nurturance and protection without seeing the burdens and requirements of duty and responsibility.

Resources Needed at Stage Six: Communion

There are three resources that a community needs at the communion stage. They are: (1) confidence, (2) celebration, and (3) reality tests.

Confidence

A community needs for some of its members to have faith in the community. As members regroup to rediscover their community and themselves as members, they need to discover a collective confidence that the community is well. Their survival of the ordeals of the past, the creation of a community structure that has served them thus far should be remembered. The lessons learned should be collected. This history should inform the collective confidence at this stage.The community must have confidence that its boundaries are secure, confidence that the pettiness of hatred, envy and jealousy that marked much of the community’s earlier development are no longer present. The community members need the confidence that they can delay their gratification. They have the faith that they will be fine even if they don’t get what they want when they want it. This faith and confidence provides the patience needed to collaborate and work together.

Celebration

The community should celebrate making it this far. Games, ceremonies, art should be a product of this celebration time. The community should create symbols of their struggle, their successes and of the values learned from their history together. This requires a spirit of playfulness and creativity among the members. Celebrations require the confidence that the community is strong and at peace. The boundaries of the community are secure. It is safe to block off the streets, for example, and have a festival.

Reality Tests

The communion stage has a natural euphoria that is intoxicating. That is why this stage needs reality tests to remind members who they realistically are as individuals and who they are as a community. The community needs to remember the struggle that it took to get here and what great sacrifices were required. This helps the community stay grounded and humble, respecting the principles of duty and responsibility that helped the community get this far.

The Communion Stage in History

In the United States stage six began when the boys came home from war after World War II. But the bliss of the communion stage never lasts long. It ended with the start of the Korean War in 1950. Part of this stage was the passage of social security act. This act was one of a strong confident nation. Citizens knew that they had enough left over to provide a social net for the old and the infirm. This was a new era, a new day with war heroes who came home to participate and lead their government. And this was a proud, grateful nation that elected these men, who sacrificed so much, to positions of leadership and authority. Their strength was hard won and it was contagious. The United States felt invincible with a mission to share democracy with the world.

Stage Seven, Mission Defined

In families this is the raising children stage. The community is engaged in a shared mission that transcends personal interest. The mission gives each member of the community an important role. All members at this stage need to pay attention to the community’s news. Members attend to how fate treats their collective effort. They learn and grow together from their failures. And celebrate their successes together.The mission provides a sense of purpose. It creates a routine and a structure that provides members with a variety of roles. Members feel needed. The mission doesn’t allow for any dilly-dallying around. It puts members to work where their skills are needed. If a member doesn’t have the skill for a task that member is relieved of that job and transferred to another where her skills fit the task. In this stage the magical spell of stage six is gone. The community is being tested and the test is so difficult that failure sometimes happens. In the mission stage failure does not mean defeat or the end. It means: “learn from it and get back up and try again” with the information gleaned from the failure.No community mission is consistently a success. There will always be failures and crises. These events force community members to row together. Members have to trust each other. Tasks are delegated. One member covers the back of another. Each member’s strengths compensate for the weaknesses of another. The mission comes first. Members are proud to contribute.The focus shifts from blame to helping members face life’s tragedies. As one member falls another member is there to help them up. Though things do not go as expected, thought he ship is leaking there is faith that mistakes can be learned from and community challenges can be met.

The mission changes everything. The mission’s burdens are sometimes overwhelming. The work done in previous stages has prepared the community and its members. The community must protect its spirit. Members must resist the urge to abandon ship. Members must contain their anger and their urges to blame. Members must learn from their mistakes, not take them personally and find ways to share pain and fatigue.The demands of the mission create new roles for members. As the failures teach the community members grow their expertise and responsibilities. Members must support one another.The mission can create a sense of purpose. It may provide generational continuity and a sense of community. The mission helps its members grow and develop sensitivity and compassion. The mission can inspire a new sense of responsibility to community members. As the mission’s journey unfolds, it creates memories that can inspire commitment to the community. The mission brings out the best in all community members.

Stage Seven Thinking

The theme of this stage is duty. The honeymoon of stage six is far behind. Members have work to do and bills to pay. It’s a good thing members can count on each other because there is much more to do here than any one person could ever do. Here there are no excuses. Consequences are no longer limited to one person. They extend onto others and into the mission. In this stage your mantra is duty and responsibility. A member’s joy is to be behind the plow and hit on all cylinders.

Stage Seven Emotion

At this stage members are confronting one unexpected event after another. Surprise leading to overwhelmed is the primary emotion at this stage. “What the___?” are words that continue to flow out of member’s mouths. Sometimes surprise is wonder. Sometimes it is awe. Sometimes it is startle and sometimes it is shock. All members know is they thought they were prepared, but they weren’t. It’s as if fate is the Joker character in a Batman movie and fate continually pops its head out from behind a building saying “surprise” as fate gives the community another unexpected bill to pay, child to rescue, partner to bailout, in-law in the hospital.

Stage Seven Religion

Here it becomes clear that faith must mean action. It is not just about what’s in member’s hearts and minds. Sometimes the spirit is empty and members still must sacrifice for the cause. And they do. And they do. And they do. And they must do, hoping that sometimes acting as if will make it so. And sometimes it does. And sometimes it takes a long time before it does. In this stage it is not about the talk. It’s about the walk. As members walk they discover strengths they did not know they had. As they walk together they learn things about their courage, good sense, and humor that they didn’t know before. They learn only what serving a mission greater than the self can teach them. The mission becomes an even richer learning experience because they are taking the same class together.

Stage Seven Government

In this stage members begin to identify with their government. As members take on responsible roles in their mission, they become the authority, the government. Members hold office. It is in this stage of individual development that people see the policeman as resource, rather than someone to avoid. In communities members have the responsibility and the burden of authority. It is not about fun. Members wear the black hat. They hire and fire and they know that power corrupts.Because of this our communities creates checks and balances in its decision-making. Members appreciate it when their fellow members rein them in or pull them back from a potential mistake. Often communities will use three separate value positions to check and balance itself. One is whether or not it is good for the member. The other is whether or not it is good for the community, and the third is does it serve the mission. These values serve much like the three branches of government. The executive determines whether or not it is good for the moment. The legislature decides whether or not it is good for the nation as a whole. The judicial branch determines whether or not it is good for posterity by connecting community decisions to lines of precedent, projecting those lines into the future to see whether or not a law remains inside our constitutional values. In a healthy government and relationship at stage seven we are glad to be checked and balanced.

Stage Seven Expectations

A community can expect that its members will do what they promise to do. Members can be counted on. They accept their duty and keep their promises. Members can expect to protect each other. If members are not able to do what they say, they must have a good reason. Members must be able to be taken for granted and trust and take fellow members for granted.

Stage Seven Economy

In stage seven there are community corporations. Individuals invest in stock and own a company. The company can be sued but the stockholders cannot be held liable. This enables people to take risks without losing more than their investment. The invention of the corporation promoted investment and the creation of capital. Without this legal entity it would be difficult to raise money for airlines, schools, railroads, oil wells, automobile factories, hospitals, and other parts of our infrastructure.For communities at stage seven members need to operate without fear of losing more than they invested. They can recover from a loss but not from being accountable for more than they have. This protection allows them to risk, fail and risk again. At stage seven the work is so constant and demanding that failure is inevitable. Members need the liability protection from each other. Forgiveness is always available. You won’t lose more than you put into it.

And if an investment is lost, a member can build back. This kind of taken for granted trust in one another allows the community to work, fail, recover, and build. It allows for a stock market and for symbolic wealth. Wealth is built on faith and risk. The community will need wealth for the remaining stages.Social trading is stage seven is more complementary trading. Differences emerge in the mission stage. They are processed, evaluated and quickly put to work in a trade. In the mission stage there is little time and the community cannot afford to fight or to lose a valuable member. A place must be found. The community must use the working assumption that emerging differences provide information, perspective and resources that are needed.

Stage Seven Philosophical Tension

In stage seven the tension is between isolation and collaboration. Members are exhausted by their shared mission. They are tempted to quit. Members would love to leave the field. At the same time they feel the call of the mission and the joy of collaboration when it goes well. It is the thrill of paddling a canoe together through a level three rapid. Members want both of these things in stage seven. They want to rest and work together. The resolution of this tension will create a positive history of collaboration. This history will help in the next stage, the most psychologically challenging yet of all the stages.

Developmental Tasks at Stage Seven: Mission

There are two important tasks at the mission stage. The first is to stay focused on the mission. The second is to keep trying.

Stay Focused on the Mission

The mission is critical and dangerous for the community. Many battles are fought with the elements, with the environment and other communities. This is a collectively stressful time. It is easy to focus internally and look at what is wrong with the community itself instead of the community’s strengths and the critical tasks in front of the community. It is important to keep the community’s collective eye on the ball.The reader might recognize this is a combination of two of McWilliams’s defenses, somatization and conversion.

Keep Trying

McWilliams calls this “the defense of turning against the self.” Others use the term “self-targeting.” In the mission stage failure and mistakes are inevitable. But this is not the time for shame and learning. This is a time for acting. Blaming members in the community or blaming the community, as a whole will only sap a community’s strength.At this stage what happened and who did it is not as important as what do we do now. In this stage when there are times of quiet reflection and evaluation, they should be used for problem solving, not for blaming and indicting.So when a mistake is made the task is to get up and face the mission and maintain the community’s best effort.

Resources Needed at Stage Seven: Mission

There are four resources needed at the mission stage. They are: (1) a collection of the strengths gained in the previous stage, (2) faith in the community, (3) stamina, and (4) down time.

Collection of Strengths

At stage six the community reflected on its work and what it achieved in previous stages. It had a shared vision, guiding principles, an authority structure, and committed and responsible members. The community will need all these things in the mission stage. The mission stage often contains a series of crises. The community needs all its assets and strengths available to manage its mission.

Faith

At the mission stage there are moments when there is no time to teach or explain. Members have to do their part and take for granted that others are doing theirs. This requires faith in fellow members, faith in the community’s leaders and faith in the whole community.

Stamina

The tasks of focusing on the mission and keep trying require commitment and stamina. The community has to “keep on keeping on” if a mission is to be successful. Giving up is not an option. A community in this stage needs staying power.

Down Time

Having discussed stamina and staying power, it is essential that members have some relief and rest. They need to cover for one another to make room for vacations, time away from the mission. When possible, the community as a whole should take time off to relax and rest.

The Mission Stage in History

In United States history the mission stage began with the Korean War and continues to this day. The mission was to establish Pax Americana. The major world leaders prior to the United States were the British who created Pax Brittanica until their empire collapsed. Prior to the English the most memorable dominant nation with such a mission was the Roman Empire, which established Pax Romana.The mission of the United States was different from that of Rome or Britain. They were establishing colonies, giving the British citizen or the citizen of Rome more status than any other person. The mission of the United States was to empower people by sharing with other countries democratic principles and the meaning of human rights to create a world where all people are assumed to be created equal.In this mission the primary adversary of the United States has been the Soviet Union. When the Berlin Wall fell the United States seemed to have accomplished its mission. The United States had lost wars in Korea and Vietnam but each time it learned something. It continued to believe in the basic principles of democracy and human dignity and the Soviet Regime collapsed in the face of its success.The United States has much yet to accomplish. The United States wants to knock down trade barriers and empower the people of the world with the blessings of free trade and human rights. Hence it is still in the mission stage. Who knows how long this stage will last.The more noble a community’s mission, the longer the mission stage will last. Centuries are likely to come and go before all people have basic human rights. As Americans we might hope that our country’s mission will remain this noble. From this point forward we will use English history and then perhaps Roman history to represent stages eight, nine and ten.

Stage Eight, Generativity Defined

In stage eight the community sees that the mission is accomplished. The original goal and its various amendments along the way has been reached. The reason for being together in the beginning is no longer. Here the jazz singer, Peggy Lee’s question is asked: “Is that all there is?” This can be a time of depression. The strong needs and yearnings of stage one are gone.This is what happens to a corporation when its leaders declare that the business is mature. It means that it has accomplished the purpose of creating a structure that can meet the constant demand for its product. It also means that its stock price stops growing. If a new mission that involves growth and change doesn’t emerge the company changes from an exciting demanding environment to a cautious, conservative bureaucracy that aims at preserving rather than growing creating and becoming.

This is a time of collecting memories, telling stories and making art emerge from the past. The sense of urgency and importance has left. The community searches for a new reason to be that is consistent with its prior mission.The answer comes to the community in the form of ideals that they were serving in the community’s old mission, the transcendent values that connected their sacrifice to universal good. When these values are discovered, a community at the generativity stage has found a sort of meta-mission. That mission is to pass along what was learned from their collective experience of conceiving, defining, fighting, reflecting, accounting, consolidating and working. Teaching and nurturing becomes more important than becoming, growing or acquiring. At this stage giving away power becomes the focus of a community’s energy, rather than gathering power.This is what Gail Sheehy calls the sub-total stage. The final tally is not yet in sight, but the community can sense that there is an end over the horizon. With the mission accomplished there is not as much cohesiveness to hold the community together.

The community must find a new purpose that builds on its history. More work for the sake of power, dominance, wealth or notoriety seems shallow. In stage eight work must have meaning beyond building more.The community had a purpose. It played an important role, but that purpose has been achieved and the old role is not there anymore. The community feels its age. Rules and norms are becoming stiff and antiquated with time. The community seems passé. Though members might not speak this out loud, they wonder if they have lost their effectiveness.

For the community to rally the troops at this stage there must be a good reason. The old reasons that appeal to members’ personal interests are hollow and will not inspire action. The reason must relate to transcendent values, to ideals that will outlast Camelot. If the community cannot find such a reason to be, it will disintegrate quickly.Once a new transcendent goal is found and the community glue has been reset, members have particular tasks they need to do at this stage. They need to offer support to one another. At this stage members can easily be overcome by self-doubt, depression and despair. The community needs to be a safe place for renewal and acceptance. Members need to offer one another affirmation and respect. They need to believe in their community and in each other.There is no place here for a defensive ego, or blaming. Aging has created enough shame and fear without our fellow members piling on more. Members need compassion and understanding from one another. Members need to cheer on one another. They need to brag on and recall memories of past achievements.In addition to offering support members must be able to receive support.Members are tempted to close down here and to rebuild old defenses. It is easier for members to close out others than it is to let others in at this stage. Members need the strength to accept help and support from fellow members.

The choice of a new mission that serves a transcendent human value makes all these tasks easier. Without such a transcendent organizing principle, there will be no wind in the community sails.History has taught the community and its members that they have energy and passion. They have the capacity to define a community together. They have developed the skills needed to contain destructive impulses. They have put aside destructive blaming and they have collaborated effectively together. Surely their experience will count for something here, especially if the goal is to give power to other and bless human values.

Stage Eight Thinking

In this stage power is not what the community can build next. It is what the community can give away. Competition, building wealth, becoming powerful – that’s been done by this time. At this stage power does not come from strength or position or dominance. It comes from dignity. From the perspective in a community’s history, the object is to give, to contribute to something beyond itself and its members. It’s not about the mission anymore. It’s about sharing, discovering, values that transcend temporal existence. This stage is the opening salvo in task of facing mortality.In a relationship this might be our first inkling that we may divorce. Or it could be when we realize that the death of, first one of us and then the other will end the relationship. Dominance issues of the past are beginning to seem irrelevant. In a community members have permission to leave or members can take comfort in the good the community is doing at this stage.

Stage Eight Emotion

The emotion we must face at this stage is disgust. Primarily it is disgust with community and the fact that it did not accomplish more. There is disgust that the community now seems irrelevant in the larger world. It feels as if the community has been marginalized. There is disgust with the world for passing the community by. Disgust can turn into bitterness. The community’s job at this stage is to move beyond our disgust and avoid the trap of bitterness. Members need to encourage and support one another. The mission does not create a need for them anymore and that has to become okay.

Stage Eight Religion

The task at stage eight is to spread the faith. In the Christian tradition this is where the apostles spread the gospel all over the Roman Empire. In the Jewish tradition it is where Jonah goes to Nineveh to spread the faith. In a relationship this is where the couple chooses a cause to champion, a charity to support, a value to represent. They can only do this if they have their dignity. A couple with a bad reputation at this age is lost. A community needs pride in its history here. Members need to help one another keep the faith on several levels.

Stage Eight Government

In this stage government has worked so well that a transition of power has occurred and our party or community is its way out. The community is a lame duck, a past president. The job of the community is to understand that the office has the power, not the community of the party. The task, here at stage eight, is to serve the office by leaving it. Letting go is the only way members can keep their dignity and our dignity is our greatest resource. With their dignity intact the community can rally around their core values and become the loyal opposition.

Stage Eight Expectations

At stage eight there are few expectations. The mission is over. The glue that was the mission has dissipated. The community may have no reason to be. At this stage a whole new set of relationships is negotiated. A new contract is made. The most that can be expected of community members is to have compassion for themselves and their mates.

Stage Eight Economy

In stage eight the community is not so interested in trading or building wealth. This is not the time for proving itself. This is the stage where the community gives its wealth away. The problem is that the community is not sure whether it has anything of value and it may not know where to give it. The community economy has worked well. It has supported the community through the mission. There is energy and time and talent left to give. The community wants to distribute it to those who need it and who might value what it has to give.In stage eight a new form of social trading is introduced. This is what we call the generative trade. This is where one generation passes on its roles, assts and wisdom to another. These are a type of what McMillan (1997) calls transforming trades. Where complementary trades use and integrate differences they do not change the individual trading partners. A transforming trade passes a skill from one member to another or exchanges skills between members. If one person teaches another how to dance this is a transforming trade. The member who learned the new skill is now changed.A generative trade passes the transformation from one generation to another. My Aunt Selma taught me how to make her angel food cake. That was a generative trade. In a community these trades must be made so that a succession of power can be achieved peacefully, so that a community’s history can inform its future.

Stage Eight Philosophical Tension

The argument that members have with themselves and in their community is whether letting go of old roles and the old mission means giving up. Do they stop trying to contribute and stagnate or do they keep trying to generate something useful to others. If members don’t choose generativity over stagnation they will be like a tree that drops its leaves in August and September and doesn’t get to discover their full colors in October and November.

Developmental Tasks at Stage Eight: Generativity

There is one primary task at this stage and that is to stay aware. This can be a painful empty stage. Sadness can be overwhelming. It is easy to protest that things are fine when in fact the community is overwhelmed with guilt or a sense of inadequacy. McWilliams describes this as the “defense of reaction formation.” This is what happens when someone offers compassion and concern to the community when it has obviously failed and the community spokesperson, in shock, denies the failure. At this stage there is a great deal to be in shock about. The mission is accomplished. The game is over. The community has no reason to be. This is supposed to be a happy time, but it is not. These sad feelings, if not denied, will lead the community to its next purpose. And that purpose is giving away power and wisdom. There is joy in giving away wisdom to the next generation, to the community that is just emerging with a similar, yet different mission. It is the task at this stage to work through the depression of “mission accomplished” to discover the joy of the mission of empowering others. 

The Resources Needed at Stage Eight: Generativity

There are the resources needed at the generativity stage. These are: (1) transcendent values, (2) generosity, and (3) willingness to comfort and be comforted.

Transcendent Values

With the mission completed, what is left for a community to do? What is and what has always been a community’s most valuable resources? The answer is: its transcendent values. These are universal principles that helped guide the community through the various stages. It is in this stage that the community reflects on what made it successful. Collecting and passing on the community’s legacy of values to others is the work at the stage. It is important for a community to focus on these transcendent values here.

Generosity

With the mission accomplished gathering, storing and protecting resources is not important. Rather the task now is to share, to give away resources and information to members, non-members and other communities that can use them. What is given away at this stage can become the seeds and wombs for other communities.

Willingness to Comfort and be Comforted

In families this is the empty nest time. Children have graduated and become independent. Focusing now on acquiring and on selfish desires feels foolish. A community feels a loss at this time. Comfort and compassion is needed, but members must allow others to give them comfort. Out of this sadness of this time will come a mutual desire to give, not to the community that does not need these gifts, but rather to people and communities that are part of the outside world who do.The comfort given and received at this stage will provide the sustenance for the task of giving power, energy, things, time and wisdom to others.

Stage Nine, Authenticity Defined

In this stage the words “institutional change” are often heard in a large communities. This means the end is near. The corporation is being merged. The church doesn’t have quite enough income from members to pay a pastor and keep up the building. The band is touring for the last time. The actors know that this is near their play’s last performance.In this stage it becomes clear what really matters. What matters are not the heroic acts that the community did or the money it made. It was the love and communion that was shared among its members and for those served by the community. The strength and vitality of the community may be gone, but its memories are not. These memories include triumphant stories, but they also include memories of seemingly insignificant tender gestures, memories of warm smiles, hands held, tears shared.Community stories are told. It is not important that the fish was really only that big. In fact exaggeration to emphasize the importance of a value is important to this stage. Someone needs to write down these stories and protect the community’s history.With what little time the community has the community wants to do something that expresses who they are and what they have been together. Pretense serves no purpose now. The real truth is the only interesting subject. Who has time for anything else? So what the hell! If this is to be the community’s last hoorah then why doesn’t the community do it the way they have really always wanted to do it?

Members say what they have always wanted to say. Leaders do small acts that demonstrate their humanity.Since the end point for the collective’s time together is near and members no longer have to resist being swallowed up by the collective, the community can become closer. The community has no real authority to coerce behavior anymore. There is no one to blame. Each member owns his or her own integrity or despair. It is easy to hold on to what is left. No one will have to hold on too long.The task of the community is to organize what it will leave behind. The question to be answered is what are we leaving behind and to whom? Stories are repeated and collected. The community designates where its treasures are to go. The most important treasure is the gift of the community’s authentic spirit. Here the community reflects on what that is and expresses it with its last gasp. How will the flag be surrendered? Who will pass the torch?

The community does not need a great deal of things, power or money at this stage. It needs some members to have a modicum of health and strength. It needs enough money to complete what tasks there are left to do. The community needs for members to work together to collect and preserve their history.

Members need to support one another here. They know one another’s imperfections and strengths and they can give and receive acceptance with knowledge, a precious gift to any member at this stage. Members bring with them the knowledge of their shared story. They can confirm one another’s view of reality. They can reflect on the changes they have witnessed together and note their contribution to these changes.

Tasks are no longer delegated to the most competent. If the tasks are not done perfectly, it does not matter. The community is no longer characterized by defined roles. Boundaries are less necessary and less clear. Everybody who can helps.

Perhaps the community’s most essential skill at this stage is a sense of humor. Humor acknowledges frailty without giving in to it. Humor keeps members in touch with reality and with the irony of their predicament. Facing the end with humor somehow lightens the tasks of the day. Laughter diffuses anger. It counters frustrations with a giggle and a smile. It restores connections and gives hope that together reality can be face. Rather than crying this their loss members laugh. Most of all humor undoes self-righteous blaming.In this phase community members have the capacity for post-narcissistic love. It has the serenity to pass on its blessings and the perspective to defend its history. There is a willingness for members to forgive themselves and the past. These strengths can create an atmosphere of sweetness and a sense of well-being. Here there can be an inner harmony and balance that can only come with authenticity. The community at this stage can celebrate each member’s unique eccentricities. It can support members to live these out for as long as they can. Pretending and conforming is silly at this stage.In previous stages dignity and shame mattered. In this stage they no longer matter. Nor does it matter what caused the end. The point is that the end is coming and the community must deal with that. Every end creates a beginning for those who survive. A new community can be born from the remains of the old. But as the community ends, the community honors itself by celebrating its true self and hoping that whatever rebirth happens with what a community leaves behind that the rebirth will include the authentic spirit of what the community was.

Stage Nine Thinking

Jay Leno has an old woman who comes on as a guest on his late night television show occasionally. He calls her the “fruitcake lady.” She plays for him the role of an old crone. What she does is tell the truth to young people who ask her questions. She is funny, interesting and wise. Her power comes from telling the truth. Truth is the source of power at stage nine. Power does not belong to a person. Power comes from the truth. At this stage our power comes from being ourselves, telling our story and joining our truth with universal Truth.

Stage Nine Emotion

There is not one dominant emotion here. There is an awareness that time is short. We are afraid of many things. We have regrets and we are sad. But mostly we are tired. We are aware of how much we need to rest and how precious our energy is. We can only do so much. We can’t be depended on for hard work. We know that we are preparing for one last letting go. It would be so difficult if we weren’t so tired, but we are.

Stage Nine Religion

In Christianity this is the end time, what some call “the Rapture.” This is what theologians call the “eschatological moment.” For relationships this is the time when we need our faith. Facing facts was important as we developed our strength and our skills. We needed to understand the reality of life in order to accomplish our mission. Our faith helped us do that at each stage. At this stage we need to face the reality of death. Here the facts of life do not help. Life is where we have been. It is not where we are going.At this stage we resort back to the magical thinking of stage one. We build our faith ships that will help in our last passage with masts of imagination and visions of those who have gone before us. We collect our stories from our past. Those are the only things that may have a chance of going with us and surviving after we are gone. We weave universal transcendent Truth into our stories so that our stories become part of the eternal. These truths will serve as a bridge to the next part of our journey.

Stage Nine Government

Government. How silly a thing is government? Without the striving and without our narcissism and without a role to play in the game what do we care about decision-making. We have no influence over whether and when we are going to die and neither does the government. Death changes all our priorities at this stage. Here we are content to leave the real life decisions to those who care about such things. We will let them do that. Our relationship’s government is not so difficult when the end is so near. We just do the best we can to support each other.

Stage Nine Expectations

There is not much left to expect. We expect that there is little time left. We expect the end is near. We do not make promises and we require few promises from our mates. The only thing we want from them and the only thing we expect is that one of us will be near the other until the end and the other will wait for us on the other side.

Stage Nine Economy

Notice the world’s richest person is rarely about to die. Toward the end we tend to withdraw from commerce. We are not so interested in trade. The intensity and frequency of our exchanges diminish. Our spheres of influence shrink. We now simply need enough of everything to get us to the end.The social economy in stage nine is less into trading and more into annotating and collecting stories. The job of a stage nine economy is to protect its history, its values, its symbols and especially its stories. What members can get and give to each other at this stage is limited. Termination looms and there is little time. It is if the house is on fire and the valuables you gather at this stage have to do with symbols, memories and the community’s soul. The job of the community’s economy at this stage is to protect the soul.

Stage Nine Philosophical Tension

At this stage the opposing tensions are between despair and dignity. Can we find honor in our truth at the end? Can we face death with dignity? Will we go out like a sunset over the ocean on a clear day with an afterglow or will we go out hiding our face behind a cloud, unnoticed, just gone? These are the questions that remain unresolved in our minds. Time now will answer them.

Stage Nine in History

The seeds of the destruction of the Roman Empire were sown in its early stages of development. The emperors hoarded power. They never prepared for their successor. The battles that ensued the death of the emperor weakened the empire.Instead of expanding the roles and authority into its citizens in the form of a democracy, the emperors gave citizenship away without expecting or wanting much back from its citizens. Romans were given food and entertainment. They did not have to serve in the military. Consequently Rome’s armies lost their discipline and sense of service. Rome hired mercenaries from the ranks of their enemies, weakening their defenses.For 1000 years Rome expanded its territory. Roman armies improved the infrastructure of whatever lands they conquered. They built excellent roads. They developed water and sewer systems that saved labor and promoted health. They increased trade.“Rome’s successful expansion also brought about its collapse. It expanded its ability to control and coordinate. Propriety ripened the principles of decay. Cause of destruction multiplied with the extent of the conquest. As soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight.” GibbonJust prior to Rome’s fall in A.D.476 Emperor Constantine began to foresee the empire’s inevitable decline. This was Rome’s stage nine. His primary struggle was a spiritual one. He had to decide what Rome’s spiritual legacy would be. Would it be continued emperor worship and multi-theism or would it be Christianity? This was his primary focus. Ultimately he chose Christianity and that became Rome’s primary gift to world history. It was the main institution that has continued to survive in Western Civilization.

Developmental Tasks at Stage Nine: Integrity

The primary task at this stage is integration of truth and meaning into stories. The end is near there is no reason to compartmentalize the community into roles and functions. McWilliams uses the term “the compartmentalization defense” to represent this subject. Roles are not needed and there is very little to keep functioning. This is a time for a community to come together and celebrate its true essence, to be what it really is, to express what matters. This is truly a time when the whole is more than the sum of its parts. The spirit of the community that was defined here must be expressed again perhaps for the last time.

Resources Needed at Stage Nine: Integrity

There are three resources needed at the integrity stage. They are: (1) a sense of humor, (2) a myth of what death means, and (3) faith that the community’s spirit will somehow live on.

Sense of Humor

This is a time of preparing for a final letting go. The community’s strength is diminished. It is a shell of its former self. There is a great deal of playful absurdity that can be present at this stage. A community may have lost its strength, but as long as it still has its most rich capacity and that is the ability to laugh at itself, it can creatively express its essence.Laughing makes all the rest bearable.

A Myth of What Death Means

It is a very difficult thing for a person or a community to approach death without a sense of what it means. Some communities will take refuge in the merger with the unknown. Others will develop a myth about life after death. Others will see absurdity and finality and will see facing the end as an opportunity to express their courage and their uniqueness. Without some way to imagine death and its meaning a community at this stage can sink into despair.

Faith

All people and all communities aspire to make a difference. Communities would like to think that it mattered that once upon a time they existed. A community can create many versions of life after death. The most realistic is that death of a community is final, but the community has a legacy of values, stories and art that will live on. The most fanciful is that the community will be reborn.Whatever version a community has for life after death, it helps a community accept an end point, if it has faith that somehow it has and will participate in the eternal. 

Stage Ten, Termination and Potential Defined

Erikson did not have a stage ten because death by definition is the end of life. But this isn’t exactly true of a community. A community may die, but the people who once claimed to belong to that community have work to do to accommodate and accept life without the existence of that entity.This stage is filled with questions about what happened and what’s next. Anger and grief are natural responses to the loss. It is tempting here to be angry at the community, to say “I’m glad its over and gone.” These things are said to avoid the inevitable feelings of sadness that can be overwhelming at this stage.What is left of the community is in the minds of those who once belonged to it. In their minds old tapes play, new imaginary conversations with the past are heard inside their heads. How they deal with their loss can determine the quality of the remainder of their lives.

Can they commit again? Do they have the courage to trust in communion with others after they have lost a community that once meant so much to them?

Memories are a mixed blessing. Memories keep them connected to what was important and at the same time these memories tie them to the past. The task is to incorporate their past into their present and future without bitterness. This is the product of healthy grief.Going forward means that they must accept their inheritance left them by their former community. They must discover their most important legacy that the community left them. And that is they learned about their capacity to care in that community. They tested the strength and size of their heart. They discovered skills that will be useful in a new community that will challenge them to join in, be a part of, open their heart to and care about again.

Right beside death is rebirth. As a tree dies in the forest, its death creates room for new seeds to sprout and grow. As the old community passes, opportunities to make new commitments present themselves. The task at this stage is to recognize these new opportunities and have the courage to risk joining again.

Stage Ten Thinking

In a word, confused. If life is a circle and in stage one power comes from the dominant monkey, in stage ten the definition of dominance has yet to be formed. We are disoriented. We have our history. We have the skills to test reality. We understand many things, but we do not know where to be. We do not know where our power lies.

Stage Ten Emotion

Part of the reason for this confusion is that we are not sure what we feel. We know we are sad, but we have another feeling that is emerging that is difficult to admit. That feeling is desire. When we feel it we feel guilty for feeling it. We also cannot seem to find a clear object for our desire. That will have to wait for rebirth and stage one. There is an old wives tale that widows and widowers are easy sexual prey. If that’s true, it is understandable in the context of what’s happening to them in stage ten. They think that their sexuality died with their mates. When an attractive person hugs them to comfort them and they find themselves aroused. They feel they shouldn’t be, but they are. Sometimes they create a sexual event to prove to themselves that they are still alive.

Stage Ten Religion

Some couples go out together. My father’s parents did. My grandfather died first. Shortly after my grandmother followed. For such couples the issues at stage ten are resolved. But for those who remain behind this is the place where their faith’s promise that rebirth follows death is tested. Will there be a resurrection? Will desire return? Until it does we need to hold on to the hope that it will. We need our faith at stage ten to keep this hope alive.

Stage Ten Government

A new power base emerges at some point. A new person or sets of persons become part of our decision making. We have the skills to build a new government. We understand the need to respect others and give them a vote. We understand that we need worth opponents to present different ideas. We understand that we need to be checked and balanced. Consequently we can build a new government structure faster than we did in our first relationship. Hopefully we can find others who can as well.

Stage Ten Expectations

At this stage expectations is not a relevant topic. At stage ten there are none. There is no one to expect anything of. What we should ask of ourselves is that we remain open to be joined, open to new alliances.

Stage Ten Economy

We have our inheritance, but we have no trading partners. The task here is first to accept our inheritance, to take inventory on what that is. Once we have taken stock of what we have to invest, the next task is to find people to invest with. When we do this we are in a stage one economy.The social inheritance comes form what we collected in stage nine. In stage ten the task of the social economy is to reinvest our inheritance into a new community. Take the values, the lessons learned and the skills developed from the deceased community and find a new community where these will be useful.

Stage Ten in History

The expansion of Rome made governing its empire untenable. In A.D. 323 after a civil war Constantine decided that the Roman Empire, as it was, could not be governed. He divided the empire into two parts. The capital of the Eastern half became Constantinople. The Rome half of the empire did not survive the cataclysm of the third and fourth centuries. The Eastern Empire did survive to become what was called the Byzantine Empire.The survivors of Rome had to deal with the questions of termination. Christianity became its answer to these questions. It was the primary survivor of the Roman Empire.

Stage Ten Philosophical Tension

The inner tension of stage ten is between life and death. Do we want to be reborn in a new life or do we want to die with the old? Do we want the certainty of death or are we strong enough to embrace the ambiguity of a life again? If our answer is life then the circle is complete. Stage one has begun.

The Developmental Tasks at Stage Ten: Termination

There are three primary tasks at the termination stage. All of them involve healthy grief. They are: (1) surrender to fate, (2) accept the community’s legacy, and (3) take the old into the new.

Surrender to Fate

The emotion of hope that was so helpful in the first stage is not helpful here. Hope for rescue, or an extension of life, when the reality is that life for the community is over, will only trap former members their own purgatory. The stories, rituals, traditions and art that were the old community can remain. These can help former members hold on to the memories and the spiritual values of the community and still accept that the community is no more.Many former members are tempted to cover their sadness and hurt with rage, denouncing the community and blaming it for the problems that they face now. This is what McWilliams calls “the displacement defense.” It is important that former members get past blaming and rage in order to go forward.

Accept the Legacy

Many former members refuse to accept the gifts that came from the death of the community. If they can’t have the community that they once had they don’t want to acknowledge the gifts that they received from being part of it. It is too painful to remember and to care for what they lost. This, of course, is part of the process that is required in accepting one’s inheritance. Again ritual, traditions and symbols can help former members accept their legacy.

Take the Old into the New

At this stage it is easy for former members to hold on the their weak helpless feelings. Stubborn resentment that holds on to the past can be a way to avoid the future while creating the illusion that the member is loyal, strong and dedicated.Other former members might allow themselves to be stuck in self-pity, holding on to their pain and suffering as if it is all that they have left of the community that they loved. They may pretend that they are too weak and helpless to deal with change.In reality the only way for the spirit of a deceased community can live on is to be carried on into new communities by the old community’s former members. They must tell the stories and pass on the rituals and traditions developed by their former community. The Christmas tree is an example of the Christian traditions merging with the Celtic traditions. The spiritual values of the deceased community can have new life if former members are open to watching themselves become part of a new beginning. This is what happened to the Judeo Christian culture when the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews dispersed throughout the Roman Empire. Seeds of the Judeo Christian culture were planted all over the world.

Resources Needed at Stage Ten: Termination

There are three resources needed in the termination stage. They are: (1) friends, (2) strength to cope without the community, and (3) time to grieve.

Friends

Losing one thing doesn’t mean that former members have lost everything. Having good friends helps former members remind themselves that they have other strong hands to hold that help define them and connect them to meaning. Former members need friends with shoulders to cry on who understand and care. They need friends with whom they can imagine new beginnings, friends who respect the values that former members bring with them and friends who will include these values in shared projects.

Strength to Cope Without the Community

In stage five hopefully members learned that they were responsible for their own happiness. If they got that lesson at stage five then they can use it here. This confidence can help them face their loss and accept their legacy. It will help them feel their sadness without fear that it will overwhelm them. At stage five they knew they could have left the community. They simply chose not to leave. Now that the community has left them they can remember the strength they had to take care of themselves with or without their community.

Time to Grieve

It is a worthless former member who lost her community and doesn’t feel sad. Loving requires courage because all of us sooner or later lose everything we loved. Sadness and grief is a tribute to the community that the member cared for and to the grieving member who has the courage to care.But to grieve we must have a protected time and space where our sadness is not exploited or judged as a sign of weakness. Taking this time and using it well will prepare former members to accept their inheritance and to carry it forward into new beginnings.Having time to grieve is not one long period. Grieving is not a continuous process. Grieving is a collection of moments across time. People need breaks from grief, just as they need moments to feel their sadness. Grieving may never be over for some. But healthy grief does not inhibit new beginnings. Healthy grief weaves the values derived from the former community’s history into whatever new commitments former members make. 

Conclusion

I do not want to write this now. Perhaps someone else would like to take a shot at it. There are the things that we need to say that we haven’t yet said. One is that these stages are not arbitrary. We have no clear precise thresholds between stages. In fact it is hard to distinguish between stages four and five. The second thing about stages is that just because a community reaches a higher stage doesn’t meant that it won’t often regress back to previous stages. George Carlin, a seventies comedian, once did a routine demonstrating how a fifty year old could act like a five year old. “Once we pass an age,” he said, “we can always go back to it.”The third thing is that these stages exist for a community as it evolves and for new members as they join with a community.Some communities can skip a stage or stages. They can go from stage one to stage seven, but this will make stage seven almost impossible. 

Changing a Community's Climate

Assume for the moment that we know what the essential ingredients are to a community and its spirit; that we know the developmental path that communities follow; what we do not yet know is a community’s emotional climate? And how can a community psychologist help a community to transform its emotional climate? That is the focus of this article.

Psyche is the Greek word for the soul. And given that since the thing that creates and defines a community is spirit, community psychologists ultimately must tend to the soul and spirit of a community. Isomorphy in systems theory is essential to us in this endeavor as it was in the two previous chapters. What is lawful at the individual level is also lawful at other levels, including the community level.Humans have nine basic emotions that are hard wired into their bodies and brains. These nine emotions express the current quality musical tone and color of their spirit. Communities derive their emotions from the same source as individuals.A community can be angry (hence war) sad (hence depression) happy (hence celebrations of victory) startled and surprised (hence what happens when a power company announces that it is building a new power plant in the community). And we can go on. In addition to anger, sadness, joy and surprise the remaining five emotions are desire, fear, shame, disgust and relaxation.

Like people, communities are always feeling something. The purpose of this article is to describe how collective feelings work in a community. To do that we must detour through research on emotion and the brain to make our case that there are basic emotions and that emotions are discrete powerful forces that operate separately and collaboratively in humans and in human communities. The theory here is that one emotion can be resolved by any of the other emotions. People and communities have emotional habits. We use a few emotions and we avoid feeling and expressing others. Consequently we overuse some emotions and communities and individuals get stuck in emotional cycles that Laing (1972) called knots. These cycle become traps the communities sometimes cannot seem to emerge from (e.g., Afghanistan from 1980-2001 or the United States between 1929-1945).

Theory from Individual to Community Emotions

If the practicing community psychologist understands how these collective feelings work, which emotional sequences become knots and which emotional sequences are healthy paths in a community’s emotional history, then a community psychologist might be able to help craft an effective community intervention.For the emotion theory base of this chapter refer to McMillan’s book Emotion Ritual. This book is written primarily for psychotherapists. Its focus is primarily on the individual. McMillan in that book described the dynamic power of each one of the basic emotions and how useful this knowledge could be when helping someone change. There he reviews emotion theory and the neurology of emotions. This is only tangentially of interest to us here.

Here we will describe the assets and liabilities each emotion brings to a community. For each emotion we will describe a four step process that community psychologists can use when helping a community transform its emotional climate when a community becomes pathologically trapped in one emotion or one emotional knot.

The theory is obvious to a musicologist, because emotional expression functions much like musical expression. In fact it can be argued that music is simply an expression of human emotions. Most music reflects one emotional tone or theme. It is the rare musical composition that moves from one emotion to another. Beethoven’s 95th Symphony is an example of this. Music historians say that it was written to express the feelings of a tempestuous romantic adventure that was particularly painful to the composer. The listener can hear the emotions expressed in Beethoven’s music move from one emotion to another. The music begins in the emotion of interest and moves quickly to excitement, which merges into joy, which is resolved by shame, which transformed by anger which moves into joy which turns to shame which transforms into fear and so on throughout the piece.

This is how emotions flow in all of us. Emotions are not just one current of energy. They are many different currents each with the capacity of resolving the preceding one. Emotions are different. It is just the flow that is constant. To work with human communities we must understand each discrete emotion and how we can use it to transform the human emotional flow.Considering emotions in the singular as one and attempting to be a master of one’s feelings is like knowing how to play one instrument, for example, the drums and trying to play all the musical instruments like a drum. While it may sort of work for the piano or even string instruments, it will only dent the brass instruments and crack the woodwinds. Each emotion requires a different knowledge and a different set of skills to use that emotion correctly.Consider another musical metaphor. Imagine that one believed that one knows music because one can play a single note, or even several single notes. What about chords or chords in a series or major and minor keys? To be a master of music one must understand how the notes flow together and yet at the same time remain discrete notes. To be a master of emotions one must understand the function of each emotion and how emotions flow together.

Community Emotions?

Though the reader might grudgingly accept that individuals feel these basic unique and separate emotions in this way they may remain skeptical about whether or not a community always feels one dominant emotion.The answer is, of course not, and neither is it always clear what an individual feels all the time. There are times in individuals when feelings co-exist together without one single emotion emerging to the forefront of the brain. The same is true for a community. Various parts of a community might be feeling different emotions. But shared community events can bring the community together in a shared emotional response.In a small rural Mississippi town five murders happened in a short space of time in 199_. The killer has yet to be found. This left the community of Columbus in a collective fear. In Arkansas, former President Clinton can tell you that when the Razorbacks football team beat Texas (a rare event) the whole state would feel delight and joy. We all can remember being in a movie or a play when the audience was responding emotionally in sync with the movie episodes. Mob violence is explained by a shared irrational rage. Countries have emotions that can be seen in their media and in the words that their leaders speak. Communities express collective emotions because people are all wired emotionally with almost exactly the same emotional circuitry.Before we come back to how communities feel, lets consider first how it is that individuals feel and how social science has dealt with feelings.

Community Anger 

We see this often in the 1960’s western movies. A lynch mob forms outside the jail. The crowd is angry. The sheriff comes out alone. His strength is not able to frighten the mob out of their anger. Then a woman steps up beside the sheriff and says, “You should be ashamed of yourselves. Now go home” and the crowd grumbles and disperses.

Anger Defined

While there is one facial expression of anger, anger can have two different adaptive functions, represented in separate neurological structures. The first and most recognized function of anger is defensive. It is a response to threat or danger. The second is the consummatory anger of the predator. The facial expressions, the loud voice, the bared teeth, and the clenched fist all say, “I’m ready for a fight, so stop and submit.”Defensive anger allows the object of the anger to withdraw. The predator’s angry expressions are merely the first part of an attack. Played out this way, anger expresses dominance. It says, “You might as well submit, because I’m going to have my way.”Anger motivates and always provides energy. As a defense, anger is part of the brain’s amygdala system’s red-alert fight/flight response (Adams, 1979). Anger prepares us for a defensive fight, which of course can become quickly transformed into a predatory offensive attack where no prisoners are taken and dominance and consumption becomes the purpose.

Intelligence and Anger

Anger, especially defensive anger, shuts down the transmission of information from other parts of the brain. Endorphins render the neocortex inoperative. Thus our brains are reduced to the paleomammalian brain, which is about the size of our fist. This part of our brain is fully mature by the age of five, while the neocortex is not fully developed until age 26  (Panksepp, 1986).Anger shuts down sensory input. We accept no information that does not support our reasons to be angry. Angry people rarely perceive reality as it is. They omit facts that don’t support their anger. They use high risk/reward decision-making strategies that often result in poor decisions (Baumeister, 1996).

Anger is full of cognitive distortions, particularly dichotomous thinking. Without the neocortex and with only the small mammalian brain, we cannot process complex thoughts. In red-alert situations, vigilant responses need to be immediate. Excess consideration would be dangerous. Doubt and second thoughts could get us killed. Therefore, we think in only two polarities: enemy/ally, good/bad, black/white, etc. Not only does anger filter out unwelcome information, it restricts our ability to think deeply.Offensive anger is more complex and can include cunning and intelligent predatory planning. Still, dichotomous thinking dominates, and we filter out painful stimuli. Our intelligence remains compromised by this form of anger as well.

The Negative Consequences in Individuals

In addition to the physical problems anger can cause, it is easy to see to see the psychological damage and not to speak of the social pain anger can cause. Anger is singularly the most socially controlled emotion. In order to deal with anger, police departments, courts, and prisons employ millions of people. No other emotional behavior receives such legislative attention, nor is any emotion more frequently spoken of from the pulpit.Anger causes violence in families. It creates fear in others, destroying the social fabric of families and friendships. It creates paranoia and the impetus for delusional thinking, as we construct the justifications used to excuse anger.Although it can certainly become an expression of insanity, the worst thing about anger is not so much that it makes us crazy. The worst thing about anger is that it makes us stupid. It also inhibits us from realizing how stupid we have become because of the justifications that follow.           

“I wouldn’t have hit her, if dinner had been ready. She deserved it.”

This is the second worst thing about anger: it creates righteous indignation and a sense of entitlement, where no justification or righteousness exists.In United States history perhaps the clearest example of community anger was the Civil Rights Movement. In 1957 angry white people lined the streets of Little Rock, Arkansas as nine black children were escorted to school, protected by National Guard troops and federal marshals. The white community raged throughout the South as the schools and public venues were forcefully integrated. Angry black mobs rioted in many American cities after Martin Luther King was killed.The television cameras captured this rage for all to see. Many contend that media coverage of the civil rights marches and the confrontations with Sheriff Bull Connor in Selma, Alabama were the critical moments when the country as a whole moved their emotional support to the Civil Rights cause. The media captured the ugly childish ranting of the angry white people and the vicious meanness of the angry police with their clubs and dogs. This stood in stark contrast to the calm, respectful demeanor of the civil rights protestors. The country’s compassion and sympathy went out to them and their cause.

The Negative Consequences of Anger to a Community

Collective anger is a powerful force. Its violent consequences can be seen in the aftermath of some soccer games in Europe. Riots in American cities leave death, buildings burned and people frightened to walk outside.For authorities and the police who are trying to control this collective rage, they are fortunate that most of the time such community rage has no leadership structure and lacks good sense. Eventually an angry community collapses into rational thinking and compassion. Usually a spontaneous angry collective cannot sustain its anger.

When David McMillan was a boy in the first grade he hated school. He thought it was wrong to imprison children in the name of learning. Who could learn when they were still and quiet or being told to be quiet? He learned by playing and acting, not being still. He assumed everybody felt as he did.One day in school something about the children’s crusades was mentioned. This sparked his imagination. He would stage a spontaneous revolt. He would walk into the halls and shout for all the children to follow him. He would lead them on a march down Main Street. The problem was that once he got them at the end of Main Street he didn’t have any notion of what to do then. His revolutionary anger had no plan or logistical strategy therefore it was ineffective. Anger cuts out creative thinking in a person and in a community.

The Positive Consequences of Anger to the Individual

Anger creates energy and a sense of purpose. It protects us from pain and powerfully focuses our attention. Angry people are often very successful. Tennis great John McEnroe is a celebrated example of a man who used anger as a powerful motivating force in competition. How many athletes have played without pain during a game, only to find out after the game that they were playing with a broken bone?!Anger helps us get things done. It speeds up our thinking. It gives us a sense that we are right. Confidence and focus come with this sense of purpose. Self-esteem is a part of anger. We feel entitled to our anger. It is here because we must right some wrong. We must do something. As an example, we know of angry people who have picked automobiles off people lying under the car’s tires.Anger comes from caring deeply and passionately about something. We would never be angry if we didn’t desire something that we were frustrated from having, or if we weren’t protecting ourselves and those we love from some potential loss.In a way, predatory anger is a compliment. It means that the object of this obsession is wanted and desired. Many people want to be the prey for a particular person’s desire. When this works for the predator and the object of the predator’s desire, some call this love, magic, or romance. Certainly, both parties are fortunate that one has the desire for the other and the other wants to be the object of that intense passion. But there are times when the object of this passion does not wish for this attention. Then, predatory anger is at least intrusive and at worst dangerous.

The Positive Consequences of Anger for a Community

The Old Testament is filled with stories of God punishing Israel for His wrath because the Jews had become corrupt. Anger is clearly a parental socializing force. If anger, power and authority are combined people obey. Anger has been a powerful force in righting social wrongs in the American Revolution, the abolitionist movement, desegregation and equal rights for women.Anger can mobilize a victim to defend herself when attacked. Anger at people who desecrate an important community symbol, such as its flag, represents the depth of loyalty and love that one has for one’s community that the flag represents.

Resolving Anger

Each emotion can resolve every other emotion, but the resolve might not be a healthy one. Let’s consider each emotion one at a time as a potential candidate to resolve anger. Fear can resolve anger. Children’s anger is often resolved by the fear of a parent’s disapproval. Resolving anger with fear only represses the anger and creates a feeling of cowardice. Also fear is rarely a choice one can make coming from anger. If we assume that the amygdala mediates the fight/flight response in an emergency, and if we assume anger is the fight half, then if we are thrown by the amygdala into anger it is not easy for us to voluntarily return to fear. To resolve an emotion we need a path that we can choose and fear is not an easy choice from anger. (Danger or threat, which does not involve choice, can trigger a quick retreat from anger to fear).

Let’s save sadness for the last emotion we nominate as the emotion to resolve anger and get us back into the flow. Next then consider joy. Of course, when anger achieves a goal, joy resolves anger in the victory. If the victory is truly a reasonable achievement, then of course the anger was justified and joy is a healthy move from anger. But many times the victory and joy that can come from anger only perpetuates tyranny, and joy becomes an unhealthy resolution to anger, especially for a community.

Shame is an obvious resolve to anger. The problem is that shame is often toxic. When toxicity is a part of shame, it creates more hurt, which requires anger as a defense again. This is the typical batterer emotional cycle anger ® shame ® anger ® shame, etc.Shame then becomes the precursor to anger, not its resolve.Desire transforms anger from a defensive emotion into an offensive one.   

Becoming a predator is not necessarily bad, but often it is not something to be encouraged and may create a painful legacy.Surprise is a neutral emotion: It will take one out of anger, but no one knows what emotion will follow.Fatigue/rest/trance never did any harm to an angry person. It may provide some moments of calm and peace, but all too often a once angry person awakes from the trance and finds anger again.Disgust is an important cog in the CAD (contempt-anger-disgust) triad (Rozin et al., 1999). But disgust adds fuel to anger and provides anger’s justification. It does not really resolve anger.

Treating Anger: Finding a Healthy Resolve

Treating anger requires a carrot and stick. Fear will always overcome anger. The angry confident person easily can flip the switch to the flight part of the fight/flight red-alert system in the brain. Similar brain circuitry is at work. Many neurohormones are shared. Though fear can be almost as stupid as anger, often it has a bit more intelligence.Fear is the emotional base of respect. And an authority must have respect in order to be effective. Having a stick that creates fear and respect will stop anger quickly. Sometimes fear is an important treatment resource. Police and the courts can serve as the stick. Therapists and treatment programs can be the carrot. As noted earlier fear is a poor end-point for the journey out of anger and we can rarely choose fear on our own. If we submit just because the other individual is dominant and we are afraid, we can hate ourselves and the other. No real internal change occurs. When the source of fear leaves, the same behavior returns. Conforming out of fear can create much shame and resentment. These feelings become new fuel for renewal rage. Fear may be an effect first step for resolving anger, but it is a poor place to stop.

Once our anger is contained for whatever reason, the next step is to help the angry person find a path to sadness. When we reach sadness, we will discover the intelligence embedded in that emotion. Sadness is a healthy path of resolve for anger. When the angry person lets go of her predatory goal and grieves the loss, the healthy resolution of anger is not far behind.

Steven Stosny founded the Compassion Program based on this premise. (We modeled our Nashville Compose Program after this.) Stosny treated sexually offending priests for the Catholic Church in the Catholic psychiatric hospital in Washington, DC. In a visit to a Duluth, (Minn.), model batterers program, he discovered why that model had been so ineffective in treating perpetrators of family violence. These programs treat anger with shame. At conventions of domestic violence counselors, defenders of the Duluth model declare that these men* are difficult, if not impossible, to treat. Incarceration is clearly the only option. This blames the batterer for the program’s ineffectiveness, much like the batterer often blames the victim for the battering.

Stosny’s premise was that anger is a defense against hurt. Shaming the batterer only creates more hurt. And, hence, more anger. This is why the Duluth model cannot accommodate couples and why battering often reoccurs in families when the program participant returns home after attending a Duluth-model program.According to Adele Harrell (1991), Duluth-model participants are as likely or more likely to batter after completing the program than they were before treatment. This is the one place where therapy seems to break the Hippocratic Oath “to do no harm.”In contrast, Stosny’s Compassion Program graduated 75 percent of its participants, and 90 percent of its graduates did not re-offend for one year post-treatment. This contrasts with the Duluth model that graduates less than 50 percent and 90 percent of whose graduates re-offend within one year of treatment (Stosny, 1995).In introducing his program, Stosny began by discussing his own violent father whom he loved. He presented coping with anger as a universal problem that all of us must master. And, of course, he stated that mastering our anger is not easy. Stosny told participants that the Compassion Program was there, not to condemn. It was there to teach skills, primarily the skill of focusing below the anger to feel the sadness and hurt first, thus derailing the anger. It takes courage to give up the defense of anger and to feel sad and hurt.Sadness neurohormones dissolve anger neurohormones. After focusing on the hurt that the anger defends, the next step is to contain shame and self-attacks by offering compassion to one’s self. The final step is to learn perspective-taking and empathy by having compassion for the person who was, at one time, the focus of the anger. This brings self-esteem and pride (joy) in one’s own character – pride that we have the capacity to give compassion and understanding, even to an opponent. This process focuses on the universal sadness and tragedy of the human experience and ends with the joy, self-esteem, and pride that are by-products of compassion.

Explaining the Compassion Program, Stosny calls the skill he teaches the HEALS technique. It is an acronym. I have adapted this technique and rewritten it for our Compose Program. My version is the HEART technique:

Step 1:  Imagine seeing in flashing images before you, the letters HEART. Focus on these to contain your anger. This step uses will power, which only lasts about 40 seconds.

Step 2:  After you have contained your behavior, Examine the hurt below the anger. Nominations for words that express your hurt and sadness are:  unimportant, disregarded, valueless, powerless or inadequate, unlovable or unfit for human contact. Feel these feelings for about 20 seconds. This will put in your brain the real feelings of sadness that your anger protects you from feeling. This changes your neurohormones from anger neurohormones to brain chemicals that signal your body that you are sad.

Step 3: Once you have realized that you felt unimportant, disregarded, unworthy, or valueless, etc., Ask the question of common sense. Is it true that at your core you are unimportant, etc.? The answer is always no. This inoculates you from toxic shame.

Step 4: Now that you have reaffirmed your basic worth, look inside give respect to the other person or look inside them and see that what they feel. They feel some of the same feelings that you do.  He or she is most likely feeling one or more of these: unimportant, unworthy of regard, valueless, powerless or inadequate, unlovable, disgusting, or unfit for human contact. This is a tragedy. Respect them and their feelings. You are now sad for yourself and sad for your adversary, too. In this state of Respect you are having compassion as well. The next step is easier.

Step 5: Together solve the problem or wait until you can work together to solve the problem. For more information about Steven Stosny’s program see his book Treating attachment abuse: A compassionate approach.

Treating Community Anger

Western movies borrow a technique for dispensing an angry crowd from the dialogue Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. In such a scene the woman often calls each person by name. This individualizes the community members and separates them from the trance that bonds them to whole. Spoken this way members rediscover accountability and their own individual moral values.

Treating community anger follows much the same pattern as Stosny’s compassion program that works in tandem with the police. You must have a stick and a carrot. Fear will resolve anger quickly. Fear uses part of the same brain structure that anger uses. If authorities can activate fear in a rage community then their anger will transform quickly into fear. Submission or dispersal will be the consequence.If this is the end of treatment the community will have a lot of people whose amygdala has been stimulated. Authorities have turned the amygdala switch to fear, but it could just as quickly flip back to anger. This is the dynamic for riots that continue for days or the dynamic of a neighborhood plagued by chronic rioting.If the legacy of the intervention is shame then people will eventually require anger as a defense against the shame. This is a common emotional knot: anger resolved by fear, which is resolved by shame, which is resolved by anger, etc.

To stop this violent cycle some other tool must be activated. Compassion is the internal resource that Stosny used to treat batterers. And it is the next step in treatment for an angry community. (Later we will discuss compassion as emotions master key.)

Authorities should look under the anger to the hurt of that the expressed anger tried to protect. The question: “What is wrong here that made people so angry?” should be asked by people who can change things. As authorities model compassion by listening, caring and responding to the community’s hurt, authorities should also be asking those who were caught acting violently to be accountable for their behavior. Jail time may be necessary to help people calm down and protect the public, but jail does not make a person accountable. Perpetrators of violence should be taught to understand the pain their actions caused others (often not the people that they were angry at, but their own friends and neighbors).

They should be asked to apologize and make amends. There are several court programs that include restitution as part of the treatment. To make restitution something that transforms the perpetrator the court or some other authority should help the perpetrator find joy, pride and honor in their redemption. This creates a process that transforms anger through fear and shame into wisdom and honor (joy and pride). Too often the courts short-circuit this process and leave the perpetrator in fear and shame with no path to compassion and pride.

Community leadership needs to be accountable as well. They need to acknowledge that they were not listening and that in the future it will not require riot to get their attention. Their listening to the community’s hurt should bring change.If this appears to be similar to individual treatment, it is. But all such treatment done on behalf of the public makes a statement to the community. These statements are that authorities are listening; that change happened because the community spoke; that anger without violence is fine; leaders will listen; but that violence hurts everybody, and compassion, accountability and forgiveness are things that everybody needs to participate in. These statements become healing community statements. Sadness is shared by the whole community, not just one part. All participants become proud of their part in the story. Our communities often use only parts of this anger transforming process. Hopefully this theory and community psychologists can be employed sooner than later.

Community Fear

Perhaps the best theatrical example of community fear is Alfred Hitchcock’s famous movie thriller The Birds. In that movie something cataclysmic had happened to the seagulls consciousness in a small coastal community. The birds began to attack people. They seemed to be guided by a shared rage and a collective consciousness that directed their battle. The whole town was consumed with fear.Natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and volcanoes can quickly unite a community in fear. In American history perhaps the greatest moment of fear was when it was announced that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. The white American myth was that in American frontier homes the words “we are surrounded by Indians” would create instant fear among the white settlers. African American myth finds collective fear in the words “Men in white robes are burning a cross outside.”

Fear Defined

Fear is the other half of the fight/flight response. It shares much of the brain chemicals and neurostructure of anger. Fear, along with disgust, is also on one polarity of the approach/avoidance structure (Rozin, et al., 1999). Fear can mean “flee,” “run,” “get out of here,” but is can also mean “avoid,” “go the other way,” “hide,” or “be still and maybe they won’t notice.”

Fear announces a threat that is more powerful than we are and that this threat might hurt us, either physically or emotionally. In fear, the face seems to freeze (Izard, 1971). The skin becomes cool, pale, and sweaty. Fear turns up the body heat, increases the heart rate and breathing. Fear amplifies attention, thinking, and access to memory.  It creates so much mental activity that we become mentally paralyzed. Breath moves to the top of the lungs. Often, hyperventilation is the consequence. Memories of other frightening times can flood the mind.Healthy fear can protect us. Fear can help us be careful and cautious. Fear is associated with respect, sensitivity, kindness, and submission (Olds, 1977).

Fear and Intelligence

Fear makes us almost as stupid as anger, but not quite. Anger sends us boldly into action, sometimes ill-considered action. Fear shrouds us in confusion, doubt, and uncertainty (Lang, et al., 1990). We are so flooded with stimuli and memories of previous painful times that we cannot think straight. The only good thing about this is that when we are afraid, we know that we aren’t thinking straight. We believe we are in danger, and we hope to find a sanctuary soon. Along with the safety and calm we seek, we hope our return to sanity will come as well.

The Negative Consequences of Fear for the Individual

Chronic fear eventually leads to depression and hopelessness. Being afraid means that you still have something to lose. Eventually, people can become tired of being afraid. The only way out of their fear is to give up caring, letting go of their stake in life. This becomes cynicism, chronic depression, and despair. (These characteristics will be elaborated on in the chapter on sadness).Fear can create many of the same health problems as anger: an impaired immune system, heart problems, cancer, etc. These problems seem to be a little less severe in fear, perhaps because fear is not addictive while anger is. No one enjoys being afraid, while many people enjoy confidence and dominance that comes along with anger.

Fear can encourage addiction to drugs. Fear along with shame and sadness are the three main feelings that people try to escape by using alcohol, heroin, cocaine, marijuana, etc. Many people would much prefer drugs to fear; for many, fear or drugs seem to be their only two options.

Real fears can become compounded with imagined fears, both of which can be magnified by painful memories (Morgan & Le Doux, 1995). Fears then can take on lives of their own with little reference to logic or reality.This does not mean that the fears are not real. Phobias of things, people, and settings can emerge and grow. People can be trapped in their homes because of fear or forced to travel by a slower or more dangerous medium of transportation, e.g., fear of airplane forces us to travel by car or bus or fear of elevators forces us to take the stairs.

The Negative Consequences of Fear for a Community

In American history probably the clearest example of what fear can do to a collective people is the history of African Americans in America. They have reason to be afraid. They were enslaved. Then they intimidated by a culture that told them to stay in the back of the bus or die. Many were killed simply for being in the wrong place or speaking with an assertive voice or looking in the “wrong way.”

Because African Americans were dark skinned with definite physical features that distinguished them, they could not easily assimilate into the culture, as did other immigrants. The consequence of this prejudice against a whole race was that it took almost one hundred and twenty-five years after emancipation before an African American would be considered as prospect for Presidency of the United States (Colin Powell), almost ninety years before they could play baseball in the same league with white professionals (Jackie Robinson). And the list of injustice goes on.It is no wonder that African Americans have the worst health, the highest rate of imprisonment and are often among the poorest people in the United States.Fear can paralyze a community. It can stop travel, the free exchange of ideas and commerce. It can cause encourage epidemics of drug addiction, eating disorders and domestic violence. Fear can create dangerous myths, scapegoating people just for being different. A community that is chronically afraid can lose hope and become bitter and cynical. Initiatives for change can cease in such an environment. People living in such communities accept life at its lowest common denominator, compensating for powerlessness by sexualizing all behavior and tormenting others as objects of gratification. These behaviors can hide fear but they do not resolve fear.This description fits most government housing projects in the urban United States.

Positive Consequences of Fear for the Individual

Success can be a consequence of fear. When we are afraid of failing, we plan. We practice. We prepare, and when it is our turn at bat, we hit the ball. We become a success because of all our hard work that was a consequence of fear.Respect is a consequence of fear. Perhaps we need not fear poisonous snakes, guns, or chain saws. But it is important that we respect the dangers they pose. Respect is a product of fear with a bit of knowledge and wisdom added. We all need to look both ways before crossing a dangerous street. We all need to respect authority and the feelings of others. Caution and respect are healthy aspects of fear.Some of us never get angry. We use fear instead. Although I don’t recommend this emotional stance, along with it can come a kind, sensitive person, who knows what it is like to be afraid. These people often help other people who are afraid. They reassure strangers that they pose no threat. They help others who are frightened and disconnected, because they understand how they feel.

This kindness can come at great cost. Anger can be an important source of strength and energy. Giving it up and allowing fear to be our only response to danger is like losing an emotional right arm.

Positive Consequences of Fear for a Community

Fear can be used to protect a community. Fear has helped communities bring added security to the public schools in the United States. Fear has lowered the blood alcohol level that defines a drunk driver. Fear is what New York City used to make New York City a safer more comfortable place to live in the 1990’s.Fear can teach a community where it should focus its attention. Fear can give a community the commitment and resources required to address a problem. Fear can stop government officials from acting impulsively and abusing power. Fear can promote respect for the law and for authority. Fear can be used as a reason to protect. An example is the law that requires a special car seat for young children. Fear can motivate a community to hire more police and firefighters. Fear can help create an effective criminal justice system. Fear can promote mutual respect.Fear is an essential community resource.

Resolving Fear

By now, one might be wondering about emotional paths that can resolve fear. Anger is a great resource. It is the other half of fight/flight in the brain. Anger brings confidence and poise rather than the doubt and confusion of fear. The problem with anger is that frightened people can rarely access it. When they do often they cycle back and forth between anger and fear.

Shame is often a consequence of fear. Shame and fear together can form a dangerous pathological emotional knot. Sadness when connected to fear also can create more problems and is not a good resource for resolving fear. Sadness and fear can oscillate back and forth exhausting our minds and hearts depleting us of norepinephrine (NE) and increasing the corticotropin releasing factor (CRF), thus locking people in chronic depression and obsessive fears (Risch, 1991).

If anger is not available, if shame and sadness only increase the brain’s pain and pathology around fear, then what’s left?Surprise might work, but only to distract a person. Surprise can sometimes increase the body’s tension and magnify fears.

Interest/excitement? What about that emotion? Yes, that one is better, but fear usually blocks us from getting what we want. And caring and wanting can increase pressure and magnify fear.Disgust? You can be afraid and feel disgust. But you better not let the person you are afraid of see your disgust or you risk precipitating an attack. Disgust implies a position of strength. Often when we are afraid we do not have the strength to access disgust.

Joy? Sure. But how easy is it to get from fear to joy without calming the fears in some way? This is why rape doesn’t satisfy a desire of the victim? That’s because fear at high levels is incompatible with interest and joy. You must be somewhat calm and relaxed to feel pleasure.

This leads us to fatigue/sleep/relaxation. Yes, this is the best first step in creating new body hormones and transforming a tense body into a calm, relaxed body. This will bring the oxytocin, serotonin, and GABA that are associated with rest and the activation parasympathetic activity.

Treating Fear

There are two major ways of treating fear. The first is the well known behavioral technique of desensitization. The other is the cognitive behavioral technique of undoing cognitive distortions.Let’s consider cognitive behavioral treatment first. There are two major thinking errors that contribute to fear. One is called catastrophizing and the other is called a cognitive loop.

Catastrophizing*

Catastrophizing occurs when one looks into the future and imagines that some terrible catastrophe is inevitable because of some event that just happened. One can quickly become convinced that our concerns about the future are the same thing as reality. This way of thinking magnifies a reasonable concern into a paralyzing terrifying fear.

Therapists help their patient’s undo this cognitive distortion by asking a set of questions. The first is: “Are you able to know the future?”Usually the answer to that is, “No.”

The next question is: “If you don’t know the future, reflect on what it feels like not to know what will actually happen. How does it feel to not know?”

The answer is usually, “Sort of like normal, some good, some bad, sort of neutral.”

The next question is: “You are at a fork in the road. You can know the future and feel afraid or you can be here in the present and feel what it feels to not know. Which do you choose?”

The answer is usually, “I would rather feel what it feels to not know.”

President Jimmy Carter, as he was running for President against Reagan, told Americans that this country must understand that it was time to be released from its mission of dominating the world. America should gracefully accept its role as one of the world’s leaders, not the world leader. As Carter read the future, America’s influence in the world was waning and that was as it should be. He saw the United States as having completed the mission stage.

Reagan on the other hand said Carter read the future wrong. Carter was not an Old Testament prophet and the United States was not a wayward Israel. Carter had no right to preach to Americans as if he knew, Reagan said, because he didn’t. Reagan still believed America was a noble country with a mission. He invited American voters back to the fork-in-the-road where they stayed in the unknown and believed that American values should be pursued on the world stage.

Reagan’s strategy of undoing Carter’s catastrophizing worked on the American voter and he won the election. One has to empathize with Carter. He had American citizens held hostage in Iran throughout his campaign. Interests rates were at 20%. It is easy to understand why he felt under siege and that the American people should demand less of their leader.We all do this, some of us more than others. We worry about things that might or might not happen in the future. There are the famous catastrophizers who believe that the world is coming to an end. Others of us worry that our child, who is out riding a bike, will fall and break his or her neck.

Cognitive Loops*

The second cognitive behavioral technique is useful for people who obsess in cognitive loops. A cognitive loop opposes two strong moral values in the decision making process.

An example of a cognitive loop can be seen in one of the paradoxes of politics in the United States. The United States Constitution begins with the assumption that government cannot be trusted and should have checks, balances and citizen representation in all decisions. The United States Constitution envisioned a small central government. Yet the citizenry of the United States expect to have free public schools, the world’s strongest military, a social security system, and low taxes.These values seem to be opposed. A politician running for office could stay up many nights trying to find words that would serve these two masters. Obsessive worry would seem the natural consequence of such a cognitive loop.

All healthy values, however, have a way of fitting together. And any value taken to extremes becomes pathology. The first step in treating a cognitive loop is to find a third position.

A practitioner treating a patient in a cognitive loop would label each opposing position with the value that it serves. Here one value is individual liberty. The other value is the good of the whole community. Then the practitioner would ask for the person to choose a third position. Let’s assume they chose free trade as a third value to be served. We need roads for trade. We need telephones, mail service, and the Internet for communication. The point is for government to enable trade not structure or impede commerce. Adam Smith said we need low taxes and a fair way to keep score to have a healthy economy. Taxes to pay for infrastructure is simply an investment in roads, sewers, and communication lines that all citizens can use. Even with a small tax base we need to have a central planning structure to be sure that highways in one part of the country meet the highways of the neighboring state. Even a minimalist government needs to set standards for interchangeable parts, standardizing weights and measures.

If the goal is for government to help its citizens build wealth then public schools are important and a military is needed to protect our trade interests all over the world. After exploring the value of using government only to enable its citizens, we find that we need a fairly strong central government, but not so powerful that it consumes most of our Gross Domestic Production. This large government led to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989.

Now let’s consider the value of a strong government nurturing and protecting its citizens. Money by itself does not make a good school. Good schools are a function of parent involvement with schools and their children’s learning.Social security will not adequately take care of the retired population. People need to save and invest if they are to have an adequate resource base for retirement.Yes we need a military but we no longer need the capacity to fight two wars at once.

We need an adequate tax base, but if our government overtaxes it hurts the economy which hurts the government because in business government is the partner of its citizens. The government benefits from a reasonable tax base. Therefore if the government becomes too strong and powerful it saps its strength at its base.Now that both sides have been examined through a third position, we see that these values are not opposing but are compatible after all. So why then were they placed in opposition in the first place? The answer is the fear of being clear and taking a stand. Creating a confusing answer (e.g., “I’m not sure we should reduce the military but I’m against the taxes that are required to pay for it,”) is pandering to all sides of an argument so as not to offend anyone, but it is not statesmanship.

The reason for a cognitive loop is because we get the secondary gain from the confusion. It makes us look virtuous when we pay homage to both sides and worry about a dilemma that this creates. The way out of a cognitive loop is to step forward, face what we are really afraid of (e.g., in this case the voter) find a third position and a plan that will serve all three. We may lose votes, but it will stop obsessive worrying.

Surprise and Fear

Though wonder (the mild part of startle/surprise/wonder) helps resolve imagined fears borrowed from the future, the more intense startle/surprise emotion only embellishes our fears. The goal of fear is to motivate the person to withdraw, run away from, or avoid danger. It is the signal to retreat to safety. Safety means that you move toward a place where you know what to expect, where you have control over what will happen.Surprise, even if it is intended to be positive, is not welcome in the context of fear. Rarely does surprise resolve fear. Fear arouses us; then surprise arouses us further into terror. When counseling a frightened person, we want to help her find as much certainty and control as possible. If, for example, you are driving a car with an adult, and that adult is frightened by the traffic, stop and suggest that she might feel better if she drove. Once she gets behind the wheel, she will usually become calmer, because she feels a sense of control.

When a child is frightened, you can help her feel more in control by giving her choices: “Would you rather go with your mother or father?” “Do you want to take along a toy?” “What would you like to wear?”Choices give children and adults a sense of control and mastery. Control and predictability help calm fears.Never say, “Relax. I will decide.” Or “Stop worrying. I will take care of it.” These words only make the frightened child or adult feel out of control and more afraid.

Beginning to Help the Fearful People

Never tell frightened people that their fears are crazy or unreasonable. Never ridicule or make fun of their fears. Fear is an instinctive response to danger. Sometimes we are afraid and do not know why. (Note that rape-prevention classes teach women to honor their instinctive fears that might appear unreasonable.) When we feel our fears are unreasonable and perhaps evidence that we are crazy, we learn to hide our fears. After repressing our fear in this way we feel afraid, ashamed, and very alone.

Often people are too ashamed of their frightening feelings to give them a label. The first thing a therapist should do is to give clients respect. Let them know that whatever they are feeling, we can understand. Then we can help them identify their feelings so that they are comfortable sharing their fears with us – someone who is interested in how they really feel, who will truly understand, and who won’t make them feel ashamed of what they feel.

The second step is to help clients make sense of their fears. Fears may be a response to a dangerous situation. When a frightened child races into the house screaming for help because a stranger in a raincoat tried to pull her into a car, there is no question that her fear propelled her into the safest and best course of action.As an adult, that child might become frightened of men in raincoats and not really understand why. The job of therapists is to help their clients connect dots like these. When people have a frame for their fears, their fears do not seem quite so large. They don’t feel so crazy.

Systematic Desensitization as a Community Intervention

The second major psychological treatment is systematic desensitization. Cognitive behavioral treatment has its limits. Emotions change emotions. Thoughts follow emotion they do not change them. Systematic Desensitization is different than the two cognitive behavioral approaches. It uses an emotion as the change agent. This is compatible with our theory. Systematic desensitization engages the trance or the relaxation response as a resolve to fear. First the practitioner teaches the patient how to relax at will. Then the relaxation response is gradually associated with the object of fear. When fears are irrational this process is very affective.

One example of its use in American history is the strategy of Martin Luther King in the struggle for civil rights. He understood that the anger of his white southern adversary was a cover for fear. He saw that he must help his opponents gradually come to see that there was nothing to fear from black America. His non-violent strategy was a way of using calm as a weapon to engage the racist fear.The calm of the passive resistance of the non-violent demonstrators absorbed the rage of the frightened white racists. Many people who were formerly racist began to see their prejudice as the unfounded fear that it was. Today in schools in the South race still is an issue, but many young people use music more than race to categorize their peers.This is the direct result of using systematic desensitization on a community level to help calm hysterical racist fears.

Treating Community Fear

The most important tool that a practicing community psychologist needs in treating fear is media. There must be some way to speak to the collective. Martin Luther King would never have been successful if he hadn’t brought the media with him.

Given that there is access to the community’s ears, eyes, mind and perhaps heart there are four steps to follow to calm fear in a community.First: Undo catastrophizing. Help people see that they don’t know the future and that not knowing feels better than believing in a horrible future.Second: Take the reasonableness of the fears seriously. Find what it makes sense to be afraid of. Use that to inform the planning process. Create a plan to face fears and move forward toward the community’s goals. For the white southerner, living in a scarcity based economy, being a colony of the North after the Civil War; it was reasonable to fear that black labor family paid would take money away from their families. A plan to face their fear needed to include a way to create industry and a strong economy that demanded a large pool of workers that included black and white. TVA was a first step toward ending racism in the south.Third: Get people moving and laughing. Fear can paralyze. Activity, practice and play can stretch the community’s muscles and prepare it for action. For the South this meant playing sports on integrated teams. This helped defuse racial prejudice.Four: Before the community begins to move forward take time to rest and relax. When fears are brought up, replace those fear statements with faith statements. Discover spiritual values. In the South churches began to take a stand against racism.Five: Act. Start. Move forward. Executing the plan. Go. In the South this meant building a New South, black and white together. (See Atlanta and Memphis with black mayors).

Fear can quickly take over a community. To treat fear, safety must be assured. The preceding five steps are contingent upon a reasonable sense of security. The relaxation that is the fourth step is not possible when threat is imminent. All communities require an effective authority structure that can give its members secure moments that allow them to relax.

The legal community, for example, has two periods a year when courts are mostly closed. These are August and Christmas time. Manufacturing companies often close plans for a week or two around the Fourth of July. Churches in summertime reduce their scheduled activities. Country Clubs close on Mondays to mow and groom the golf course and let staff have a scheduled day off. Touring bands that are based in Nashville schedule at least two weeks a year off the road. Businesses have working hours, times when they are open for business and time when they are not. Time off to relax is essential to managing community fear.

Community Sadness

The first time that we were personally aware of community sadness was after President John Kennedy was shot. The whole country mourned for weeks after he died. The pictures of John Jr. saluting his father’s body as it passed still can reawaken this sadness for many American’s.

The book and movie the Grapes of Wrath is arguably one of the best representations of the effects of community depression. This story depicts a family that lost their farm to foreclosure in the 1930’s. The family joined the migration to California, hoping to find work and start over again, but the protagonist died in the journey, leaving his family to find honor and hope in their grief for him.

Community sadness is generally recognized. We even use the term depression to represent a time when the economy is down. Depression is the correct word for that too because people do share sadness when our country is not productive and some of its citizens lose their jobs and other have their income cut. Families suffer. Opportunities are diminished. People are individually and collectively sad.

A special time of sadness in the United States history was the sadness of the South when the Civil War was over. For almost one hundred years the economy of the South suffered the consequences of that war. It was not until air-conditioning was invented that migration patterns shifted and people began to consider southern locations for business and industry.

Other communities in the United States suffered local depressions when their mines closed or their industries relocated. People become sad when they lose their livelihoods. Communities become sad when hit by tragedy. In 1960 in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, two prominent young lovers died in the August heat because their car air conditioner sucked in carbon monoxide. This left that town in mourning for months.

Sadness Defined

Sadness is a response to loss and separation from what we love and need. Our body has certain constant states that make up our physical and emotional equilibrium. When we lose the essentials of our physical and emotional constants, we are sad. Losing food, shelter, and clothes creates sadness, as does losing what we love. Sadness is the central emotion in the grief process. Sadness attracts comfort. Parents are attracted to a crying infant to offer nurture and comfort. The tears of our friends open our arms to them. As they feel sad, we feel sad with them. Sadness reflects how much we cared about what we lost. The greater we cared, the greater our sadness. Sadness cleanses, renews, and reconnects us with love.Sadness is recognition that “we can’t have what we want.” It tells us to “let go,” “give it up,” “accept the fact that . . .”  “you are going to have to start over.” It is what we do after a loss before we refocus our energy on a new goal and a different desire. It is the process we go through to put the past in its place. Though painful, sadness can teach us what we need to know to be successful in our next venture.

Sadness and Intelligence

There are conflicting opinions on whether or not sadness promotes intelligence. Clearly sadness helps a formerly angry brain cleanse itself of the good/bad, black/white two–category thinking of anger. Sadness helps us resolve anger and see reality more clearly (Stosny, 1995, Schneider, 1956). Others note research on depressed patients that documents decrease in I.Q. when depressed (Cicchetti & Toth, 1998).We would suggest that the decrease in I.Q. that is associated with depression is a reflection of the famous bell curve relationship between anxiety and performance. Depressed patients in mental hospitals often do not care enough to attend or perform well on intelligence tests. Whereas persons, who are merely sad, not in a clinical depression, have a greater access to their brain and have their best common sense available to them when they are passing through sadness.

Sadness relaxes us while it sensitizes us to reality. The sadness neurostructure does not include the amygdala, which seems either to confuse us or give us false confidence. Its circuitry goes from the brainstem to the neocortex. Sadness touches every level of the brain; calming us, taking away the static that can come from fear and anger. In sadness, we have access to all of the brain’s I.Q. if we care to access it.

The Negative Consequences of Sadness for a Community

The negative consequences of sadness for a person are obvious and do not need repeating here. For a community sadness slows down community life. A sad community does not plan or form goals. It retreats and closes down. A sad community does not risk or take chances. Rather it becomes cautious. A sad community may have been an afraid community before, but it is tired of being afraid. Afraid meant that the community believed it had something to lose that needed protecting. A sad community has lost and is tired of fighting and fearing. It is time for the community to cease hope.

A sad community can turn inward on itself. It can begin a cycle of sadness, self-hatred that turns into a deeper sadness, cynicism and hopelessness. A community gripped by such bitterness can tear itself apart and cause its own premature death because of poisoned grief.

The Positive Consequences of Sadness for a Community

The positive attributes of sadness for a community are similar to those for an individual. Community sadness creates compassion. Members who have shared a loss understand how and why each other feels sad. A sad community inspires compassion. In 1998 Arkadelphia, Arkansas was hit by a tornado. Several people died. Many people lost their homes. The television scenes of the lost forlorn bewildered and sad community inspired people, churches, and communities from all over the country to send help. State and federal resources were mobilized to help rebuild the town.

This would not have happened if the community said to the world, “don’t worry about us. We’re fine. We know what we are doing. We’re a happy healthy town. We can take care of this.” The community’s expressed sadness was what inspired this national compassion and help.Sadness also inspires community sharing. Poor communities live more communally than wealthy ones. When a community is sad members are pleased to give and sacrifice to help the community emerge from a tragedy. Sadness in a community can bring out the best in a community. When a community is sad its values emerge. Things can be lost, lives can be lost, but a community can keep and practice its values and traditions. Sometimes these spiritual resources are all that a sad community has left. It is the primary resource that they use to find comfort and hope. Sadness brings out a community’s collective wisdom and helps discover its essential values.

Resolving Sadness

Joy is on the other end of the neurological polarity with sadness (Buck, 1999). It is surely possible for joy to resolve sadness. But for this to happen we must snatch victory from the jaws of defeat or raise Lazarus from the dead. Usually that is not possible. Joy is an excellent destination, but often it is not a realistic next move from sadness.

Sadness is an emotional place that is out of energy. It is a place where we believe that effort won’t work. We accept that there is nothing we can do. Hence, to get out of sadness, we must get energy from some source.Four emotions give us energy. One is fear. Fear may help us resolve sadness if we can use our fear to help us develop a plan of action that will yield success and joy. But too often fear paralyzes us rather than gives us direction. Fear can create energy that has nowhere to go. Sadness will at least allow us to rest. It is difficult for us to rest when we are also afraid. Fear is usually a poor choice to resolve sadness.The second emotion that gives us energy is desire. Sadness is boring. Usually we tire of sadness after feeling sad for a time. We want to refocus our attention from what made us sad to something we want (desire). But often we are discouraged, and we have no faith that we can actually have something we want.Wanting is a good next step out of sadness, if we have the courage to want again after losing what we once desired but could not have. To want again, we must find a new reasonably achievable desire. The object of our desire is irrelevant. We simply need to find something that we want that will lift us out of our depression stupor.The third emotion that can create energy is anger. Anger is a most effective next step out of sadness. Many of us naturally gravitate to anger when we are sad. Men are socialized to use anger to avoid sadness so that they never cry. Remember, “Real men don’t cry.” But what they can do is have a temper-tantrum like a five-year-old.Anger has the energy, confidence, and focus that we need to emerge from sadness and back into life. Anger alone can be stupid and lead us to shame and hence back to sadness. If, however, we hold on to the wisdom of sadness and remember that our anger is stupid, we can play with our anger, using the circumstances to create a playful, angry fantasy cartoon in our minds. This form of silly, imaginary angry play can become an excellent energy source.

Surprise is also an emotion that creates energy. But we cannot create a surprise. By definition, if we are in control and expect something, that something will not surprise us. Even if we are startled out of depression, surprise likely will merge with fear, which probably will not resolve sadness. Or, surprise will be quickly resolved, and we will return to our sadness.

Disgust is an evaluative emotion that finds good in some things and rejects others. It is intellect more than energy. It is difficult to reach disgust from sadness. If disgust is combined with anger and we can be in a strong position, then disgust can become a part of the path that resolves sadness. But combined with anger, disgust can make us act impulsively and cast us back to shame. Rarely can we move in a healthy way from sadness to the strong position that the feeling, disgust, implies.

Shame and sadness cover much of the same neurological territory. They both hurt. Their function is to stop us or slow us down. Shame offers no energy. Shame and sadness together create a deep emotional hole. It is a poor choice as a next step out of sadness.

Fatigue/rest as emotion is the opposite of arousal and awake. Sleep can renew the body, but not the soul. Sad people often try to play Rip Van Winkle and sleep long enough so that when they awake, their problems will be gone. Unfortunately, most of us cannot successfully sleep our troubles away. Using sleep to avoid pain most often lengthens the time we are sad.

To help us out of sadness, we should use a combination of three emotions: desire, anger, and joy. Joy, of course, is the destination. Interest initiates our arousal and anger potentates the power of our arousal. In this process, we should not completely forget our sadness. Sadness brings to us the gift of wisdom and good sense. We need to retain what our sadness taught us. Our sadness can leaven our anger so that we do not take our anger seriously but only use our anger as part of a playful fantasy.These emotions – desire, anger, and sadness – are the ingredients of determination. Determination contains the wisdom of sadness, the energy of anger, and the sense of direction of interest. It may also include courage, which is a combination of fear, anger, and desire. Determination will keep us moving forward, picking us up when we fall. With determination we will eventually reach our desired goal, feel joy and resolve sadness.

Treating Community Sadness

One of the first times that this notion that emotions resolve one another occurred to David was when he was in college studying American history. On the final exam was the question: How did the United States emerge from the depression that lasted from 1929-1942.To him the answer was World War II. Anger mobilized the nation. Citizens stopped blaming government for their poverty. Caution was not an option. The country was at war. Risks had to be taken. Women had to go to work. Their husbands had to join the military. Those who couldn’t fight sacrificed by purchasing War Bonds.Soon after World War II was declared the United States economy was producing airplanes, tanks, guns and uniforms. The country’s mood was no longer sad. It was angry. The country’s energy was mobilized toward the goal of winning the war. The country could not afford to be depressed. Even if they failed the citizens had to try. This attitude fueled the country out of the depression and into one of the greatest longest running economic booms that arguably lasted for the remainder of the twentieth century.

If sadness is the product of being tired and being afraid, yet afraid of wanting because wanting and failing to get creates so much pain, then a practicing community psychologist must help a community find something safe to want or find the courage to want again even though there are no guarantees of getting.The first task then is to stimulate a collective desire. The second task is to use fear as a planning tool. Listen to the community’s fears. Address them with careful planning. Planning should develop strategies to achieve goals and at the same time avoid the dangers that the community’s fears represent.

After listening carefully to fears and developing effective action plans, the next step is to sell the plan to the community. This requires that the community have the courage to believe that the plan will work. The most important part of selling the plan is rebuilding a community’s faith in itself.A disheartened community has difficulty seeing its strengths. Sometimes it can only see its weaknesses. A community psychology practitioner should help a community rediscover its strengths, being careful to be reality based. The job here is to convince the community of its importance, worth, power, adequacy and basic fitness. This contains toxic shame and builds the community’s confidence. This is the third step.

With wants expressed, plans made, confidence restored the next step is to playfully and imaginatively engage the community’s anger. The practitioner must be careful to remind the community that reality is different than fantasy, but with that in mind help the community visualize how satisfying it would be to let the community’s collective anger loose. Encourage cartoon images of good vs. evil, light vs. dark. After an exciting period of playful visualization the practitioner should reign in the community’s energy from silly anger to realistic determination.

Activated wanting or desire from step one, combined with wisdom from step two, and the faith from step three, mixed with the energy of anger of the fourth step are the ingredients of determination. Determination gives a community the strength to try and fail and try again until some success is gained.

The next step is to follow the plan of action. Help the community take its first step toward its goal.It is important to remember that anger alone can create stupid ill-considered behavior that will lead a community back to depression.

Community Joy

Perhaps the most memorable moment of community joy in American history is the day World War II ended. The famous icon of that moment is the picture of the girl kissing a sailor in uniform as his hat sails in the air.Almost all American war or adventure movies have this joy scene at the end, where the enemy is vanquished, the world is safe for democracy and the boy and girl kiss.Joy is the emotion that a community struggles toward. It is the destination emotion. Unresolved joy can create problems for a community as well.

Joy Defined

In considering the subject, we might confuse a sense of well-being, emotional balance, and personal fulfillment with happiness and joy. As we use these terms here, they do not mean the same thing. Remember, we are focusing on the emotion that we express through our face.           

Joy is neither stupid nor dumb. It does not give specific action instructions; it prepares our brain to be at its best in playing, learning, or loving. Generally, joy relaxes and opens our mind so that it can function optimally.Joy and happiness cover the same emotional territory. Joy is our destination emotion, and we all strive toward a goal that we believe will yield happiness. The joy that our faces reflect represents seven emotional experiences:

Tears of joy, representing a victory requiring great sacrifices;

Predatory joy, merging the focus of desire with anger and eventually ending in the expression of joy at the victory of consumption;

Joy, witnessing the tragedy of another;

our laughter, for example, when someone slips on a banana peel;

Joy of mastery upon learning a new skill;

Joy of creativity, when we invent something, design something or make something that did not exist for us before;

Steady, mild joy or contentment, what we feel after the climactic, joyful celebration of a victory;

Joy of successful collaboration; the celebration of our achievements and those of friends, family, team, church, and country;

Communal joy is in the welcoming smiles of two friends being reunited; the joy of coming home, of belonging, of the safety that comes from friends and loved ones coming together.

We humans cannot discern among these seven versions of joy simply by looking at the face. Each of these sentiments is expressed with the same smile and laugh. Joy, therefore, is a word that represents them all.

The Intelligence of Joy

Joy is neither very smart nor very dumb. It can have anesthetic effect on intelligence. Contentment and the celebration of a victory can merge into arrogance and smugness. If denial is used to maintain joy, joy can become stupid. Often individuals who reject fear and sadness as emotional options keep their contentment and their optimism at the expense of good sense.  But in general joy relaxes and opens the mind so that it can function optimally. Though joy is neither stupid nor dumb because it does not give specific action instructions it prepares the brain to be at its best in play, learning or love.

The Negative Consequences of Community Joy

There are four of them. We call them “joys four horsemen of the apocalypse.” They are: (1) arrogance, (2) conceit (narcissism), (3) cruelty and (4) denial. They are the same for a person as they are for a community.

Arrogance

This is false faith. A community can become over confident. It can believe it can do things that it cannot. It can underestimate the task or its adversaries. Eventually this will lead to defeat, shame and sadness. Joy can create a false euphoria that reality cannot perpetuate or penetrate. Arrogance is the consequence.

Conceit (Narcissism)

Conceit is different than arrogance or the overestimation of a community’s strength. It is a self-absorption that cuts the community off from the world around it. A community can become so taken with itself and its past accomplishments, so relaxed and satisfied with itself that it fails to notice the army gathering outside its gates or the clouds forming on the horizon. A community can convince itself that it is entitled to happiness and believe that it will just come (e.g., the 1999 stock market).

Cruelty

The definition of cruelty is taking pleasure in another’s pain. On a community level it is clearly seen when a victor takes pleasure in the suffering of the loser. The best example of this was the peace treaty made by the United States and its allies after World War I. In the treaty Germany was to pay reparations to France and England.Given the shame that came with the loss, those economic burdens only added to that shame. This left German citizens vulnerable to the brilliant demagoguery of Hitler. He encouraged Germans to cover their shame with rage, to believe that Germans were an entitled master race. He chose the Jews as the communal scapegoat and World War II became inevitable. One of the engines of World War II were the cruel reparations required by the victors of World War I.

Denial

The forth and perhaps darkest horse of joy’s apocalypse is denial. Denial is a form of pretense or a believed wish that things were other than they are. Communities want to be happy. This is why the bearers of bad news have been beheaded, defiled or ignored. A community would rather whistle a happy tune, go to bread and circuses or watch pro football on television than hear about how the demand for diamonds and cotton is perpetuating genocide in Africa or that SUV’s are creating gases that destroy the earth’s atmosphere.Marie Antoinette’s famous line, “Let them eat cake,” or King Ludwig of Prussia in the 1700’s as he built castles while taxing his people into poverty are examples of communities in denial.

Positive Consequences of Community Joy

After a review of the negative things joy can do to a community it is difficult to imagine that joy has a positive survival function. This is confirmed by Frijda’s (1986) contention that joy gives the body vague behavioral instructions associated with aimless activity. While it is clear that joy does not provide the same specific instructions as the more negative emotions do (e.g., fear instructs flight; anger fight; shame cease and desist; and sadness let go), the positive emotion of joy brings with it survival functions at least as important, if not as dramatic.

Fredrickson (2001) suggested that joy has an important species adaptive function. It broadens our perspective and builds positive coping skills. “Joy for instance broadens by creating the urge to play, push the limits and be creative. These urges are evident not only in social and physical behavior, but also in intellectual and artistic behavior,” (Fredrickson, 2001, p 220).  The creative play that comes from joy evolves into practice that evolves into new skills (e.g., new dance steps, new songs, new moves to the hoop, new inventions, etc.).With the creative play that is a product of joy comes interest or desire. This broadens by creating the urge to explore, take in new information and experiences and expand the self in the process,” (Fredrickson, 2001, p 220). New information can stimulate new ideas; new ways to problem solve and improve planning. Certainly these skills are relevant to our survival.

Contentment is a soft version of joy. It creates the, “urge to savor current life circumstances and integrate these circumstances into new views of the self and of the world,” (Fredrickson, 2001, p 220). Contentment encourages reflection. It helps us see what it is that we did that worked, so that we can repeat it again when the situation warrants. All psychologists know that we help children most by calling attention to the good they do, praising them, giving them a moment of contentment for safe reflection.

Pride is also a form of joy. It broadens and builds a community’s strength by, “creating the urge to share news of achievements with others and to envision even greater achievement in the future,” (Fredrickson, 2001, p 220).  Pride gives us the courage and confidence to risk. Pride helps us get up and try again or try something different after we have fallen. The confidence that comes from pride keeps us from giving up. It gives us the survivor spirit.

Joy creates the context for love and communion. It broadens and builds a community’s strength by, “creating recurring cycles of urges to play with, explore, savor experiences with loved ones (and) to envision future achievements (with loved ones)” (Fredrickson, 2001, p 220).  A community will use shared joy as the motivation to  protect one another, to confirm that they are safe together to play, explore, risk and savor. It creates an atmosphere of acceptance that inoculates them from the toxicity that can come from the negative emotions of anger, shame and sadness. It is well documented that sense of community aids a community’s survival.

In Evelyn Loch’s (1991) book of quotes about Joy, there were more quotes about shared joy than any other type of joy.

All who would win joy must share it. Joy was born a twin. Lord Byron

Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with. Mark Twain

It is a fine seasoning for joy to think of those we love. Jean Baptiste Moliere

A joy that’s shared is a joy that’s doubled. An English proverb

Who can enjoy alone? John Milton

By its very nature, life challenges us. Each of life’s significant challenges will force us to fall down, be sad, ask for help, get angry, get back up, make a mistake, feel shame, make amends, feel fear, and learn from it, create an effective action plan, keep desire alive, stay motivated, achieve the goal, and feel the joy and satisfaction of accomplishment. Joy is the destination emotion. In sex it is the climax. But as in sex the journey, the anticipation, the planning, the uncertainty, the excitement of hunger is at least as important to the sexual experience as the climax. Once the climax is over often we feel sad and lonely. Keeping the climax near without triggering its resolution is the advice of most sex therapist experts. The same is true for joy. Amando Zegri is famous for making the same point about the American culture. “Joy,” he said, “is the fruit that American’s eat green.”

Happiness is not life’s ultimate goal. Rather, living life to its fullest and feeling all the feelings life gives us is what makes life worth living. These accomplishments will give community members a rich and meaningful life.

Joy is essential for community play, learning, and love. And these functions are essential for community survival.

Shame and Joy

In the next section we will discuss the special relationship between shame and joy – examining it under the light of shame needing resolution. Here, we look at that relationship with joy as our focus.

Because joy and shame are so naturally related, we often use humor or laughter on the front end of shame. This laughter indicates, “I know I did something foolish, but I don’t have to feel bad about it, do I?” If the individual that we might have harmed laughs too, we assume shame is not required of us. This illustrates embarrassed laughter.Laughter at the misfortune of others makes a similar statement. It means, “I am so relieved. That could have been me. I’m glad it wasn’t.” This joy is associated with potential shame and hurt that fate gave to someone else instead of to us.

Often we take a playful jab at a friend and follow our jest with laughter as if to say we enjoy the privilege of being able to tease our good friend this way. This privilege is confirmed by our friend’s wry smile that says to us, “No, I won’t require you to feel ashamed for what you said, because I know we are friends.”Then, there is the joy of sex. Shame is the primary inhibitor of the sexual impulse (Nathanson, 1992). To make a sexual initiative, one must first overcome the fear of the potential shame of rejection. The overcoming of our fears of shame and of the contempt and disgust that can come from the object of our sexual desire is a great achievement and is part of the pleasure of sexual consummation.

Resolving Joy

As suggested above shame is a favorite resource for resolving joy. Other emotions can also serve that function. Joy is a heavy emotion to keep alive. Joy often resolves itself in boredom/relaxation. Once a community has achieved its goal and completes its celebration it is hard to keep the community focused. Perhaps after the Korean War was over this was the reason the 1950’s is considered boring. When the Russians launched Sputnik the United States was stunned out of complacency.

Often after completing a collective goal, the community can become sad and confused. The goal had given the community a purpose, bonding the community and directing behavior. With the goal achieved the community can feel lost. A community can only celebrate a victory for so long. Some communities want to hold on to joy. These communities can become mean and arrogant.

Fear, of course, can awake a community from joy. This is what Sputnik did to the United States in 1957. It is what the bombing of the World Trade Center did to the U.S. on September 11, 2004.

Desire or the awareness that a community has a new challenge to face or a new goal to achieve can resolve joy. Using the Sputnik example, the United States invested heavily in science education because of Sputnik. It accepted Russia’s challenge and the answer the United States gave was to improve our educational system. And this investment paid off in landing the first man on the moon.

Surprise can resolve joy. But surprise is a short-lived resolve. Soon a community will choose another emotional tone to deal with the meaning that comes from the surprise.

Disgust, anger and joy work well together in protecting a community’s mean cruel and entitled position over another community. If a community is victorious in one battle, but that battle doesn’t end the war, a community will quickly put aside its joy and use disgust and anger as motivators to continue the fight.

The trance is often associated with joy as contentment. Because of this it is not a very good resolve to joy. In fact the trance can be part of denial, which can be used to perpetuate joy.

The emotions that leave the most honorable legacy are first, sadness and second, shame.Between these two, sadness is my first choice, because when we are sad that others are in pain, we are in the first stage of compassion. Compassion always gives us memories we can be proud of.  Anger or joy in the pain of others alienates us from our community, friends, and family, as well as cuts us off from engaging our enemies. Compassion always opens doors and reconnects adversaries.

The second, shame, is more difficult for a community to negotiate. It takes courage and strength to feel badly as a community acknowledges a mistake. Though such strength, courage and amends making is honorable and a resource for pride, it is hard for a community to find its way from shame to pride. If it can though, alliances will be improved and wounds may be healed.

Treating Community Joy

Joy only needs to find resolution if it creates one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. If a community is engrossed in arrogant joy, then the practitioner needs to help the community find a prophet strong enough to challenge the arrogance. Shame, fear, and disgust might be appropriate emotional tools needed to resolve arrogant joy.In United States history these tools were needed to help it address its patronizing relationships and attitude toward Native Americans. White Americans have treated Native Americans horribly. It was appropriate that some prophet emerge to help this nation be disgusted with its conduct. Shame and amends making is appropriate. The United States should fear the legacy of this conduct. I’m not sure the United States has been effective in addressing this shame.If a community is absorbed in its own self-importance of narcissistic joy, then the same tools are required. An example of this in United States history is the fear of dissent that was part of the Vietnam War era. Many people had bumper stickers on their cars that said, “America, Love it or Leave it.” This was symbolic of a national narcissism that wanted the joy of being right so badly that it threatened to shun or expel citizens who questioned America’s war policy.Treatment of Community Narcissism is similar to treating community arrogance. The nation needs voices to rise up against the narcissism and use shame and appeal to the collective desire to keep free speech alive. Fear should be used to ask the question what would happen to the United States if citizens who disagreed with the government had to leave.

Cruel joy also should receive similar treatment. It is never a good thing for a community to take pleasure in the pain of another. Often in the spirit of contest and play a community may tease another, but if the teasing hurts the community psychology practitioner should help resolve this joy. Shame is the most obvious tool. But fear can be used by asking the community to imagine what it would feel like if roles were reversed. Sometimes disgust and anger must be used to stop particularly heinous behavior. Examples of this behavior are torture, false imprisonment and other community violations of human rights.

Resolving the joy of the contentment/denial trance can be a bit more difficult. Surprise can be used to introduce a new reality gestalt that may create desire or fear. Fear will be an effective resolve to this kind of joy only if the community will pay attention. In recent United States history the energy crisis of 2001 appeared to be a market blip when supply was suddenly much lower than demand. Market forces rebalanced in time but political leaders used this surprise to awaken the country to what is happening to the environment and to our energy supplies. For a moment the country’s national complacency toward the environment and energy was broken, but only for a moment.

Happiness will destroy a community’s sense of mission. If a community is in the happy state of having accomplished its goals, then it has no further purpose for its existence. If a community cannot discover new challenges, new missions or goals it will proceed toward termination. Though happiness is a destination emotion, it does not give life meaning. Life’s passion, excitement, and wisdom come with collective shared experience of all the human emotions.

Community Desire

In United States history probably the clearest example of community desire was the period in which the country pursued what was called “Manifest Destiny.” This term was the justification for expanding the United States’ property and hegemony from the east continental coast to the west coast. Manifest Destiny meant to United States public opinion in the 1850’s that it was God’s will that the United States govern the continental land mass.The policy was a cover for the greed of the United States business community and the jingoist nationalistic greed of the general American public. Under the guise of Manifest Destiny the United States bought the Louisiana Purchase from France and ignored Spain’s claim to that territory. It supported Texans to rebel against Mexico so that the United States could take over Texas. It used a similar rouse to take over California, New Mexico and Arizona from Mexico. It bought Alaska from Russia; colonized Hawaii in competition with European traders and took over Cuba from Spain only to decide later that this was too much and the United States left Cuba for it to become an independent nation, strongly influenced by the United States.

In movies and theatre such desire is exposed in dramas about leaders and courtier’s desire for power. Shakespeare’s trilogy the War of the Roses is an example of England’s desire to protect its boundaries and expand its territory.Movies about sports and sport competitions themselves are about one community’s desire to defeat another in non-mortal combat. As long as a community lives and holds itself together there is community desire of some sort.

Desire Defined

According to Lorenz (1950), desire “typically occurs in pattern with joy.” Interest enlivens and excites. It motivates the approach response and supplies the drive that pushes us toward meeting our survival needs. This is Freud’s libido.

According to Tomkins (1962), desire is the force that allows us to sustain long-term creative and constructive endeavors. It keeps us connected to our environment and is one of our emotional steady states along with contentment. These states can last a long time, although intrusions by other emotions can break them.

Desire organizes our focus of attention to stimuli. If we are hungry, for example, desire blocks out other stimuli and focuses our attention on food. Novel stimuli provoke desire (Fetterman, 1996). Desire helps us maintain our focus when there is much activity about. It helps us integrate a new stimulus into our homeostasis. The new stimulus excites us so that we attend to it, until we clearly understand how that stimulus relates to our survival. If we find it is irrelevant, we ignore it and attend to things that we believe will better serve us.Desire is the emotion that alerts our body and individuals around us that we are approaching something we want to have or consume. Most of the time, we consider it a positive emotion. But we sometimes forget that desire comes from our biological appetites. It is part of gluttony, greed, envy, jealousy, lust for power, sex, and fame. With the exception of anger, these “I-wants” can get us in more trouble than any other emotion.

Excitement is an enthusiastic response that expresses how intensely we desire to consume, hold, and possess something that is near. Excitement includes anticipation of the pleasure of consumption and fear that we won’t get what we want. Interest, excitement, and desire are different parts of the same emotion – the difference between them is simply a matter of intensity and focus. Excitement is the equivalent of intense interest. Desire identifies an object that is our focus. Interest is the steady state of paying attention and being on task. This emotion represents life’s energy. It is the human volume control that goes from still to excited.

The Intelligence of Desire

Desire might be, along with sadness, the most intelligent emotion. When combined with the emotion of startle/surprise/wonder, it forms the basis of curiosity and inquiry. Its circuitry has access to the whole brain, all the senses, all our memories, and the problem-solving functions of the neocortex.

The Negative Consequences of Community Desire

Problems can come with desire when two communities desire the same thing. An example, in American history is the corporate conflict between Ford Motor Company and Bridgestone/Firestone Tire Company. In the years preceding 2001 Ford Explorers had an unusual amount of dangerous rollover accidents. Ford wanted to protect its corporate image so when it found that the tires that they purchased exclusively from Bridgestone/Firestone for the Explorers were in some instances defective, they used Bridgestone/Firestone as the scapegoat. They urged the United States government to force Bridgestone/Firestone to recall millions of its tires costing that company hundreds of millions in profits and injuring its public corporate image.Bridgestone/Firestone desired to protect its corporate reputation.  It attacked the Ford Explorer has having a design problem. It finished paying for the recall of its tires, settled its lawsuits and pointed plaintiff’s attorneys to the Explorer design flaws that were in part responsible for the wrecks.It seemed obvious to some of the American public that tires that had a tendency to become unglued put on a vehicle that had a high center of gravity created many disasters waiting to happen. The result of these two companies desire to protect their reputations, each at the expense of the other only injured both companies. Sales of Bridgestone/Firestone tires dropped, as did sales of the Ford Explorer. Both companies desire to avoid shame created scapegoats in each other. Their greed led to a shared injury and trauma.Community desire for one thing can create a community addiction. It can be argued that the United States is addicted to the automobile and the consequence of that addiction may be the destruction of the planet.

Community desire that intensifies and is unresolved can exhaust a community, creating symptoms that look much like an individual bi-polar illness. In the United States in the late 1990’s many dot.com companies became so caught up in their desire to get rich and or change the way business was done that they lost touch with the need to work inside the constraints of a budget. The consequence of that was the collapse of many of these businesses and a period of loss of confidence and faith in any dot.com business, even those who showed promise and worked inside a well-designed business plan.

Another problem with community desires is that community leaders can pander to these desires to stay in power. Julius Caesar in Roman times did this by giving away money to the masses or providing “bread and circuses.”  This use of the community resources ultimately bankrupts a country. This is what George W. Bush was accused of doing when he won the presidency in 2000 by promising the largest tax cut in American history.

Positive Consequences of Community Desire

Without a shared community desire there is no fuel for the community’s duties. Shared wanting that motivates a collective to act as a team is an immensely powerful community force.It is the nature of human existence of be dissatisfied and to want more or to want something new. This desire keeps people engaged with life. It keeps a community constantly in its mission stage. Without desire a community can become consumed in the lethargy of joy. Desire keeps a community growing, practicing, planning, failing, learning and loving. Without desire a community’s balloon will lose all of its air.In the previous article we discussed the contrast between Presidents Carter and Reagan. Carter offered the citizenry a diminished vision of what they had a right to desire. Reagan invited American’s to desire again. Reagan won the day with this promise of new life and a reason to be. Reagan won the election and the Iron Curtain fell during his tenure in office.

Resolving Community Desire

All of the emotions are good candidates for resolving desire. Joy resolves interest when a desire is satisfied. Fear resolves desire and stops movement toward a goal, as does shame. Sadness is defined in part by the absence of desire. Sadness is what follows the realization that a desire is beyond reach. Anger will combine with desire or replace desire depending on the circumstance. The point of disgust is to move a person away from an unhealthy desire. Surprise will resolve desire, but usually just for a moment. The trance or sleep must resolve desire or the body will get no rest.

Treating Community Desire

Like joy there is no need to resolve interest unless it creates problems for the community. The first problem that we discussed earlier is that community desire can create conflicts with another community. In this case a cognitive behavioral technique is useful.

The primary resource available to a community in conflict with another over a shared desire is delay of gratification. Just imagine what might have happened if Ford and Bridgestone/Firestone delayed their desires to be free of blame for a moment and decided to work together to solve a common problem. All that would have been required was that each company wait until a shared strategy could be developed.An obvious one is for them to announce together the recall of the tires, the increase in standards for bonding the tread to the tire infrastructure and the redesign of the Ford Explorer to make it less likely to roll over when something happens at its base.  A community psychologist practitioner should use simple reason and good sense to encourage patience and shared problem solving.

The second problem with interest can be an addiction. To resolve an addiction a practitioner needs to help the community engage shame. Shame will help the community stop the addictive behavior, make amends for the wrongs done under the influence of the addiction and begin the process of rebuilding trust. If a community has the strength and courage to feel shame and address its collective addiction then it should reward itself with an internal sense of pride in its integrity and honor.The community psychology practitioner should be sure that praise is poured on to the community as it completes the work started with having the courage to feel shame.

The third problem we mentioned that community desire can create is such an intense focus that it can burn itself out. Rest, sleep, relaxation is the resolve to interest here. A community psychology practitioner should help the community build in vacations, times for rest and relaxation holidays that offer collective times to celebrate the past and relax and play. This will revitalize a community helping it avoid the enforced rest that comes from failure.

The last problem with community desire comes from leaders who use a community’s desire to avoid reality and responsibility. The community psychology practitioner should help discover the community’s own voice of shame and particularly disgust, because the community’s appetites are being used to destroy its strength. It is the purpose of disgust to protect us from such poison.

Desire like joy appears to be a beneficial human emotion, but like joy it brings with it many potential pitfalls. The practicing community psychologist uses a community’s desire to provide a sense of direction and an energy source. As the practitioner works with desire she must be careful not to extinguish it while not letting it overwhelm the community. This can be a difficult balancing act. The best resources to the practitioner are all of the other emotions.

Community Shame

In American history perhaps the best example of community shame comes from the rash of school shootings that began in the 1990’s. Columbine High School was probably the most prominent among them. The nation was shocked and stunned by children murdering children and their teachers. The nation as a whole was ashamed and local communities were ashamed that its culture could not guarantee the personal safety of its children in public schools.

Though there is a great debate over what was wrong, there is general agreement that something was. Some argue it is the availability of guns to immature children with poor impulse control and bad judgment. Others contend that it was the breakdown of the American family. Whatever the reason the nation felt bad that this happened and has wanted to learn a way to stop this from happening again.

Movies and drama often depict an individual’s fight against shame for dignity. The Color Purple is an excellent example of this. In this movie Oprah Winfrey plays a character that represents the African American and all of us who are unfairly shamed.Managing and processing shame is perhaps the most important job of a community psychology practitioner. People and community’s have more to lose and more to gain from this emotion than any other.

Shame Defined*        

Shame is not one of Ekman’s six, but Tomkins and Izard include it on their lists. It is the number one emotion among therapists as the cause of psychopathology.Most of us hate to feel shame and we do a poor job of processing or transforming it into something healthy. We all know what shame is. It is often called a “loss of face,” which means a de-elevation of our public respect and reputation, a fall from grace. It is a sudden realization that we have done wrong, torn the fabric of trust we once had with a friend or our community. When we feel shame, our neck turns red; our head turns down and away from the person or people that we believe we have wronged.

Shame is painful. It stops pleasure in its tracks and reins in whatever action we were taking. Our thoughts suddenly become confused, and we behave awkwardly and submissively toward the person who we now feel has good reason to disapprove of us.

Many theorists distinguish between shame and guilt (Lewis, 1971). Some say we feel guilt over what we did and shame over who we are. For our purposes here, guilt and shame are the same. They look the same on the face, and they feel the same in the body. The other words that are represented in this emotion are: humiliation, embarrassment, and mortification.Tomkins (1963) said that “shame is the affect of indignity of transgression and of alienation ... Shame strikes the deepest in the heart of man. Shame is felt as an inner torment, a sickness of the soul. It does not matter whether the humiliated one has been shamed by derisive laughter or whether he mocks himself. In either one, he feels himself naked, defeated, alienated, and lacking in dignity or worth.” (Affect/imagery/ consciousness. Vol. 2. The negative affects, p. 118).

Shame can be a socialization tool. Shame becomes an important resource for protecting social bonding. It motivates us to accept our share of the responsibility for the good of the whole (Izard, 2000; Lewis, 1971; Tomkins, 1962).Shame focuses on and exposes our weaknesses and inadequacies. It exposes our sense of ineptness. It directs our attention to the work we need to do to strengthen our skills and heal our relationships (Tomkins, 1963; Lewis, 1971; Tangney, et. al., 1996; Izard, 2000).When we feel ashamed, we sense that we have done something wrong and that we will submit and accept the consequences. Healthy shame is a measure of our bonds to others and of our concern and sense of responsibility for their well being. When we are unable to accept responsibility and pay the consequences for our behavior that harms others, shame can grow into a deep, unhealthy shame that is toxic to an individual’s sense of self.

The Physiology of Shame

The dilation of the blood vessels exhibited by blushing is the most obvious physical marker of shame, together with the drooping face that looks away (Nathanson, 1992). So little research exists on the anatomy of shame that we are reduced to speculation about how the body reacts to shame.Again, a reason for this is that shame is not considered a primary emotion but rather a derivative one. I would speculate that when we feel shame, our blood pressure lowers, our heart rate slows, and our general muscle tone and arousal drops.Perhaps researchers soon will give us more information about the physiology of shame.

The Intelligence of Shame

Using research conducted by Shin and others, we can begin to speculate on whether shame fills our brain with confusion, as Nathanson suggested, or whether shame is connected to the neocortex, bringing with it major problem-solving capacities. (Shin, et al., 2000). Shin’s study suggests an extensive neural network similar to that related to sadness.If the function of shame is to reveal to us the work we need to do to improve ourselves and our skills, it makes sense that shame brings with it some formidable intellectual capacity. We believe that after the initial shock and exposure of shame, the whole brain gets to work trying to figure out how what happened wasn’t really our fault. Once we have finished trying to shift the blame, shame motivates us to learn how to avoid more shame by facing the task of self-improvement so as not to make the same mistake again.

The Negative Consequences of Shame

Shame is an emotion that people and communities try to avoid. The reason for this is that shame hurts. It pains a community to admit to being wrong. It is a difficult task for a community to take responsibility for its behavior and learn from a mistake and change because of it. Communities often perform extraordinary mental gymnastics to avoid shame, because they lack the fortitude to feel the pain of shame and face the problems shame represents. Avoiding shame usually does not eliminate it. When a community fears the shame that belongs to it, the community tries to hide the secret sense of shame it feels. Hiding from external shame can only increase a community’s internal shame.On the other hand a community can become overloaded with shame. When this happens the community loses faith in itself. Because of the shame it can believe that it is unworthy to exist. Often this destroys the sense of community that bonds a community together. A shamed community, that because of economics or geography cannot disband, can turn on itself and injure its various members and values, like a bad marriage that cannot find an end point.

The purpose of shame is to close down behavior so that we cannot continue on a potentially destructive path.The socially constructive function of shame is to rebuild a social fabric that has been torn. Shame used correctly builds, connects, ties and binds. When shame becomes pathological we can care too much about righting the wrongs that cannot be righted or pleasing people who cannot be pleased or who become tyrants empowered by our shame. When this happens instead of feeling empowered and reconnected by processing shame, we become stuck in shame, feeling closed down, dead to ourselves, choked, confined, imprisoned, too close, too exposed, needing distance, more clothes or other defenses or on stage required to perform and we don’t know what to say or do. This “I want to crawl under a rock and hide” feeling is very painful. In circumstances that require us to sacrifice our dignity and well being for peace, shame becomes what Thom Rutledge calls a “should monster.” Instead of redeeming and enabling, shame punishes and becomes a resource to evil.

The results of toxic shame in a community can be addiction. For example, in Russia, over 50% of the men are alcoholics and die prematurely because of alcohol related problems. It could also be argued that the United States cultural addiction to the automobile is because its citizens needs a vehicle to runaway from their shame. Often Americans say, “I need to get in my car and drive, just drive out on the open road to clear my head.”A community can use scapegoating or projection as a means of avoiding toxic shame. In United States history this is what white people in the South and their leaders did to avoid the shame of their failure and inadequacy. They blamed African Americans and projected their personal inadequacy on a whole race of people. While this helped protect them from their internal sense of shame, it kept them from making a natural healthy alliance with their poor African American counterparts. Such a populist alliance of poor white and black could have been a powerful political force, if the poor white southerner had not scapegoated a potential ally.

The Positive Consequences of Community Shame

For most of us it is difficult at first to imagine anything good coming from shame. It may be even more difficult to understand how we can say that shame is one of the most important assets that a community has.Shame is an essential element to sense of community. Without shame there would be no community bond among members. Shame means that one community member will feel badly if she harms another member. For the first element of sense of community, spirit or membership, the potential for shame is the reason members protect their fellow members and are careful about their community boundaries. Because members would feel shame if they did not do their part this gives the second element of sense of community, influence or trust, the sacrifices and dues necessary to create community resources. The third sense of community element, trade or shared integration of need, requires fair trades and accurate scorekeeping. The fact that members would feel shame for taking advantage of someone in a trade protects a community from corruption. The final element of sense of community, art or shared connection in time and space, often uses stories where community members are transformed by shame and tell these stories to honor this transformation. Using such events and stories encourages honor in all the community.Shame is a community’s best teacher. The primary lessons that are part of a community’s traditional values come from the hurt that was once shame. Shame is part of the price communities pay for community wisdom. When a community makes a mistake, the pain of shame holds the community accountable for that mistake. The pain remains until the community makes amends for the wrong and learns a new way to accomplish its goals that does not harm others. Such shame produces integrity and honor along with wisdom.

Shame can remain a community asset only so long as it does not attack at the community’s essence or spirit. The community must protect itself from toxic shame. This can be done if the community views mistakes as only mistakes, not reflections of the community’s inner degradation. A community and its members make many mistakes. Mistakes are a result of trying. Only when a community stops risking and working does it stop making mistakes. It is essential for a community to have a way of facing and learning from its mistakes. This is the purpose of a free press.If the community has an effective way of processing mistakes into learning then it can cleanse and heal itself and continue to grow. The community must have ways of reminding itself that many mistakes can be fixed and all mistakes can be learned from. Most mistakes are events that have unintended consequences. If amends are made for a mistake, then the community should celebrate its learning, its character and its integrity. No human community can exist without failing and making mistakes. If communities see mistakes as painful, and also as opportunities, then shame becomes perhaps the community’s most important emotional asset.

Shame used this way can teach a community about itself. From the pain of past mistakes a community can learn what it can do and what it cannot do. This creates healthy future predictions, helps a community manage its expectations and makes a community more productive.

Resolving Shame

By now you may have some idea about how we think shame can be reached healthily in a community (and in an individual). Nathanson’s 1992 book Shame and Pride suggests a resolving continuum from which each of these two emotions, shame and joy can resolve into the other. But before we explore the resolution of shame with joy, let’s consider the other emotions as resolving candidates.

Of course, all emotions resolve each other. Any emotion will take you out of shame for a moment. But not every emotion placed next to shame will lead out of shame and into a new emotional space.Fear, for example, will resolve our shame, but probably only to return us to shame, because we might be ashamed of being afraid. Sadness contains much of the pain of shame. Even if sadness resolves shame, we are still in a painful emotional hole.Most communities when ashamed don’t have the confidence to access anger. But when we can, anger can be of considerable help. It is important to remember that anger can create cognitive distortions. Acting out of anger can create more shame.Surprise will jolt a community out of shame for a moment. This may help buy time. But the community will need an emotional place to land once the community emerges from surprise.

Desire can resolve shame by distracting a community toward one of its wants. But once a community’s desires are satiated, the undercurrent of shame can return. Desire can be a useful vehicle out of shame if it is the community’s desire to learn what it will take to make amends and how to do better next time.

Rest/relaxation/trance can give a community a reprieve from shame. Shame, however, can intrude in the community’s time for rest and can replay itself in the context of the community’s down time. When a community returns from its time off it may also return to its shame.

Disgust like anger can be helpful in resolving a community’s shame. Often shame is a product of caring too much. Shame used in this way closes down feelings that we believe will not be accepted by people we wish to please. Our mental voice speaks words like: “I have had enough,” “I want to throw up,” “I’ve had it.” These words imply that we are disgusted. We have eaten enough of what someone is feeding us. Shame can block us from speaking out and saying no, when that is exactly what we need to say. In these circumstances disgust is an excellent resolve to shame.  But as with anger a community once shamed is rarely powerful enough to entertain the judgmental position of disgust. And disgust, like anger, can use only two category thinking. Thinking in dualities can lead a community into serious mistakes and back to shame.

This leaves joy. Pride is a form of joy. No one would intuitively expect that the healthy emotional route out of shame is joy. Yet it is. And it is the only real option for emotional well being. To use joy as a resolve to shame a community must be mature and responsible to work the shame puzzle effectively.

Walking into a community’s shame head-on takes courage and emotional strength. With practice it gets easier for the community to discover a friend and a teacher in shame. But the pain is always a part of real shame. The resolve for shame is the honor, joy and genuine pride that comes from being a responsible accountable community, for learning and growing from our mistakes and being better for our pain of shame.

Treating Community Shame

A practicing community psychologist must be a consultant to a community that is willing to work through shame. The practitioner cannot expect a frightened immature community to be able to embrace shame. In stages of development terms this means that a community needs to have experienced stage five, the accountability stage or be ready to enter that stage (see Defining A Community’s Developmental Paths).The first step toward taking shame to joy is helping the community move into the pain of shame. The press or the community’s communication organ might be to especially helpful during this process. The task here is confession and acknowledgment of wrongdoing to those wronged.The second step is be sure that the community feels the hurt along with those who were harmed. This compassion or empathy is an essential step.The third step is to protect the community against toxic shame. A mistake is just a mistake. The practitioner should fight character assassination, blaming and negative labeling. It is important to remind the community of its essential strength and worth.With shame contained the community should make a real and symbolic sacrifice to make amends with those wronged. Amends is the fourth step.

The final step is to help the community reflect with pride on the strength, courage and character it took to process shame into learning and change. This requires determined hard work. The community that does this work deserves to be proud. It is the practitioner’s job to see that this is so.

These five steps need some additional steps when shame has become a prison. When we care too much what other’s think and are ashamed because we cannot please them, pride in the fact that we are caring human beings is not enough to free us from shame. But it is a first step.

Pride in our compassion reminds us that we are the only people that can balance our needs with the needs of others. Others can never know us as well as we know ourselves. Our best effort at amends is all that is required. Once offered and rejected it is our task to feel good about our efforts and the internal process that we used to feel compassion and offer a basis for peace. Peace at any price is not peace.In recent history South Africa and Bosnia have tried to implement plans of national reconciliation. These plans have included opportunities for people to come forward and confess without fear of retribution. This was meant to be an act of personal and community cleansing. Amnesty was an important piece, amnesty acknowledges that mistakes in the midst of war and social upheaval were easily made by both sides of the conflict.

These plans have not been completely successful. In South Africa it was partly because former President Botha, the last South African president under apartheid, and Winnie Mandala, the estranged wife of Botha’s successor, Nelson Mandala. They both refused to publicly acknowledge mistakes that were generally known. In Bosnia, at this writing, it is too early to tell.At this point in the chapter hopefully we have the reader with us. Our most important mission is to teach practitioners how to help a community use and process shame. Practically there is much more to be said and done here.

Community Surprise

A community surprise can have a positive outcome or a negative outcome. History tends to pay more attention to the negative surprises that upset the community’s equilibrium and require great heroic deeds to overcome. One famous positive surprise in American history happened in early John F. Kennedy’s presidency. It is commonly called the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was loosely chronicled in the movie Thirteen Days.

Russia thought that the United States had lost its collective nerve when the Invasion of the Bay of Pigs failed. Russian leaders thought that John F. Kennedy was a weak young president, elected by the slimmest of margins and that he did not have the strengths to keep Russia from putting atomic missiles aimed at the United States in Cuba (or what Kennedy pronounced Cuber with his Boston accent).

Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of Cuba preventing any Russian ships carrying missiles to Cuba from landing. All leaders recognized that if the Russian leaders refused to order their ships to turn back that world wide nuclear war would ensue.

The term “brinksmanship” was defined in this event. American leaders had to demonstrate that they would go to war to protect their country’s boundaries. The surprise came just before an attack of Cuban missile sights was to be launched. The Russian ships unexpectedly turned back. This surprise saved the world from a devastating nuclear war.All the leaders involved showed great courage. It was difficult for Khrushchev, the Russian president at the time, to stand up against his military and order the ships to return. It probably marked the end of his career as Russia’s president and it is likely that he knew it.

And it took great courage for the inexperienced Kennedy to reign in his military to allow diplomacy to work, while at the same time firmly and squarely facing down an enemy.Community surprises happen daily. No community knows its future. Yet communities must make future plans. These plans can never be completely accurate. Thus expectations are not met and surprises happen.

In movies and the theater most dramatic plots are created by a surprise that changes the direction of the lives of the characters from that point forward. These dramas remind us that Fate always gets to play.

Startle/Surprise/Wonder Defined*

Surprise is one of Ekman’s Sacred Six. It is well researched because of this. We first see it reported in infants of about six months. Surprise throws our body and psyche intoneutral (Nathanson, 1990). It clears our minds of other emotions and other thoughtsjust as a clutch on a standard transmission car takes the car out of gear. As the mind’s palate is cleansed by surprise, we are asking the questions “what,” “how,” “when,” “where” or “why.” Our head tilts to the side. Our eyes squint as if we are trying to see more clearly. We have a blank look on our face, as if the face is alert, asking a question, wondering, not knowing. There has been a violation of what we had expected. A steady state has been interrupted. “What the . . .?” are the words forming in our mouths. Surprise can come from a discovery of a wonderful thing that we hadn’t expected or from a sudden threat. If we are hoping for something to happen, but afraid that it won’t, we are delightfully surprised when it does. If something other than what we hoped for comes to pass we are sadly disappointed, perhaps even frightened.Surprise needs to be short-lived. Surprise prepares us for a new emotion, just as the clutch prepares the car’s engine for a new gear. Left engaged too long, the clutch burns out. Surprise makes way for a fresh start. It announces to us and others that we don’t know. We are confused. We are wondering. When in a crisis, we can only afford to be in the state of not-knowing for a short time. We had better get in gear, figure out what it is, and what we feel, if we are to respond effectively.Startle is the most extreme version of this emotion. It is a sudden jolt of arousal. It fires all our nerves at once. Usually a startle response is not a pleasant experience. But we quickly forget our surprise, and we remember and associate it with the valence, positive or negative, of the emotion that follows.

Wonder is the most steady state of this emotion. It is the basis of awe, mystery, and spiritual experience. It forms the foundation, together with interest, of all curious exploration.This is the emotion we feel in response to sudden change. Whether the response is as intense as startle/surprise or merely wonder depends on how much we care about what’s going on and how afraid we are at the time. If we are not that aroused and we are not afraid and what’s happening doesn’t matter to us, a sudden change will make us merely wonder, “What could that be?” (Lang, Bradley & Cuthbert, 1990).

The Intelligence of Startle/Surprise/Wonder

Clearly, we cannot attach much intelligence to this emotion. The only thing wise about this confused state is that in this state we know that we don’t know and we ask questions. Sometimes that is a very wise thing to do.

The Negative Consequences of Surprise

Nathanson (1992) claims that there is little or no downside to surprise. And we may agree with him so long as surprise is a momentary response, but if a community holds on to the posture of surprise, of wonder and not-knowing then surprise can have a dark side.Feigned confusion can easily become real confusion. This can be the tool used to act passive aggressively. Not-knowing being confused can become a cover for not wanting to act. Inside a community this stance is used by members to withhold their energy and resources. This behavior takes advantage of those who take up the slack and willingly pitch in on a community project.It is a bit more difficult to see how a whole community can play dumb. But this was often the case in slave communities in the American South before the Civil War. Confusion fed right into the white slaveholder’s myth that slaves were inherently stupid. When a slave was in trouble and was being sought by the slave owner, universal reply to the question, “where is she?” was “I don’t rightly now Maser.”This collective strategy of the slave culture is annotated in Uncle Remus a book by Joel Chandler.

Often the culture’s powerless use the confusion posture with the look of surprise to manage the powerful. Women historically have been reduced to using this tool. The refrain goes something like this “why, you are so smart. I didn’t know how to do that,” or “my look at those strong arms. I’m just too weak to ever lift that. I don’t know how you did that,” or “I’m never changed a tire in my life and you are so good at it.”The problem with using this defense is that a community can begin to believe it. This is what Louis Farakahan says happened to the African American male. He became so used to saying, “I’m not good at that,” or “I’m not smart,” or “I’m not competent,” that he began to believe it. The result has been a collective low self-esteem, self-hatred, and self-destructiveness. This is one of the reasons the prisons are populated with mostly African American men. This is one reason that life expectancy of the African American male is so low.For some communities surprises are always negative. They are always followed by a reason to fear. An example of this is the urban housing projects in the United States. Loud noises or bangs in that community are assumed to be gunshots not firecrackers. If a child in this community associates surprise only with danger and fear, surprise will be a source of fear and pain for that child for a lifetime (Panksepp, 1993). This assumed association can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy in that community. In such a community surprises become fear. An atmosphere of paranoia is the result. The community becomes risk-averse and cynical. Isolation becomes a natural response. Trust is stupid. The future becomes frightening rather than inviting. Such a community can suffer from chronic post-traumatic stress.

Communities often depend on experts in order to avoid surprises. An expert is one who can predict what will happen next if the community makes one decision over another. An attorney can predict how courts will rule by studying legal precedents. A structural engineer can predict how much concrete it will take to dam a river.Communities can work more effectively if they are prepared. For example, San Francisco can prevent earthquake damage by designing buildings to be able to withstand the shock of earth tremors.Mastery means control. Communities can become addicted to mastery. They can come to view all surprise as the enemy. Complete mastery is never possible. Surprises will happen in communities no matter how prepared they think they are.

Though surprise can knock communities off balance they can become resources for positive change. Floods can help communities find better places to put homes, thus preventing others from being flooded in the future. The community psychology practitioner should see the crisis that is part of a community surprise as an opportunity.

The Positive Consequences of Surprise

A curious open community is obviously a good thing. A community that forms answers and knows before the data is in is a community headed for disaster. Surprise and not-knowing is essential to inquiry. It is part of the foundation of problem solving, faith (in a community or in a religion), play, and creativity.In play surprise exhilarates. Communities of children play games of hide and seek that are designed to stimulate the startle response. Rides at fairs take people on pretend journeys meant to surprise and raise their adrenalin and at the end resolve their surprise with the joy of standing on terra firma. Surprise, as mentioned earlier, is an important part of the dramatic plot. Suspense and putting the reader or audience in the state of wondering, not-knowing but needing to know is a standard artistic device, put in books and dramas for the enjoyment of the audience.All communities are built on articles of faith. Some of communities are built on a shared religious faith that includes a respect for fate and the unexpected. Others are built on the faith that their form of government works best and is open to new developments or unexpected events. Whatever the faith the community believes in, whether it is a god or the collective hard work and practice, that faith will be used to meet surprise and give the community the strength to transform the surprise into an opportunity. Willingness to not know is essential to faith and the celebration of wonder.Communities use surprises as the basis of their collected stories. Most community myths come from an historical community surprise. From that surprise the community’s symbolic hero emerged and lead the community to change and grow because of the challenge presented by the surprise.

Artists when they reflect on their work speak of unintended results that at first they considered mistakes, but after they looked again they found to be surprises that improved their work or sent them in directions that become fruitful for them.

The scientific community uses the famous example of bacteriologist Andrew Fleming. He was throwing away culture plates that had been contaminated with mold, when he was surprised to see something he had never noticed: a halo or ring of clear, bacteria-free medium around each island of mold. His surprise led to the development of the first antibiotic: penicillin.

Surely a community wants to nurture surprise to support creativity, play, wonder, mystery, and faith. But surprise needs to last for a relatively short period in order for it to remain positive. Surprise needs to be resolved by a new awareness and a new emotion appropriate to the new circumstance.

Resolving Surprise

Almost every emotion creates an effective resolve for surprise. The only exception is rest/relaxation/trance. Since surprise is an emotion that arouses the body, it is the antithesis of relaxation. Hence relaxation has a difficult time following right on the heals of surprise. Anger can follow surprise when there is a threat. Sadness can follow surprise when the surprise is interpreted as a loss. Joy can follow surprise when surprise comes to mean success or achievement. Fear like anger can follow surprise. But we can get stuck in fear being associated with surprise, and that can keep us from finding opportunities to be creative with the change that is part of surprise. Often disgust is an appropriate resolve to surprise because some surprises are dangerous threats that can work like poison. Interest resolves surprise into a merger that becomes curiosity. These two emotions can create a great deal of energy for inquiry. Shame is also an effective resolve to surprise.

Treating Community Surprise

There is nothing wrong with a community accessing surprise and not-knowing what to do, if the inquiry that this represents produces an answer. But if a community holds on to the posture of surprise or wonder, then it will not be prepared when it is required to act or it will begin to believe its own words about not-knowing and being confused.Using surprise is this way is the essence of a cognitive distortion and a cognitive behavioral intervention is appropriate here. The community psychology practitioner should help the community find an answer to the inquiry that surprise creates. This will require a decision making process. We nominate the following one:

Step one – use surprise to begin the inquiry into what does the community feels beyond surprise and what is the appropriate response.

Step two – imagine answers to the inquiry. Play with these questions. All possible answers are good answers. In this step remain curious open and playful.

Step three – here the community must use discernment or what we would call disgust. Reject the answers that do not seem to be appropriate ones. And choose the feeling and course of action from the nominations that is deemed best.

Step four – act on the answer. The community is required by this step to believe in itself and the process and creativity used to get here. In this place the community should act as if they did know and move forward with certainty until surprised again. When that happens the community can repeat the process over again.

When helping resolve surprise it is important for the community psychologist to note that it is not her job to find the answer. It may be the practitioner’s job to facilitate the process, but often even that role is too visible. When possible, encourage the community’s leaders or members to do this work themselves. The practitioner’s job is only to know where to point so that a community can resolve its own surprise.

Community Fatigue/Rest/Trance

This is probably the most controversial nomination for a basic community emotion. But this is one of the primary reasons to belong to a community. None of us can do everything well alone. Members often need relief from their work. That’s one of the purposes of a community to allow members to rest and still have the community’s work continue.

But communities often need to stop productive work and relax. Most citizens of Paris leave town in the month of August and many services and government offices close during that month.In Mexico and Italy town stores close between two and four in the afternoon. In Mexico this is called siesta. In Italy it is called la pennichella. It is common for Germans to take six weeks of paid vacation.

There are examples of soldiers in war on either side of the front line singing Christmas carols together during a lull in a battle.In American history one example of a community at rest or in a trance occurred in the Civil War the fall of 1864. In Tennessee the rebel forces were in the advantageous position of having the Yankee forces in the south of middle Tennessee cut off from their larger force in Nashville.The Rebel troops bivouacked for the night on either side of the main north/south road. The generals of the rebel forces and perhaps the soldiers of lesser ranks had the habit of drinking corn whiskey in order to make war and sleep in the evenings possible for them. On this night the security around the camp was lax. While the encampment of rebel troops slept, the whole force of the Yankee troops south of Nashville, marched directly through the middle of the rebel troops on the main road.

General Hood, who was in charge of the rebel troops, was so angry at his generals for being asleep while the enemy marched right through the middle of the rebel forces that he ordered them to head the charge of the Battle of Franklin the next day. Five generals were killed and the organization of the rebel troops was dissipated. The Battle of Franklin destroyed what organized army there was on the western front. The devastating loss here guaranteed a Yankee victory. Being completely at rest caused the Rebel forces to lose what advantage they had.

Fatigue/Rest/Trance Defined

Fatigue is a drive like hunger. Fatigue’s focus is sleep, or at the very least, rest. When we are fatigued, our bodies ache for sleep. Fatigue can bring a community near to sleep. When it has permission to the community will release its responsibilities and become at rest. Organized community’s focus on tasks ceases. Each member moves away from their community roles. Some members may go to sleep. Others may play. Others may eat. Others may go into a trance, e.g., watching television. Renewal is the function of this emotion.Rest renews our bodies and our minds. It has its own facial expressions, its own biochemical brain chemistry, and its own neurological brain-wave patterns. It is an important physical state that our bodies must express.Fatigue is our body’s signal that we need rest now. Without rest, we will lose our sanity and our physical health. Each day, therefore, our body needs to spend a significant time at rest. Relaxation is effective rest, but not deep sleep. The trance also is restful, but our eyes remain open. In sleep, we dream and lose consciousness. Our bodies are renewed and nurtured during sleep.

The Intelligence of FRT

Clearly, our mind is not at our disposal during this emotion. Perhaps it is being enriched and renewed by rest, just as is the body. Of course, the species cycle of exercise followed by rest has a genetic intelligence but not a person-specific intelligence. There are many reports of people going to sleep with a question or problem and waking with the answer, but we cannot expect or command our minds to do this work during sleep. Perhaps sleep can provide wisdom, but not conscious intelligence.

The Negative Consequences of Fatigue/Rest/Trance

In the previous Civil War story we described what can happen when a community is at rest when at least some part of it needed to be alert.

A community can go into rest mode to avoid feeling other feelings. If it is failing at a task one thing a community can do is to quit work and rest to avoid facing the shame of failure. Similarly for a community that is dealing with the sadness of loss or death, rest is a seductive alternative to processing the collective pain of sadness. The most dangerous (and the most productive) use of the at rest posture is to avoid fear. On a shorter term basis rest in the face of fear may be useful, but avoiding fear by resting over long periods of time can create a chronic community phobic state.

For whatever reasons resting for long periods can negatively feed on itself. Lack of practice (or what musicians call keeping up their chops) can create a loss of skill and hence a loss of confidence. Without a community’s normal strength or skill, the community will tire easily from work, which will encourage more rest. This helps a community avoid its problems creating a cycle of procrastination and fear.

When a community loses interest and becomes bored it is more polite to shut down and rest than it is to assert itself and demand that members re-focus and stay on task. When boredom takes over a community it is easy for it to lapse into a trance and allow its collective mind to rest. This is not such a bad response unless the community is expected to learn something or to be alert for some reason. Sometimes it is part of the community’s job to endure boredom and stay focused.

One common response to boredom or to painful stress is the dissociative response. Here the trance transports the community away from the present and into an imaginary perhaps delusional world. Religious communities have sometimes been accused of merging members into a shared dissociative delusion (e.g., The Jonestown mass suicide).

One of the worst things fatigue can do to a community is to magnify whatever emotions it feels at the time. Imagine an all-girls’ slumber party. The girls stay up late. The evening begins with laughter, but as it gets later and the girls get more tired, the giggling becomes constant and what they are laughing about is not that funny. Or, imagine a policeman who, because he is working two jobs, hasn’t had much sleep. He stops a motorist who talks back in a foul tone, and the policeman overreacts in anger. Or, recall being tired and sad at the same time, beginning to cry and having trouble stopping.Often, groups trying to convince and encourage membership, (e.g., church youth groups, Werner Erhard Training, fraternity pledging) use fatigue to break down defenses to emotions and create shared emotional experiences that help bond the group and encourage self-disclosure and joining. In such circumstances, individuals go along with the group and do and say things that they ordinarily would not.Community’s can misuse fatigue to control its members, but it can also ignore its fatigue and become a tense fractious and irritable community, tearing at itself because it is desperate for rest and won’t allow itself to get the relaxation and renewal it needs.

Positive Consequences of Fatigue/Rest/Trance

We have already talked about how rest can nurture the community’s bodies, minds and renew the community spirit. It is clear that every community needs to have rest built into its daily, weekly and yearly routine. In order to maintain a high quality of community life, after heavy exertion or being threatened, the community needs to find sanctuary so that it can calm and soothe itself.All major religions discuss using faith to combat the fear demons. Indeed, fear can become a force that sabotages instead of protects. Bad things happen to good people. Tornadoes, earthquakes, fires, floods, accidents, crimes, and disease can make any community the scene of a tragedy. Communities strive to overcome these ordeals. But often no matter how great or heroic its effort, a community might still be unable to make a bad situation better. Fear is an inevitable feeling in these circumstances. Fear and dread can overwhelm a community.In situations like this the best thing for a community to do is calm down and relax. When a community relaxes in the face of adversity it is using faith to fight fear –Faith that the community can put aside its tools and weapons close its eyes and rest, hoping and believing that rest will bring with it new strength and new ideas and new energy that the community can use to deal with the crisis at hand.

Rest is often the next – and best – thing for a community to do to cope with stress, especially unrelenting stress. Often psychologists use terms like repression and denial to describe the process of pushing fear away with faith, which allows rest and renewal. This skill is not deviant or crazy. It can be the best response to overwhelming stress. Children often discover this skill by themselves and needn’t be taught. But when they depend on the trance as their only coping device this can present a problem.Even the delusional dissociative defense makes sense when a community is stripped of all its assets. Prisoners of war can invent a collective imaginary world that they can use together to confound their captors (see King Rat, 1962 by James Clavell).

Resolving Fatigue/Rest/Trance

Any emotion can resolve rest. Awaking is a general arousal characterized by interest/excitement/desire.

Shame, fear, sadness and anger are not pleasant emotions to return to after rest. Disgust is an emotion essential to a community’s survival, e.g., waking a resting community to the disgusting smell of a smoke filled room can save lives. Joy would be a wonderful emotion to greet a community on its return from rest, but most of the time joy comes after interest has provoked a community’s arousal to move toward a goal. When the goal is achieved joy is the result.

Other emotions have paths that may take two or three emotional steps to healthy resolve (e.g., sadness or shame). For rest to be resolved only one emotion is necessary and that emotion is desire. Desire arouses a community and re-engages it with a purpose.

Treating Community Fatigue/Rest/Trance

The fatigue part of this emotion reminds a community of a truism about all emotions. Clearly a community needs to rest and relax until it has had enough rest. The same applies to the other emotions. They have a course to run. That course should not be short-circuited until that emotion has been fully expressed. A balance exists for all emotions that are between enough and too much. A healthy community finds that balance.It is the community psychologist practitioner’s job to help a community find that balance. And that is especially relevant to this emotion. The simplest part of this task for the practitioner is to remind a community that it may be tired and need rest. A simple reminder is all that the practitioner should offer. If a community is fatigued it will be obvious once it considers the question.Treating a community stuck in a trance or in a resting pose can be more difficult. To do this the practitioner must have a community that is willing to accept her help. Most communities stuck in a trance are reluctant to come out of rest and do not want help. Indeed they may be afraid of help. We are not sure that the practitioner can do anything here. A practitioner is not a parent. When a community asks for help then the practitioner has a client that can be worked with. The first step is to do something that is theatrically startling. It does not matter what it is. The more playful the better. The practitioner is not asking to be taken seriously; rather the practitioner is merely trying to arouse the community from its deep sleep or trance. This action serves the same function as a loud bang.

The next thing to do is to use the startle response to open the inquiry. In this moment what, where, when, and how questions are asked. These questions orient the community to the present reality and pull the community out of its dream toward a shared desire.

Once a community is oriented to the reality of its present time, place, and purpose the next task is to face the demons that it used rest to escape. Here the practitioner should ask the community what feeling it was trying to avoid. Often the feeling is one or more of these: fear, shame, or sadness. The task here is to work through that feeling that has chased the community into its cave.Now that the emotional to-do work has been identified and begun, the community should ask its critics to help it test reality. All communities fall into collective trances now and again and need to listen to its critics to be sure that it is getting reengaged with reality as it is.

The next task is to get to work. The community is now awake, oriented, critiqued and prepared to face its demons. Probably some change is required. It could be a change in behavior, community norms or community goals. It is at this point that the community gets on with its job; whatever it has discovered that job to be, as it emerged from its deep rest/trance.

Community Disgust

More than any other emotion disgust forms a community’s values and protects it from ingesting poison. Community leaders point where they want the community to look and ask for collective expressions of disgust. This emotional tool is most clearly used during wartime. At such times disgusting pejorative names are created for the enemy.In American history one example of this is President Roosevelt’s speech when he announced that Pearl Harbor was attacked and the United States was at war with Japan. He began his speech with words to arouse the nation’s disgust toward its enemy. The words were: “This day shall live in infamy.”

In movies disgust is often portrayed as a source of evil (which it can be). The movies we are talking about are often aimed at a teenage audience. American Graffiti is probably the classic of this genre, but Elvis Presley movies or any movie that is the vehicle for a teen heartthrob are also examples of this. Basically the movie uses some moralistic, overprotective librarian or overzealous school principal who uses disgust inappropriately toward the energetic, sexually aroused, but basically good teenagers. The protagonist makes the point that these teenagers have good hearts when he saves the day. They have been misunderstood by the patronizing overprotective moralists that are misusing the emotion of disgust. The teenagers in these movies were the truly moral people fighting the evil overly moralistic disgust.

Disgust Defined

Disgust for our purposes is combined with contempt. The survival function of these two emotions is to avoid poison or contamination. This could be from eating or touching or from emotional poison or social contamination. These emotions are basically offensive and intended to harm or reject. The human object of these emotions is meant to feel shame.Darwin defined disgust as “something revolting, primarily in relation to the sense of taste . . .  and, secondarily, to anything that causes a similar feeling through the sense of smell touch or eyesight,” (The expression of the emotions in man and animals, 1872, p. 65, p. 253). Tomkins (1963) used similar words but placed more emphasis on interpersonal intimacy. He said disgust is “recruited to defend the self against psychic incorporation or any increase in intimacy with a repellant object” (The expression of the emotions in man and animals, p. 233).

The survival function of disgust/contempt is to protect the body from poison, disease, or infection. It can be elicited by food, body products, associations to sex, death, or hygiene. Evolution in humans has expanded disgust from the biological functions to include moral and social functions. It serves to protect the soul and the social order as well as the body.  Strangers to the community, people who do not fit the community standards, those considered undesirable and offenses considered by the community to be immoral can also elicit a community’s disgust.As humans evolved, so did disgust. What is now considered disgusting varies with the culture. In American most people were disgusted by President Clinton’s sexual behavior. In France this same behavior was considered of little consequence. Prime Minister Chirac’s mistress often presided at public ceremonies in his place.

Douglas (1966) implied that disgust is our reaction to something out of bounds or in the wrong place. Though disgust has made every list of emotions, it is not present in monkeys. It appears to be a distinguishing feature of the human species, (Chevaliar-Skolnikoff, 1973).

The biological purpose of disgust/contempt is to discriminate among tastes. This emotion protects a community from what it judges to be a source of contamination, disease or poison. Disgust warns a community to get away from, not eat, wash our hands after, touch with a stick rather than with its member’s hands. While the evolutionary base of disgust/contempt centers around food, it is used symbolically to express our negative judgment and rejection of things that the community disapproves of.The expression used to express disgust mimics the expression that automatically comes with nausea. The mouth wrinkles as the upper lip is raised the lower lip and tongue protrude.The expression of contempt varies slightly. The nose goes up in the air, as if withdrawing from an offensive odor. One corner of the mouth is raised while the other is lowered. Thus, the sneer of contempt.

The Intelligence of Disgust/Contempt

We would speculate that disgust/contempt is highly intelligent. Located in the highly evolved front of the brain (Davidson, 1992), it is one of the last emotions to evolve in humans. To be disgusted or contemptuous, we must discriminate or logically evaluate the source of the distaste or nausea. We need our intellect to make the discriminations and judgments that are part of disgust/contempt.

The Negative Consequences of Disgust/Contempt

Izard (1972) first conceptualized what he called the “hostility triad” of emotions. He identified these as contempt, anger, and disgust. These three emotions when viewed by an uninterested observer may be considered the three most unattractive emotions. Most of us are repelled by the person expressing these feelings. That is the point of the person expressing the hostility triad, of course, to push away or intimidate someone into leaving and submitting. But in addition to frightening and shaming their object, these emotions repel the observer as well.

Disgust/contempt is the basis of all kinds of discrimination and prejudice. These emotions entitled Hitler to attempt to eliminate the Jews and Americans to exterminate Indians or hold slaves. It is the basis of wars and social hatred.Communities can become infected with too much disgust acting as if it had an obsessive-compulsive disorder. This was what happened in Spain and other Catholic countries during the Inquisition. This is what happened in the beginnings of the founding of the American colonies with the Salem witch trials. These were examples of communities trying to cleanse themselves of social and moral dangers.Disgust/contempt tends to give permission to anger, thus releasing behavior motivated by our least intelligent emotion. This can result in inappropriate behavior and poor judgment.Disgust projected outward onto others by a community can be a product of the community’s feelings of shame that it refuses to face. Such intense repressed shame projected on to others can produce a multitude of ill-advised, mean and pathological behaviors. An example of this may be the Afghanistan Taliban’s demonizing of the West, because they are ashamed of how they treat women.

Positive Consequences of Disgust

The negative consequences of disgust are so pernicious that it is difficult for us as community psychologists to complete the task of providing a balanced picture of disgust. But it is important that community psychologists recognize the good that disgust does for a community as well. Disgust is the basis of moral values and human rights. Without disgust we would not have laws or respect for human dignity.

The function of the emotion, disgust, is to teach right from wrong, good from bad, kindness from evil. Disgust/contempt has many parallels with how religion often is regarded in our culture. Religion is criticized as being the basis of wars, religious hatred, and intolerance. Yes, of course, this is true, just as it is true about disgust/contempt. But religion is also responsible for teaching love, compassion, kindness, and tolerance. This too is true about disgust/contempt. It can be a force for good as well as bad. Its effect depends on how we use it.On the political right, Bill Bennett wrote a book called The Death of Outrage (1998), advocating that we should be intolerant, disgusted by, and contemptuous of certain behavior displayed by President Clinton. From a leftist point of view, Bennett’s judgment was termed “sexual McCarthyism,” or evil and dangerous witch-hunting intolerance.

This debate can be compared to the problem that every community has in trying to determine what is right. A community needs to have disgust for dangerous drugs, cheating, corruption and violence.Disgust is one of two emotions that are essential to discernment and judgment. The other emotion is desire. When a community puts its wants in tension with its disgust it provides a framework for making judgments. Desire represents the emotion that reflects the community’s likes, what it is attracted to. Disgust represents a community’s emotions when it is repulsed by things or behaviors. What would a community be without the tension between these emotions? If a community was without disgust there would be no basis for discerning right from wrong, no values, no definition of what a community stands for.

Resolving Disgust

As with the other emotions, all emotions resolve disgust. Some emotions lead a community from disgust to ruin. Other emotions lead a community to health and well being. Anger usually multiplies and adds to disgust/contempt. It rarely diminishes it. Fear might repress disgust. But it only keeps it below the surface. The energy that comes from anger and disgust united can bring the joy of victory. But this joy will only institutionalize disgust and entitle a community to continue feeling it. Joy and disgust together become ridicule.Shame is the emotion most closely associated with disgust. It is the emotion disgust attempts to make its object feel (and usually that is someone else). But it works the other way as well. If a community uses disgust to judge others and discovers that it wrongly judged them or the community loses some battle to its enemy, shame will resolve its disgust. This is not a pleasant outcome.

Sadness is a leveling emotion. It will resolve disgust by reminding the community of its loses. Life is full of loses and a community must face its loses.Shame and sadness are effective resolves for disgust, but the best resolution to disgust is surprise followed by interest. Disgust gives a community certainty and confidence that it is in the right. When a community resolves disgust with surprise it finds an antidote to rigid certainty. Surprise begins inquiry. Inquiry opens the community to wonder. If surprise is followed by desire then the energy that comes from desire is combined with the energy that comes from surprise to create curiosity. Curiosity leads a community to investigate reality which brings a community new information. New information will solidify good community values and help a community find appropriate uses for its disgust.

Treating Community Disgust

Treating a community’s disgust can first require treating its toxic shame. When disgust comes from a community’s repressed shame, disgust will not be transformed until the shame can be processed into a healthy emotional resolve. (See shame section).Some communities may refuse to use its disgust to form judgments. The community’s passivity can open it to follow the assertiveness of other communities, e.g., Austria allying with Germany in World War II.

The consequence of the community’s passiveness and the trouble that comes from it can become the community’s teacher. The community psychology practitioner’s job is to help this community learn from its pain. Once again the healthy resolve of shame becomes the best resource.For the community that finds disgust and judgment too easily the job of the practitioner is to teach tolerance. The first step in teaching tolerance is to help a community clearly record its defining principles and values.Use these values to create boundaries of where the community belongs and where it does not, using these values as a basis to make judgments. The community should use these values to make judgments about itself. These judgments should apply only to itself.

The practitioner should help the community commit itself to apply its judgments only to itself and not to other people or people outside the community. When a judgment is made it should be made public so that it can be examined and critiqued.These steps should lead to tolerance. The community will find it easier keep opinions to itself, so that impulsive community judgmental disgust is not misapplied.The exercise in learning and practicing tolerance is not useful to all communities. It is useful for communities who tend to use their disgust to be cruelly judgmental. Tolerance for torture, slavery, censorship, and other human rights violations that are disgusting for the whole human community should not be encouraged.

Compassion: The Community Psychologists Emotional Master Key*

Each emotion can resolve their sibling emotions, some to the good and some not. Compassion is almost a healthy resolve to all emotions.Consider the legacy of the Marshall Plan. After World War II, General George Marshall was put in charge of the Allied Forces occupying Germany and Western Europe. President Truman supported Marshall’s plan to rehabilitate Europe. The plan was simple. Instead of treating Germans as a disgusting people who owed the world for the damage caused by the War, as had been done after World War I, the Marshall Plan was to help Germany restore its infrastructure by spending money to rebuild its roads, communication systems, water plants and their democracy. The plan was to respect the dignity of the German people and to have compassion for their suffering. General McAuthur followed a similar plan in Japan.           

The legacy of the United States national compassion for its enemies is two strong allies and trading partners. And that is important to note. But perhaps even more important is the legacy of honor and pride the United States has over conquering its national impulse for vengeance. The United States can rightly see itself because of the Marshall and McAuthur plans as the nation that helped bring peace, compassion and democracy to the world. The United States has a right to be proud of this part of its history.For the purpose of a community psychology practitioner compassion is probably the practitioner’s most important tool. In American history one of the best examples of a community psychologist at work is Eleanor Roosevelt. As first lady Ms. Roosevelt had no formal power or authority. Her power was her attention. Where she went, what she saw and heard, the media went, saw, and heard too.When she went to the coal miners of West Virginia the media followed. As she listened to the coal miner’s stories of danger, disaster and black lung disease, the media heard that too. As she went down in the mines to see the difficult and dangerous working conditions of miners the media came along. Eleanor Roosevelt used her visibility to awaken her nation’s conscience to the poverty of Appalachia, to the racial discrimination in the South, to the powerless position of women in the United States.

The example of Eleanor Roosevelt as a hard working woman served as a role models for the women, who during World War II left their domesticity and went to work in industry.Eleanor Roosevelt’s main tools were her eyes, ears and presence that she used to offer compassion to her fellow Americans.

Compassion Defined

Compassion or empathy is being open to and allowing one’s self to experience the feelings that another or others are feeling. Compassion does not require giving remedies or solving problems, although these may come later as a result of compassion. Compassion requires listening, understanding and caring how others feel. In this process the person giving compassion tries on the feelings of the other and as much as possible feels these feelings with the other. If the compassion is real it will move the heart and possibly teach the person giving compassion information that can inform changes in the way she behaves and responds in the future.

Evidence that one is feeling compassion comes when the giver of compassion uses the same language as the other or uses metaphorical language that describes the feeling at an even deeper level than what has yet to be said. After listening attentively, the most important product of compassion are words like, “If I understand I would feel just like you do, if I were you. Your feelings make sense of me.” Compassion includes listening, reflecting and validating.

The Negative Consequences of Compassion

There are few negative consequences of compassion if compassion is truly given. Compassion can be confused with sympathy. Compassion as sympathy can have a great deal of negative consequences. Sympathy uses the same emotional neurological reflex to merge with the feelings of another, but sympathy contains a defense that protects the giver of sympathy from completely emotionally merging. Sympathy has a distancing detaching defense that reminds the sympathy giver that she is not the other person. “Thank God I’m not you.” Sympathy provides a superior position to the sympathy giver with words like, “Poor thing, I feel sorry for you.” This can easily be heard by the one receiving the sympathy as, “I’m glad I’m not you. I’m glad I’m better than you.” Or “I’m sorry you are so stupid as to feel the way you do.”

The reason people tend to use sympathy rather than compassion is that they are afraid that merger will mean a loss of self. It is easy to confuse compassion with giving in to the other or letting go of one’s own needs and feelings and taking on another’s.

Some people do put aside their feelings for others never to return to their own. This creates conditions for an abusive relationship. When this happens it is certainly a negative consequence of compassion.When compassion is seen as merger and loss of self it is easy to think that the compassion giver must be held accountable as a problem solver. If these misconceptions of compassion were true then one would need the protection and distance that sympathy gives the sympathy giver.

Though compassion is a natural reflex there are times when merging with another’s feelings is unwelcome, unwanted and inappropriate. An example of this is when one’s friend is sad from a serious painful loss. Even though the friend is sad she must appear in a public role as master of ceremonies at a club meeting. The minute the person sees her friend she feels the strong feelings of sadness that she knows that her friend feels and begins to cry. Tears can stimulate the friend’s tears and the friend who has a task to perform does not welcome this compassion.

Respect and boundaries are important to finding the appropriate time and place to give compassion.

The Positive Consequences of Compassion

Some people are confused about compassion. It does not mean giving in to get along. If one cares, which is part of compassion, what good is compassion?

Compassion that is not sympathy is such a simple way of connecting with others. It is a natural reflex that happens in the brain whether the person wants to feel compassion or not. In fact it takes thought to turn compassion off. Because of the ease of merging with another’s feelings compassion is a universal social tool. It instantly connects us in ways that words and language by themselves cannot.

When one is stuck in an emotion and receives compassion from another (“I see what you feel. I would feel the same way if I were you. You’re not crazy for feeling that way.”) It opens that person to moving on to another emotion just as a key opens a lock. The reason for this is that feelings happen in the brain before the person understands why she feels them. Sometimes it seems that feelings are irrational. All humans are afraid that their feelings will not make sense to others and that they may be considered crazy for feeling as they do. When people are offered compassion, then they do not have to defend their feelings. As their defenses come down they are open to feeling the next feeling that occurs to them and they can move on in the emotional flow.

It is clear how the receiver benefits from being given compassion. What is not so obvious is how the giver of compassion benefits from giving compassion. It can be easily agreed that the giver is then the object of the compassion when they are hurt. But that is not the only positive consequence of being the compassion giver. Earlier we discussed how giving compassion activate new parts and new neurohormones in the brain. If the giver of compassion coincidently needs a resolve in her own emotional knot (without discovering a healthy emotional resolve to this stuck emotional place), the compassion giver finds herself with a new emotion and newly activated brain structures and neurohormones simply by seeing another’s feelings and feeling those feelings herself.

When people give compassion they move out of their self-absorbed focus and feel new feelings that comes from those around them. Being willing to care about others and become emotionally a part of a community will, in and of itself, keep their emotional flow healthy.

This could be the reason that social networks are such positive influences on our health. This could be why sociable single women are so much healthier than socially incompetent, divorced males. These women have a greater capacity for empathy and social connection (Antonucci, Lansford and Sherman, 1998).In the previous section about negative consequences of compassion we discussed the potential loss of self that can be part of compassion. But just as compassion is a natural human reflex, so to is looking out for the self and being aware of what we feel. It is a great thing about compassion that we do not have to do anything but listen, understand and validate the feeling of another. That in itself is a great gift.Once that is done people naturally return to their own feelings just as the human body naturally floats up to the top of the water after a dive in the lake. If the person who just received compassion is interested they can ask about how the giver of compassion feels or the giver can ask for a time to be listened to and understood. The feelings that the former giver of compassion has are never exactly the same as the person who formally received the compassion. People can always have access to their own feelings and needs when they want to express them. People never lose this. In fact they have to work hard to ignore themselves.

Mastering Compassion as a Community Psychologist

In the previous sections we had parallel topics of resolving (whatever emotion) followed by treating (whatever community emotion). Here that is not necessary because rarely does one want to resolve compassion. Sometime when compassion givers are fatigued they will need to resolve compassion with rest. Sometimes people or communities who are lost in compassion may need help reawakening their awareness of their own feelings and needs. There may be times when the practitioner must help the sympathy giver learn to become a compassion giver instead. But other than these refinements of the basic instinct of compassion, there is very little to do in resolving compassion.

The primary challenge that compassion poses for a community psychologist is to learn how to use compassion as an intervention tool. The first step in giving compassion is to give one’s attention, to listen and understand. Of course a practitioners can use their physical presence to demonstrate that they are and have been listening. This is an essential skill for any practitioner, learning how to be truly present.In addition to this the community psychology practitioner has research skills that can be used compassionately to listen and understand. Asking questions in the form of a research tool can give the community a powerful voice to say what it feels and thinks. A community psychologist can listen by studying data and crunching numbers.

One of the primary questions that any practicing community psychologist should be asking is what is the quality of life of the community? This question can be answered by qualitative listening or by studying social indicators or by following community members as they move through their community settings and evaluating the support that community settings give to members.There are many ways for a community psychology practitioner to listen, but none of them will be useful unless the community sees that it has been listened to and understood. Practitioners cannot dismiss their community by simply saying, “I understand.” “I hear you.” “I know.” Such responses will only alienate practitioners from their client communities.

Before the community will believe that practitioners understand they must tell their communities what they understand and ask the community if they have it right. If they do not yet understand they must listen further until all agree that they understand.This step may require a great deal of time of reporting back to the community what practitioners believe they have learned from their community. This is best done face to face, but it can be done through the media or mail or e-mail.

The next step is to help the community see that it is indeed making sense. This means validation of the community’s feelings. This is not done merely by reflecting what the practitioner has heard, this is done by adding meaning and artistry to what the community psychology practitioner has heard. The community psychologist has an advantage over individual practitioners here. Community psychologists can bring research to bear here and can bring information that their scholarship has discovered to add to their own research and to their community’s sense of what it feels is happening. Putting together a clear picture of reality that validates a community’s experience is perhaps the community psychology practitioner’s greatest resource to a community. This validation creates a basis for action. It unifies and justifies the steps that the community takes to act on its feelings.

The final step for the practitioners is to get out of the way. After the validation occurs the community is ready to act. In the acting, doing phase the community psychologist should disappear and let the community get back to being the active engaged community that it wanted to be.This concludes our argument that community psychologists have a great deal to learn from psychology. The individual practitioner often sees herself as working on the community one person at a time. Most of us who work at the individual and family level see the same dynamics at the community level. The mayor and council members are often similar to a dysfunctional family. The newspaper reporter serves as the only potential therapeutic voice.

We wish for another professional role that can nurture a community. We hope that you might someday fill that role. 

* Part of the loyalty oath to the Duluth model that it is assumed that battering is an all male disease. New data from other countries indicate that women resort to domestic violence more than men. Women hit more frequently during domestic disputes then men, but their blows do not do the physical damage of the blows from men

* Yvonne Aggazarian considers her fork-in-the-road technique to be much more complex and involved than the version I offer here. For a more complete rendition of her ideas see her 1997 book, Systems-Centered Therapy for Groups. Guilford Press.

* Yvonne Aggazarian considers her fork-in-the-road technique to be much more complex and involved than the version I offer here. For a more complete rendition of her ideas see her 1997 book, Systems-Centered Therapy for Groups. Guilford Press.

*Earlier we noted that many people see important distinctions between shame and guilt. For us here they mean the same thing and have the same neurological correlates.*Synonyms for surprise are startle, wonder, awe, and confusion.

*We use compassion and empathy as synonyms.

An Evolved Perspective on Sense of Community

by Dr. David W. McMillan

This article revisits the theory of sense of community originally developed in 1976 and subsequently presented by McMillan and Chavis (1986). Chavis, Hogge, McMillan, and Wandersman (1986) demonstrated its empirical strength as a theory and developed the Sense of Community Questionnaire. This was essential work in getting the theory used. As reflected in the contents of this special issue, the theory has since stimulated considerable empirical research. As I enter midlife, I review the issue in terms of the perspective and experiences of that period of my life. Thus, this paper examines the question: Do the past 20 years add any new thoughts to the theory? I believe the answer is “yes.” This article extends the principles offered by McMillan and Chavis (1986). The same four elements remain but are rearranged and renamed as follows: Spirit, Trust, Trade, and Art. Presently, I view Sense of Community as a spirit of belonging together, a feeling that there is an authority structure that can be trusted, an awareness that trade, and mutual benefit come from being together, and a spirit that comes from shared experiences that are preserved as art. 

Spirit

Spirit is the first element of this version of sense of community. Originally, the boundary aspect of the first principle of sense of community was labeled “membership” —membership emphasized boundaries that delimit “us” from “them” and that create the form of emotional safety that encourages self-disclosure and intimacy. Membership referred to one’s sense of belonging and to a sense of confidence that one has as a member as well as the aspect of acceptance from the group that facilitates belonging.Membership also alluded to the cognitive dissonance associated with a member’s responsibility to sacrifice for the community. According to McMillan and Chavis (1986) cognitive dissonance facilitates sense of community in these ways. First, it enhances a member’s confidence. Second, it creates in the member a sense of entitlement. Finally, it serves to build loyalty to the group.In the current version of the Sense of Community theory, spirit replaces membership as the defining aspect of this principle. Boundaries continue to distinguish members from nonmembers and provide emotional safety. Greater emphasis, however, is now placed on the spark of friendship that becomes the Spirit of Sense of Community. Each of us needs connections to others so that we have a setting and an audience to express unique aspects of our personality. We need a setting where we can be ourselves and see ourselves minored in the eyes and responses of others. In the view of some poets, human nature is naturally driven to express itself:As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;As tumbled over rim in roundy wellsStones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’sBow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:Deals out that being indoors each one dwells:Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,Crying What I do is me: for that I came. Gerard Manley HopkinsTo be nobody but yourselfIn a world that is trying it damnedestto make you like everybody ElseThat’s that hardest Thinge.e. cummings 

Emotional Safety

Truth is the primary unit of analysis for the Spirit of Sense of Community. This raises two issues. First, membership opens doors. The status of member brings with it the right to be in the group. Second, can the community provide the acceptance, empathy, and support for members to speak their truth and be themselves? “The Truth” in sense of community is analogous to materials in the construction of a building or to an electric spark in the flow of electricity. Without Truth there can be no sense of community. What we mean by “The Truth” is a person’s statement about his or her own internal experience. No one knows better than the speaker how the speaker feels. He or she is the final authority about his or her emotions. If community members are willing to look inside themselves and honestly represent their feelings to others, then they are speaking “The Truth” as they know it. If they say, “this is my opinion,” or “I feel sad,” or “my left ankle hurts,”—who can argue with them? That must be “The Truth.”The first task of a community is to make it safe to tell “The Truth.” That requires community empathy, understanding, and caring. There are three steps to creating such a sense of intimacy. The first step require the member’s courage to tell his or her intensely personal truth. The second and third steps involve the community. Can the community accept this truth safely? Can members of the community respond with courage equal to the self disclosing member’s courage and develop a circle of truth tellers and empathy givers?Intimacy occurs along a range. At one end, is the most personal, which is telling a person or a group how one feels at the time about that person or group. This takes personal emotional courage and also incurs psychological risk. At the other end of the continuum, intimacy entails speaking about what one thinks about people, events, or things from another place and time. McMillan and Chavis (1985) cited several studies to demonstrate that members are attracted to a community in direct relation to their emotional sense of it. Recent studies continue to confirm this point. Generally, these studies asked participants, “Do you disclose more when you feel safe?” The answer has overwhelmingly been “yes” (Canary & Spitzberg, 1989; Brandt, 1989; Canary & Cupach, 1988; Prager, 1989; Rosco, Kennedy, & Pope, 1987; Alexander, 1986). 

Boundaries

My concept of boundaries remains relatively the same as before (McMillan & Chavis, 1986). As noted originally, boundaries make emotional safety possible. Evidence which supported the idea of community boundaries has focused predominantly on the social scientist’s sympathy for the deviant. Recent work continues to voice that concern by explaining the phenomenon of scapegoating as a way of defining group boundaries (Forsyth, 1988; Alexander, 1986; Stein, 1989; Ng & Wilson, 1989). Kalma and Ellinger (1985), for example, found that groups created firmer boundaries defining the “us” vs. “them” in circumstances of scarcity and lack of resources. Vemberg (1990) noted “us” vs “them” boundaries in his study of newcomers to the seventh and eighth grades. These newcomers had difficulty penetrating the boundaries of established peer groups. Recent work has added to the concern for the deviant the recognition of the benefits which boundaries provide to the members of a community. Reported studies demonstrate that boundaries allay fears by identifying who can be trusted as “one of us.” (Keller, 1986; Kaplan, 1988; Weinig, Schmidt, & Midden, 1990; Weiss, 1987; Simon & Pettigrew, 1990; Karasawa, 1988).To the above purposes, I would add that boundaries define the logistical time/place settings for a group to be a group. Boundaries also relate to the content of communication. Do members disclose their feelings about the person or persons that are the object of these feelings or do members discuss subjects outside the community that are not shared and not intimate? Boundaries can distinguish the appropriate subject matter for group discourse.

Sense of Belonging

Similar to the concept of boundaries, sense of belonging basically remains intact with minor changes in language and emphasis. Originally, McMillan and Chavis (1986) identified one element of sense of belonging as “expectation of belonging.” At this time, that concept seems best described as the “faith that I will belong.” Acceptance remains unchanged. These two elements emphasize the two points of reference that are constant in sense of community theory—the member and the community.Faith That I Will Belong Faith comes from within the member. Acting on such faith represents a risk and requires courage since humiliation can result if the faith is not validated. In essence, people bond with those whom they believe want and welcome them. In addition to the evidence cited in McMillan and Chavis (1986) supporting the importance of faith, Rugel (1987) provides confirmation in the findings of a sociometric study of psychotherapy groups. In effect, when we believe that we will be welcome, that we fit or belong in a community, we have a stronger attraction to that community.Acceptance This element reflects the community’s response to the aforementioned faith. Just as a member has the responsibility of believing in his or her membership or right to belong, the community’s responsibility is to accept the member as a member. In their study of school football teams, Westre and Weiss (1991) demonstrated that acceptance from the team creates a sense of attachment in individual team members. Unchanged, therefore, is our earlier assertion that when one is accepted by the community one is more strongly attracted to that community. Paying Dues or Cognitive Dissonance Truthtelling, emotional safety, crossing the boundaries from “them” to “us,” and a sense of belonging are not achieved without sacrifice and challenge. Communities need to test new members to determine if they can and will be loyal to the community. Communities must know if a member will make available the time, energy, and financial commitment necessary to be a supportive, effective member. In McMillan and Chavis (1986), I defined this concept in terms of cognitive dissonance. This term, however, is too esoteric to convey the simple notion that to be part of a community involves “paying dues.”Paying dues promotes sense of community by first opening a door for a member in the group. It also gives the members a sense of entitlement. In Walt Disney’s movie “Pocahontas,” Kohohan was promised the chief’s daughter for his brave sacrifice in battle. The war veteran’s respect and reward is just one obvious example of a community’s way to express its appreciation for a member’s sacrifices. However, just as paying dues “entitles” a member, a community also has the right to expect that dues will be paid. Children are often told that with rights and privileges comes responsibility. The rights of community membership come with the expectation that the community can call on its members to make sacrifices. The military draft and taxes exemplify this principle.Beyond taxes and the findings originally cited by McMillan and Chavis (1986), recent empirical evidence extends the basis for associating paying dues with sense of community. Ingram (1986), for example, studied church congregations. He defined “paying dues” in terms of sharing one’s personal testimony or witness in front of the church. He found that meeting this challenge increases a person’s status in the church. Rugel’s (1987) study of psychotherapy groups demonstrates that the more one invests in a group the more one is accepted by the group. Findings from other recent studies suggest an important qualification to this principle. If the required sacrifice is too great, it can weather the member’s attachment to the community. Swan (1992) and Seta, Seta, and Erber (1993) argue that there is a limit to the amount of sacrifice that creates closeness. This position is consistent with the experience of psychotherapists who treat patients with phobias. When the therapist asks patients to create a desensitization ladder, it is essential that each rung be separated by reasonable increments. If the steps are too far apart, the patient will fail and treatment will increase rather than decrease fear. This caveat about paying dues is consistent with McMillan and Chavis’ (1986) prior discussion of the effect of humiliation on community membership. If members are asked to do more than they can do, then their inadequacy is exposed. The consequent shame may produce a need to distance oneself from the community.

Trust

The Spirit of sense of community can begin as a spark. With truthtelling, emotional safety, sense of belonging, and dues paying, this spark can become a flame. But it will never become a fire unless there exists in the community an authority structure that can sustain the fire.In McMillan and Chavis (1986), this second principle was called Influence. A community must be able to influence its members and members must be able to influence the community. To be effective, a community must have these influences flowing concurrently to create a sphere of influence. The salient element of influence is the development of trust. Trust develops through a community’s use of its power. Who has it? When do they have it? If not present in some members, when don’t they have it? For the spirit of community to survive beyond its first initial spark, the community must solve the problems arising from the allocation of power.The first requirement for such resolution is that people must know what they can expect from each other in the community. In effect, some sort of order must be established. This would include the development of community norms, rules, or laws. When a sense of order is present, one can predict, plan, and commit. Knowing a community’s norms or laws allows one to develop a sense of personal mastery. Consider what has been achieved by mankind’s knowing the rules of mathematics, engineering, chemistry, and physics. In a sport such as golf, order is found in knowing and executing the mechanics of a good golf swing. In baseball, knowing how to hold the ball in relation to the seams allows one to throw a curve ball. The relationship between knowledge and behavior extends to almost every human endeavor including dancing, drawing, music, etc.Learning the laws of how things work gives one mastery and creates the potential for attaining one’s desired level of performance. In a community, this knowledge translates into social, emotional, and political potential. Without social norms, however, there is only social chaos. The results of studies of group cohesion, (Battenhausen & Murigham, 1991; Dobbins & Zaccaro, 1986; Fuhrer & Keys, 1988; Keller, 1986; Zahrly & Tosi, 1989) for example, suggest that people become more cohesive when they know what to expect from one another.Once order exists, the next element for developing trust in a community relates to authority. It is assumed that an individual or individuals has to be in charge. A community must have a way to process information and make decisions. Without this capacity, the community will eventually perish. The decision maker or makers must have authority over the members for the sense of order to be maintained in the community.In primitive times, the strongest man ruled. When he became weak or died, the community order was threatened or lost and the community’s survival was at risk. Eventually, primogeniture evolved to put an end to the power struggles related to the succession of leaders. This solution, however, left authority or law dependent on the leader’s will or whim. If the leader vacillated, order disintegrated. Leaders could be, and often were, self-serving and capricious and could not always be trusted to serve in other than their self-interest. For this reason in 1212, English noblemen forced King John to sign the Magna Carta. This mandated that the King would rule by establishing law and abide by legal principles instead of his personal will. It introduced into communities the concept that authority can serve many rather than self. Western civilization advanced with the American and French Revolutions to a governance concept of democracy. If leaders did not answer to the people they led, the possibility of rebellion was always present.Social scientists have demonstrated that communities and groups are more cohesive when leaders influence members and when members influence leaders concurrently (Grossack, 1954; Thrasher, 1954; Taguriri & Kogan, 1960; Carson, Wirdemeyer, & Brawley, 1988; Newmann, Rutter, & Smith, 1989; Miller, 1990; Steel, Shane, & Kennedy, 1990). Grossack’s (1954) experimental paradigm clarifies this point. One set of participants are instructed to work cooperatively. A second group of participants are instructed to compete against one another. Grossack assumed that these instructions would create respective high cohesive and low cohesive groups. In fact, Grossack found that, in the “cooperative” group, members made more attempts to influence their fellows and accepted more pressure to conform than did those in the competing groups. A review of the social science literature confirms this point—the forces of love, intimacy, and cohesiveness operate from individual participant to the group, and from the group to the individual. This process occurs all at the same time because order, authority, and justice create the atmosphere for the exchange of power (McMillan & Chavis, 1986).Lawler (1992) found that the more unequally the power is distributed within a group the meaner and more ruthless are all members of that group. Hung (1991) found that people exerted greater personal force when they were in a relatively strong position compared with others in the group. People exerted less personal force when they were in a weaker position. Lawler also found that people used greater personal force when they believed they were right. When people believe they are following a transcendent principle, they may be inspired to passion. Thus, the belief in “principle above person” can be as effective as authority. Seta et al. (1993) found that when groups expected more than was considered fair, those groups lost the allegiance of their members. The principle of justice as a cohesive force was also observed by Chin (1990) in a study of Hong Kong Chinese college students.Cotterell, Eisenberger, & Speicher, (1992) studied wary and suspicious college students. When these students interacted with peers, their distrust was contagious. It is likely that the opposite is also true and that trust can be contagious. Roark and Sharah (1989) compared factors of empathy, self-disclosure, acceptance, and trust to see which of these were more effective in producing intimacy. They found trust to be the most important of these factors.When a community has: 1) order, 2) decision making capacity (i.e., authority), 3) authority based on principle rather than person, and 4) group norms that allow members and authority to influence each other reciprocally, then that community has trust that evolves into justice. 

Trade

A community with a live spirit and an authority structure that can be trusted, begins to develop an economy, i.e., members discover ways that they can benefit one another and the community. In their excellent review of the group cohesiveness literature, Lott and Lott (1965) stated: “It is taken for granted that individuals are attracted to groups as a direct function of the satisfaction they are able to derive within them” (p. 285). Since this premise is widely accepted, there is little empirical evidence to clarify exactly what is reinforcing in a relationship or group membership. Rather, most theory and research in this area only underscore the contention that if people associate together, then it must be reinforcing to do so. Since individuals and the groups that they compose are so varied, it would be impossible to define precisely what reinforcements bind people together into a cohesive group. It seems that a community is as strong as the bargains its members make with one another. In addition to a community meeting the needs of its members, sense of community will be stronger if the community can find ways to juxtapose and integrate the members’ needs and resources into a continuous bargaining process.McMillan and Chavis (1986) made the point that communities must somehow reward their members. At that time, however, I highlighted the economic quality of community reinforcement. McMillan and Chavis (1986) labeled this principle, “Reinforcement: Integration of Needs.” This principle included the reward factor and the concept that it was the community’s function to integrate members’ needs and resources. Originally, I discussed various types (e.g., status, competence, success, and a member’s honor) of empirically supported rewards that a community might give its members. I now believe that there are innumerable types of such rewards; protection from shame to be chief among these.When I first developed my theory of sense of community, I insisted that theory had to support the creation of a diverse community. Because of that, I incorrectly rejected similarity as being an important bonding force. In my ideal community, the democrats loved and supported the republicans and “the lion lay down with the lamb.” I now appreciate that the search for similarities can be an essential dynamic of community development. People seek a social setting where they can be themselves and be safe from shame. As communities begin to form, potential members search for those with whom they share traits. Bonding begins with the discovery of similarities. If one can find people with similar ways of looking, feeling, thinking, and being, then it is assumed that one has found a place where one can safely be oneself.This is the driving force behind the tendency for people in groups to think alike. In social psychology, this process is called “consensual validation;” in business, it is called ‘group think.” Basically, the concept implies that individuals are willing to trade independence for safety from shame. For that reason, they tend to conform in groups. Since McMillan and Chavis’ (1986) original examination of the consensual validation literature, findings from additional studies have supported the point. In his study of cohesion and productivity in work groups, for example, Greene (1989) found that group consensus is associated with group productivity and cohesion. In a study of therapist-patient relationships, Klein and Friedlander (1987) found that when patients perceive themselves to be similar to the therapist, they are more attracted to the therapist. In a study of the effect of perceived homogeneity on interpersonal communication in groups, Storey (1991) found that perceived homogeneity facilitates group interaction. Bernard, Baird, Greenwalt, & Karl (1992) found that group consensus increased group cohesion and created room for dissent and disagreement in groups without reducing group cohesion.Much of the “group think” literature seems, in my view, to complain about how group collaboration stifles creativity. I believe that it is important that community psychologists recognize how shame drives people to search for similarities (McCauley, 1989; Posner-Weber, 1987; Turner, Pratkinis, Probasco, & Leve, 1992; Turner, 1992). As noted, this search occurs at a relatively early phase of community development. As the group develops, the focus shifts from what members have in common to how they are different. This is strategically important because there can be no real trading unless members have different needs and resources. Simply stated, if members have the same things they would have no need to trade with one another. Differences in possessions create the possibility that one member has something another needs. Once differences are discovered and needs and resources inventoried, then bargains can be negotiated. The only bargain one can have in the discovery of similarities is protection from shame.The search for and appreciation of differences represents a beginning step toward the development of a community economy. McMillan and Chavis (1986) referred to this process as involving “complimentarity of needs.” At that time, I cited several studies that made the point that a community builds cohesiveness if it can successfully integrate members’ needs and resources. This is an economic function. A recent study of musicians in rock bands confirmed the point (Dyce & O’Connor, 1992). This study found that if the bands were successful at integrating different personality styles, they were more stable and cohesive as a group.A community economy based on shared intimacy, which is implied by the term “sense of community,” represents a social economy. The medium of exchange in a community social economy is self-disclosure. The value of a trade depends on the personal risk involved in self-disclosure. In a social economy, the most risky and valuable self-disclosures involve the sharing of feelings. A community’s members begins by sharing feelings that are similar, i.e., that they have in common. They move on to share positive feelings about one another. Once a base of understanding and support is established, the members can begin to share criticisms, suggestions, and differences of opinion. At this point, the basis of trading becomes part of the social economy. Members have established their safety from shame and believe they can work, learn, and grow safely in their social exchanges.Tantum (1990) studied shame in groups. He contended that shame is a primitive response to the breakdown of one’s social presentation. When such a breakdown in pride, self- esteem, and dignity occurs one is likely to become self destructive, to appear “shame-faced,” to become resentful and brazen and/or to compulsively self-disclose. Effective communities protect their members from shame in their social exchanges.When a community begins to develop an economy, it is important from the outset that the trades be fair, that exchanges are approximately of equal value. Once fair trading becomes an established practice in its history, the community will evolve to a stage in which its economy has little to do with keeping score and balancing value. Members in such a community give for the joy and privilege of giving, not for the getting. The case of parents caring for children is an example of this. In the middle of the night, a parent does not get up with a crying infant and change the baby’s diapers or feed it because the parent gets something in return. This is an example of giving for the sake of giving, not for what will be gotten back in trade. Polzer (1993) found that intimacy makes people generous to their intimates.A community cannot survive unless members make fair trades with one another. But a community is not strong if it must always keep score. When communities transcend score keeping and members enjoy giving for its own sake, communities can be thought of as being in a state of Grace. This is the unexpected and unpredictable culmination of telling the truth together, trusting one another, and making mutually rewarding bargains. As a community develops a trading history, the trust it took to begin trade at the barter level evolves into faith. With a confident faith, the barter economy becomes a market economy and the entire community becomes a potential trading partner.

Art

The final principle in this theory is “Art.” McMillan and Chavis (1986) labeled this aspect of sense of community “Shared Emotional Connection in Time and Space.” As explained, Spirit with respected authority becomes Trust. In turn, Trust is the basis of creating an economy of social Trade. Together these elements create a shared history that becomes the community’s story symbolized in ART. A picture is truly “worth a thousand words” and stories represent a people’s tradition. Song and dance show a community’s heart and passion. Art represents the transcendent values of the community. But the basic foundation of art is experience. To have experience, the community’s members must have contact with one another. Contact is essential for sense of community to develop.The primary points made by McMillan and Chavis (1986) are repeated here. Contact is essential for community building, but the quality of that contact matters. Influences on the quality of community contact are: closure to events, shared outcome from the event, risk and sacrifice, and honor vs. humiliation. McMillan and Chavis (1986) referenced more than 40 empirical studies to support the principle called “shared valent event.” Originally, I offered two formulae to describe how this principle works: 1. Shared emotional connection equals contact plus high quality interaction.2. High Quality Intervention equals events (with successful closure minus ambiguity) times event valence times sharedness of the event plus amount of honor the event gives to a member minus the amount of humiliation the event gives to a member. At this point I will leave out the formulae. I would replace the term “shared valent event” with “shared dramatic moment.” The primary question at this point is: What collective experiences become art? I would suggest that a community chooses the events that become a part of its collective heritage. These events honor the community’s transcendent values. They challenge the community to meet its highest ideals. These events become represented in the community’s symbols.In their classic study of Jonesville, a midwestern community, Werner and associates (1949) recognized the strong integrative function of collective myths, symbols, rituals, rites, ceremonies, and holidays. In order to obtain smooth functioning and integration in the social life of a modern community, a community must provide a common symbol system. Groups use these social conventions to create boundaries. Berneard (1973) observed that Black leaders used symbols to unify the Black community and defy White authority (e.g., Black Power and the clenched fist). Nisbet and Perrin (1977) observed that intimate bonds are symbolic. “The symbol,” they said, “is to the social world what the cell is to the biotic world or the atom to the physical world. . . The symbol is the beginning of the social world as we know it.” (p. 47).Writing about sense of community among college students, Schlorshere (1989) suggested that symbolic rituals create a sense of belonging and of being a part of something important. Gregory (1986) studied a group of Air Force personnel who developed and used their own language. This code signified membership and sense of belonging.What collective experiences become art? They are stories of community contact. But contact is not enough. The contact must have a certain quality for it to become a collected memory that is art; the community must share in the fate of their common experience in the same way. In effect, it conveys the sense of “all for one and one for all.” If it was a success for one, it was, in some way, a success for all members. In addition to being shared, an event must have a dramatic impact. What makes a moment dramatic is that something is at risk for the community or its representative. Dramatic moments may create a collective memory but this does not make that memory worthy of becoming art that will be passed from one generation to the next. Unresolved ambiguity or cruelty can destroy sense of community. Events that represent these experiences rarely become art. Dramatic moments of tragedy redeemed by courage are events worthy of becoming community stories. These stories represent the community’s values and traditions.Symbols, stories, music, and other symbolic expressions represent the part of a community that is transcendent and eternal. They represent values like courage, wisdom, compassion, and integrity, values that outlive community members and remain a part of the spirit of the community. Art supports the Spirit that is in the first element of sense of community and thus, the four elements of community are linked in a self-reinforcing circle.

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Storey, D. (1991). History and homogeity: Effects of perceptions of membership groups on interpersonal communication. Communication Research, 18 (2), 199-221.Swan, W. B. (1992). “Dance with the one who brung ya.” Psychological Inquiry, 3 (4), 346-347.

Taguiri, R., & Kogan, N. (1960). Personal preference and the attribution of influence in small groups. Journal of Personality, 28, 257-265.

Tantum, D. (1990). Shame and groups. Group Analysis, 23 (1), 31-43.

Thrasher, J. D. (1954). Interpersonal relations and graduations of stimulus structure as factors in judgmental variation: An experimental approach. Sociometry, 17, 228-241.

Turner, J. H. (1992). The production and reproduction of social solidarity: A synthesis of two rational choice theories. Journal of the Theory of Social Behavior. 22 (3), 311-328.

Turner, M. E., Pratkinis, A. R., Probasco, P. & Leve, C. (1992). Threat, cohesion and group effectiveness: Testing a social identity maintenance perspective on group think. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63 (5), 781-796.

Vernberg, E. M. (1990). Experiences with persons following relocation during early adolescence. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 60 (3), 466-477.

Warner, W. L. (1949). Democracy in Jonesville: A study in quality and equality. New York: Harper & Row.

Weinig, M. W., Schmidt, T., & Midden, C. J. (1990). Social dimensions of neighborhoods and the effectiveness of information programs. Environment and Behavior 22 (1), 27-54.

Weiss, A. G. (1987). Privacy and intimacy: Apart and a part. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 27 (1), 118-125.

Westre, K. R., & Weiss, M. R. (1991). The relationship between perceived coaching behaviors and group cohesion in high school football teams. Sport Psychologist. 5(1), 41-54.

Zahrly, J. & Tosi, H. (1989). The differential effect of organizational induction process on early work role adjustment. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 10 (1), 59-74. I wrote the 1986 McMillan and Chavis piece and left academia in the same year, abandoning the theory to fate. David Chavis established this theory by giving it an empirical base and by taking my sense of Community Questionnaire all the way to validity and reliability. Bob Newbrough championed the theory and embodied its principles. Without them, the theory would not have appeared in texts or become the subject of research. I am especially grateful to Bob Newbrough, my mentor and spiritual inspiration. 

Journal of Community Psychology, Vol. 24. No. 4. 315-325 (1996)© 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0090-4392/96/040315-11 

A Theory Not a Value: A Response to Nowell and Boyd

by Dr. David McMillan

This is a response to the Nowell and Boyd (2010) article printed in this journal titled: Viewing Community as Responsibility as Well as Resource: Deconstructing the Theoretical Roots of Psychological Sense of Community.  In that article they argued that the McMillan theory of Sense of Community is a simplistic, needs-based theory that excludes responsibility as a part of Sense of Community. They base their critique of McMillan’s theory on March and Olsen’s many articles. In this article McMillan responds. He argues that Nowell and Boyd (2010) have yet to understand his theory and that they use a false dichotomy to critique it. He suggests that Third Position Thinking (Newbrough, 1995; Newbrough & McMillan, 2005) would help undo false dichotomies and provide a better description of the juxtaposition of human values. McMillan contends that responsibility is an inherent part of his theory.

In their article Viewing Community as Responsibility as Well as a Resource: Deconstructing the Theoretical Roots of Psychological Sense of Community, Nowell and Boyd (2010) seek “to contribute to the conceptual development of PSOC by clarifying the second order assumptions of PSOC as it is represented in prevailing conception and measurement.” They “introduce human needs theory as a macro framework for representing the definition and the study of PSOC to date. They suggest that there are limitations of a purely needs theory perspective of PSOC and propose…an alternative theoretical base for PSOC – a sense of community as responsibility.” They suggest using “this alternative theoretical lens…to understand the dynamic between PSOC, psychological well-being and community engagement” (p. 828). 

Summary of Nowell and Boyd

Nowell and Boyd (2010) conjectured that the McMillan sense of community theory (McMillan, 1976; McMillan and Chavis, 1986; McMillan, 1996) is a needs based theory rather than a responsibility based theory. Nowell and Boyd (2010) argued that building a theory on base, primitive, human needs does not appropriately consider valued-based behavior. They suggested that the McMillan theory sees community as a “resource” to people “…for meeting key physiological and psychological needs such as the need for affiliation, power and affection” (p. 833) and other needs, not as an entity toward which people feel responsible to engage and support one another. They identified the McMillan theory as “PSOC resource or PSOC rsc” and the theory that they seemed to be preparing as “PSOC responsibility or PSOC resp.” Their objective seemed to be to expand the way PSOC is considered to include responsibility as a motivating force in PSOC.

Nowell and Boyd (2010) raise some important points about PSOC that are valuable to the future development of theory and practice.  The strength of their article is the examination of underlying frameworks and worldviews in current SOC theory, and their push toward expanding theory toward “new directions for exploring the dynamics of community life” (p. 837).   Particularly interesting is their assertion that a sense of responsibility to one’s community is an important and under theorized aspect to current PSOC theory.  Perhaps most intriguing is their reference to the possible mechanism of an indirect relationship between personal responsibility and well-being.

Their main contention, however, is that PSOC has been dominated, for the last 25 years, by a human needs view of behavior. To make this claim, they draw on March & Olsen’s (1976, 1989, 1995, 1996, 1998) work which asserts two broad frameworks for understanding human motivation: the logic of consequence and the logic of appropriateness.  The logic of consequence draws on rational choice theory, assuming that human behavior is guided by rationalism and benefit maximization.  Nowell & Boyd assert that PSOC as developed by McMillan & Chavis is anchored in such a world view.  In contrast is the logic of appropriateness, which views human behavior as guided by person-in-environment – a view that appreciates the agency of individuals, modified by the particular situations and contexts they confront.

It is, I think, helpful to explore PSOC theory through the March & Olsen rubric, as well as other frameworks and theories that may help community psychology develop a more robust understanding of PSOC.  However, despite the useful points raised, Nowell & Boyd’s article substantially distorts the McMillan theory.  While I acknowledge that it is useful to consider the possibility that my PSOC theory may be driven by an unconscious or historical or cultural bias toward an needs-based world view, critical analysis of both my theory and of Nowell & Boyd’s argument demonstrates that their characterization of existing theory is a substantial distortion.  Perhaps Nowell & Boyd feel that before SOC theory can be advanced, that the McMillan theory needs to be first marginalized before new theories or advances to existing theory can be made.  Let me provide a review and some clarification of existing PSOC theory as developed by McMillan (1976; 1986) as well as my critique of the representations made by Nowell & Boyd. 

Summary of McMillan Theory

Nowell and Boyd mention four elements of the McMillan theory, but they ignore the explicit articulation of the elements and sub-elements of the theory. Each element has at least five or six sub-elements. They are outlined as follows: 

1. Membership (1986)/Spirit (1996)

   1. Boundaries

      1. Barriers marking who belongs and who does not

      2. Symbols denoting membership

   2. Emotional Safety

      1. Able to speak honestly

      2. Safe to be vulnerable

   3. Sense of belonging

      1. Expectation of belonging

      2. A feeling of acceptance

      3. Awareness of being welcome

   4. Personal investment/dues paying to belong[2]

1. Influence (1986)/Trust (1996)

   1. Personal investment

      1. Sacrificing to be a member gives one a sense that membership is earned

      2. Personal investment makes a community more attracted to the investing member

   2. Community norms influence members to conform

      1. Norms

      2. Conforming behavior

   3. Members need to conform for consensual validation just as a community needs for its members to conform to maintain cohesiveness.

   4. Members attracted to groups that allow members influence over or in the group.

   5. Influence between community and members and members and community operate concurrently

2. Integration of Fulfillment of Needs

   1. Communities meet members needs

   2. Strong reinforcements to belong include status, success, competencies of other members

   3. Shared values – or consensual trading

   4. Integrating needs and resources or complementary trading

   5. Transformative trading[3] – teaching skills

   6. Generative trading2 – handing off responsibilities and roles from one generation to the next

3. Shared Emotional Connection (1986)/Art (1996)

   1. Members must share time

   2. There must be certain quality to time shared

      1. Events must have value – drama (1996)

      2. Events must have closure

      3. Events must honor members

4. Time becomes symbolized in rituals, common symbols, and traditions. Shared stories emerge.

5. A spiritual bond emerges from shared history.

 McMillan (1986) went on to describe complex relationships among the elements with reinforcing interactions and formulas for how ingredients in the sense of community recipe come together.

Nowell and Boyd (2010) critiqued the theory by criticizing the items in the SCI as inadequate to capture PSOC as a whole. Peterson, Speer and McMillan (2008) agreed that the measure is not an adequate representation of the theory. That is one of the reasons why they developed the BSCS. Notice that title of the instrument that McMillan helped Peterson and Speer develop, Brief Sense of Community Scale, with the emphasis on “Brief.” A brief measure of the theory hardly represents the theory.

Nowell and Boyd (2010) used items from the SCI and BSCS to represent an element. Yet, the items came from an abstract description of the elements and sub-elements. In an academic article items do not fairly represent the anchoring theoretical dimension being referenced. 

Sense of Community Theory Misunderstood

When Nowell and Boyd (2010) suggest that the McMillan theory is needs based not responsibility based, they ignore the flip side of the whole first element. While the first element describes boundaries, emotional safety and sense of belonging as essential to sense of community, implied is the responsibility that members have to protect the community’s boundaries, to be honest, open and transparent, and to be welcoming and accepting of members. These are social responsibilities that members have to their community. All of them are implicit in the first element of sense of community.

While Nowell and Boyd (2010) described the second element of my theory, influence, as a sense of mattering, they conceptualize this element as a “need for power…motivation rooted in a desire to shape circumstances and influence others (p.833).” This is just half of that element. The most important part of the second element has to do with a person’s sense of loyalty, responsibility and commitment to the community. If a community is to exist, people must sacrifice for it. They must be willing to be taxed, to conform to laws and norms, to run for office and help rescue flood victims.

Assuming that mattering is the essence of the second element (which it is not) the yang of mattering is that the community receives member’s ideas and feelings and allows them to matter. Allowing other’s feelings and ideas to matter is socially responsible behavior.

When McMillan and Chavis (1986) contended that members must conform to the influence of their community by that they meant that members had the responsibility to pay dues, to come to meetings, to join work projects, to use their talents in the service of the community. While McMillan and Chavis (1986) often wrote of what was in the interest of the person or the community and specifically used “needs” in the title of the third element and while this might be interpreted as being tied to needs and not responsibility, the sub-elements of their theory strongly imply that members have a duty to be responsible toward their community. This commitment to be responsible members is an essential part of the choice to become members, the choice to conform to community norms and the choice to invest in the community, the choice to trade fairly with other members and the choice to allow themselves to be spiritually and emotionally touched by the community.McMillan (1996) explicitly used words that define responsibility as part of PSOC. “…a sense of belonging is not achieved without sacrifice and challenge. Communities must know if a member will make available the time, energy and financial commitment necessary to be a supportive effective member… Children are often told that with rights and privileges comes responsibility. The rights of community membership come with the expectation that the community can call on its members to make sacrifices” (p. 318).Also in McMillan (1996) the theory spoke to a member’s responsibility to be fair, honest and just toward other members. “… The belief in principle above person can be as effective as authority…The principle of justice as a cohesive force was also observed…Trust can be contagious…” (p. 320.)

Interestingly March and Olsen (1976, 1989, 1995,1996, 1998) contend that needs-based theories or what they called logic of consequences’ theories are simplistic and are not as sophisticated as what they call logic of appropriateness theories and Nowell and Boyd (2010) call theories that emphasize responsibility. (More on March and Olsen later.)Nowell and Boyd’s (2010) seemed to also imply that the McMillan theory is a rather simple theory that touches the surface of a complex notion. McMillan takes pride in the fact that he developed an accessible, easily understood, commonsensical theory. Perhaps the theory suffers because he did not use more complex language when he wrote it. Perhaps he should have taken his cue from Freud rather than Adler in his choice of words.Sense of Community is a complex notion. When trying to describe it, one is attempting to define a spirit. That’s the point of the first half of the term “sense of.” Defining a spirit is like catching lightening in a bottle. It is like grabbing oxygen out of the air. It is doable but you will never do it perfectly.When McMillan developed the four elements and their sub-elements, he never thought that a measure could really identify them discretely and yet, more or less, that was done by Chavis et al, (1986). At least seventy items are required (four items for each sub-element) to adequately measure this construct. Measuring the facets of PSOC in a twelve item scale or an eight item scale is inadequate at best. Making assumptions about what the theory contains from such short truncated measures as the SCI or the BSCS is a distortion of the theory. These measures are meant to be a general measure of PSOC as a whole.

They have pieces of each element but they do not represent the whole of any of the four elements.In their article Nowell and Boyd stated: “The BSCS may be a promising development of the measurement frontier if their findings can be corroborated and extended to a variety of alternative community settings” (p.831).  In the previous issue of the Journal of Community Psychology Wombacher, Tagg, Bürgi and MacBryde (2010) translated the Peterson, Speer and McMillan BSCS scale (2008), based on the McMillan theory into German and used it to measure PSOC in the German Navy. They further confirmed the theory and the measure as Nowell and Boyd (2010) suggested was needed. And this is not the first such study (Chavis et al, 1986; Peterson, Speer and McMillan, 2008). Some studies that have failed to validate the theory used the twelve item SCI which is truncated and flawed (Peterson, Speer and McMillan, 2008). Since Chavis et al, (1986) no study with a thorough set of items has tested the theory. Yet, even the short BSCS has been able to differentiate the four factors (Wombacher et al, 2010; Peterson, Speer and McMillan, 2008). More studies are currently using the BSCS. Soon there will be more results testing the theory’s validity.As the McMillan theory of SOC is reconsidered in light of the social responsibility criticism of Nowell and Boyd (2010) it becomes clear that the theory has a strong responsibility emphasis. If one’s aim was to evaluate a community’s relative sense of social responsibility, one might build a social responsibility index with items generated from the theory, e.g., 1. Is your community welcoming? 2. Will your community allow all voices to be heard? 3. Will your community keep your confidences? 4. Does your community listen to you? 5. Does your community have a set of rules or norms that apply equally to members? Etc. 

Theory not Value

As to Nowell and Boyd’s (2010) contention that the theory represents the human need to affiliate, yes it does. PSOC for McMillan (McMillan, 1997) is a term that has its source in the word “love.” It is what Don Klein termed “social glue.” It has elements of group cohesion, attachment and bonding. It connects to our genitals, our stomachs and our souls. It is related to values like responsibility, but it is not a value.In a book about relationships McMillan (1997) applied the system’s theory notion of synomorphy to his sense of community theory. Synomorphy is a concept about laws that govern systems. Synomorphy means that if a law operates in a system at one level, then it is likely to operate on other levels as well. McMillan applied the four elements and their sub-elements of sense of community to intimate relationships in his book for couples, Create Your Own Love Story.

There he stated: “Sense of community, attachment, bonding, personal attraction, and group cohesiveness are all different elements of the glue connecting human beings. As I examined my work it became clear that the strongest bonds between couples had been built, whether unconsciously or not, on foundations including the same four elements in the Sense of Community Theory. In my practice I began to see that partners could nurture and maintain a strong relationship if they learned how to keep these necessary elements of Spirit, Trust, Trade and Art alive in their marital bond. I began to think of marriage as an intimate community.” (p. 243).Nowell and Boyd (2010) seem to be intent on developing a normative theory of PSOC, a theory that would nurture and support community participation and engagement. The McMillan Theory is an empirical theory. It does not attempt to influence or prescribe reality. It merely attempts to describe reality. McMillan was attempting to discover some of the laws of human behavior as people move toward, inside and away from communities. Empirical researchers and theorists can’t make these laws. They can only discover them.Like Nowell and Boyd (2010), McMillan (1996) too had visions of pushing his values into the theory. “When I first developed my theory of sense of community, I insisted that the theory had to support the creation of a diverse community. Because of that I incorrectly rejected similarity as being an important bonding force. In my ideal community, the Democrats loved and supported the Republicans and ‘the lion lay down with the lamb.’ I now appreciate that I was wrong and that I cannot require a theory of human behavior to fit inside my value system (p.320.)”

McMillan’s sub-elements contain many factors that represent social responsibility. Sadly, they didn’t emerge as the most dominant parts of the elements. The fact that norms and responsibility carry less of the variance than needs do does not make the theory deficient, nor does it mean that social expectations and social responsibilities are not part of the theory.This does not mean that responsibilities cannot play a role in theory building. If we add other theoretical dimensions to sense of community, then social norms and responsibilities might emerge as motivating principles. For example, what if we added community types[4] to sense of community? It is possible that one type of community might have more behavior motivated by responsibility than other types. Or what if we added a community developmental theory to sense of community, the values might be more active motivators in a more mature community. Although McMillan (1996) did not state specifically that he was pursuing his interest in diverse communities, he did add the dimension of complementary trading (i.e., exchange of different parts to make whole). Such trades exploit differences in a healthy way. This contrasts with consensual trading which reinforces similarity and maintain the status quo. Consensual trading is the first level of trading in a community. Immature communities have only consensual trades. As community’s mature they discover differences among members. Successful communities find ways to integrate differences for the benefit of its members and the community. As communities age, they begin to teach skills to members (transformative trades) and as they age further, communities prepare the next generation to take on leadership roles (generative trades). In maturing communities values like responsibility play a more important part in motivating people to join together in a community.In some types of communities responsibility may be a more powerful force than in other types.

McMillan has developed a typology for communities[5] and he and J. R. Newbrough have developed a rudimentary theory about how communities’ age[6] based on Erickson’s (1968) theory of development. Nowell and Boyd (2010) might find a place for their interest in integrating responsibility into PSOC if they explored other dimensions of community theory.Developing or using theories that add to the complexity of sense of community might be a good way to discover how values like responsibility, integrity, transparency, compassion, forgiveness, respect, etc play in a community’s heart and soul.

Perhaps McMillan’s opinion of human nature may be more Calvinistic than Nowell and Boyd’s (2010). McMillan agrees with Nowell and Boyd (2010) that people are motivated by responsibility. He also believes that human beings are a cooperative species motivated to serve our communities. However, how can one tease responsibility out from guilt or from fear of accountability, both of which have to do with human needs?Perhaps there is a personal developmental component to the relationship between responsibility and PSOC.  As we grow out of our adolescent narcissism, we move into the adult roles of parent, provider, problem-solver, authority, master, etc. Nowell and Boyd (2010) seem to be confusing roles with motivation. In those adult roles most of us feel a sense of responsibility and act out of that sense. But does this not involve needs?When a father is standing in the park and his two-year-old son is holding on to his leg as a base from which to explore, whose needs are being met? Certainly the father enjoys the fact that his son wants and needs him. Can we ever separate needs from our behavior, responsible or not? Aren’t all human behaviors multi-determined?As we develop from children to adults, we are perhaps motivated more by a sense of responsibility. But are we not still people who need connection and affirmation? Have we transcended our selfish child selves or have we just found another plane on which to express our needs? Is McMillan being responsible to the community of community psychologists as he drafts this response or is he serving himself? The answer is “yes” and “yes.” 

Questions About Nowell and Boyd’s Data

Nowell and Boyd (2010) used three quotes of people at a meeting as their data base to demonstrate that community members do act responsibly for the collective good, rather than for personal benefit or need. They used these quotes as clear examples of how a needs-based theory is inadequate to describe human connection to community. These quotes were as follows: “One of the things I really like about this group is that if it’s something the region really needs but I don’t need it in my county, I’m ok with that…I can support it…that’s the way I hear them talking. “This is not an issue for me in my county but I understand it is in the region, so I’m ok for us making it a top priority…. There’s a good of the whole mentality that drives what they do…they are able to take egos and individual county needs out of that a lot. “Financially we didn’t benefit but we put in a lot of administrative structure… [we] got little out, but I always saw it as our responsibility to invest back into the [region]” (p.835). Now having read these quotes, do you see any political log-rolling happening here? Can these statements be seen as completely not self-serving? If speakers support was self-serving would they admit it? Do three questionable quotes data make? 

Sense of Community, A Tool Not a Value

Many people want to propose sense of community as a value. Some see it as a good thing. It is not either a good or bad thing. It exists or it doesn’t. It has depth. It can be either higher or lower but it is not good or bad.Brodsky (1996) demonstrated this in her study of sense of community in a housing project. The results of the study make good sense but they were not what many advocates of sense of community as a “good thing” might have hoped. She found that people who did not have a strong sense of community with the housing project neighborhood were the most resilient. The people who did have a strong sense of community were least resilient. In the context of that community, wanting to get the hell out of there was a healthy sentiment. Being attached to a lawless, dangerous, drug-infested neighborhood was not healthy.The theory and its measures are not values. They are not “good” or “bad” or “responsible” or “needy.” They are tools that can be used to understand human communities.  

Goldmann’s Critique

Nowell and Boyd (2010) base their critique of McMillan’s theory on the writings of March and Olsen (1976, 1989, 1995, 1996, and 1998). Goldmann (2005) did an excellent job of describing the problems with March and Olsen’s (1976, 1989, 1995, 1996, 1998) theoretical constructs. Nowell and Boyd (2010) change the language of March and Olsen some presumably because March and Olsen’s (1976, 1989, 1995, 1996, 1998) language is a bit hard to read. In spite of different word choices Nowell and Boyd (2010) lean heavily on the writings of March and Olsen (1976, 1989, 1995, 1996, and 1998). So the problems that Goldmann (2005) found with March and Olsen also apply to Nowell and Boyd (2010).Goldmann (2005) suggests that March and Olsen (1976, 1989, 1995, 1996, 1998) created a false dichotomy between what we will call here the logic of responsibility versus the logic of individual needs. When they apply their dichotomy to theories they make several errors.

First, they contrast the logic of needs as a simplistic, narrow-minded, unimaginative way of thinking especially in contrast with what they consider to be the open-minded sophisticated logic of responsibility. Why does one end of a dichotomy have to be discredited?

Second, they assume that individuals can and do share a common life identity so that they naturally have a primary concern for others and the welfare of the collective.

Third, they ignore the fact that logic of needs can and often does included concern for another and for the public good. Aren’t clean air, water and sanitary food in every individual’s interest? In the stock market there is a phrase, “A high tide floats all boats.” This is another way of saying that what is good for the economy as a whole is good for the individual investor.

Fourth, they don’t seem to recognize that within one person, one scholar, and one researcher that multiple motives can drive behavior all at the same time. They imply that it can be known whether our behavior is more governed by the logic of needs or the logic of responsibility. But can it?

Fifth, they don’t acknowledge that there may be a developmental process involved here. It is possible that as one matures, one moves from a self-centered logic toward a more socially appropriate logic.Sixth, March and Olsen (1976, 1989, 1995, 1996, 1998) ignore the point in time when one is ascribing motives to behavior. If it is prior to acting, one might be motivated by one logic, say the logic of needs and after the behavior one might claim to justify the behavior using another logic, say the logic of responsibility.

Goldmann (2005) concludes by writing that the main problem with March and Olsen (1976, 1989, 1995, 1996, 1998) (and hence Nowell and Boyd (2010)) is that they ignore the inherent problems in the logic of responsibility while misrepresenting the logic of needs as the simple pursuit of individual ends. In so doing they create a false dichotomy in which one side is caricatured and the other is lionized. Goldmann suggested this is the pursuit of politics in academic disguise. 

What Does Evolution and Neuroanatomy Have to Say

While I applaud the Nowell and Boyd’s (2010) goal of encouraging social responsibility in human behavior, it is important that our theory be grounded in reality of the human condition. We are mammals. I think Darwin would suggest that needs are a more powerful human motivator than are the shoulds and oughts of social responsibility. It is difficult for people who think of us as animals to see our behavior as primarily socially responsible.Research on emotions has much to say about this question which is: What dominates human behavior, needs (wants and other primary emotions) or responsibility (should and considered judgment about what is appropriate).The line of research formed by Darwin, Tomkins, Izard, Ekman and Davidson (McMillan 2007) documented that the brain feels and expresses emotion before it perceives emotion. Our neocortex is able to know, to put a name to our emotions because nerves in the face that express the emotion and then send the message to the knowing/thinking part of the brain, as the face expresses the feeling. So, according to this line of research, we feel before we think. Therefore, needs which are part of our emotions will enter our brains before we consider responsibilities, which are considered by the neocortex.

The brain is organized so that in an emergency the neocortex (the thinking part of the brain) is cut off and the mammalian part of the brain dominates and controls our responses to an emergency. The mammalian brain is where our emotions circuits are primarily located. In an emergency we act without thinking of whether or not we should or what is appropriate and responsible behavior. Again feeling is first, thinking is second.

Ekman does not even list shame/guilt as one of his seven primary emotions (Ekman, 2003). Researchers who do contend that shame is a primary emotion, suggest that it develops along with empathy as we got older, say around eight years old. So if empathy and shame take so long to develop, how can one contend that responsibility trumps desire in explaining human behavior?

If we want to promote social responsibility among humans, we must appeal to self-interest first. It is clearly in our individual self-interest to protect the planet. It is in our individual self interest to support clean water, air and sanitary conditions in kitchens and hospitals.

Even if Ekman etc. are wrong in their view of emotions the brain and behavior, the answer to the question is best found empirically, not theoretically. One cannot simply assert Sense of Community is governed by social responsibility and not individual need and make it so. 

The Third Position Perspective

Another major criticism comes from the third position. This is a criticism of Goldmann (2005), March and Olsen (1976, 1989, 1995, 1996, 1998) and Nowell and Boyd (2010). That criticism is that you can never adequately evaluate or understand human behavior inside a dichotomy.

When considering human behavior as it relates to the community most conversations center around the same two polar dichotomized values individual autonomy versus the collective. Newbrough (1995) was the first to suggest a third position. He termed individual autonomy as “liberty.” He termed the collective interest as “fraternity.” He added “equality” as the third position and suggested that all discussions about community should include these values. Later Newbrough and McMillan (2007) amplified the idea into a larger theory that might be used to solve community and relationship disputes.All dichotomies lend themselves to lionizing one side at the expense of the other. There are many values that we can use to evaluate or explain or understand human behavior. We are never limited to merely two. When you add a third position, the discourse changes from a debate to a discussion.The dimension of time also weighs in on the way our mind harmonizes values. Goldmann (2005) alludes to this. In one decision we might serve one value. In the next decision we might serve another. In another decision we might serve still another. And so on because the list of values is longer than we have space to acknowledge. Newbrough and McMillan (2007) suggest that poor decisions are made with dichotomous thinking. And better decisions are made with an attempt to serve three values.

March and Olsen make the mistake of creating a false dichotomy and then using it to push their political agenda (Goldmann, 2005). Social science might have other values to serve. Certainly social responsibility (fraternity) is one. Another might be empirical and descriptive accuracy. A third might be the respect of multiple points of view.

As pen connects with paper here, the dominant value is empirical and descriptive accuracy. The author also applauds March and Olsen (1976, 1989, 1995, 1996, 1998) and Nowell and Boyd (2010) for championing the value of social responsibility. Perhaps March, Olsen, Nowell and Boyd and myself are poorly serving the value of respect for multiple points of view.This is how we always behave. We serve one value better than another, but our behaviors should be some version of harmonizing at least two other values.Though the question of whether norms, rules, sense of propriety (March & Olsen, 1976, 1989, 1995, 1996, 1998) or what Nowell and Boyd refer to as responsibility governs behavior or whether it is needs, desires or wants is an empirical question, but it seems a bit frightening to suggest that community norms trump individual needs. Yes, of course, most community psychologists advocate for a less individualistic culture and society and for a more society that encourages more communitarian values. But do we want each person to be robotically programmed by cultural expectations? Isn’t that what Madison Avenue is doing as they market the apparel that shapes women’s bodies or as plastic surgeons market their services?In a world where the poor are getting poorer and the rich, richer, do we want to emphasize responsibility over choice? Don’t we want to encourage and empower choice, rather than conformity? Who will prescribe what is appropriate and responsible? Isn’t this how we get trickle-down economic theory by allowing the powerful to define what is appropriate? I would rather empower individual choice and let each person vote from their own self interest.

Nowell and Boyd’s clear distortion of the McMillan Sense of Community theory seems to be another example of confirmation bias (Wason & Johnson, 1968). When they look at the theory they find what they are looking for, ignoring the rest of reality that opposes their point of view. I could do the same disservice to them by suggesting that their theory of the importance of social responsibility supports a neo-conservative political agenda. I could make that case but just because a case can be made does not make it true. In the end the question of how powerful are human values as a motivator is an empirical one. One might pose the question this way: which is a more powerful motivator “want” or “should?” Another part of the question is: how much variance does “should” carry versus “want.” It would be wonderful if Nowell and Boyd (2010) are correct, that responsibility is a powerful force in bringing people together. And if it isn’t community psychologists should join with Nowell and Boyd encouraging responsibility to become a more powerful human motivator.  But they shouldn’t insist it be part of a reality when it is not.   

References 

Brodsky, A.E. (1996). Resilient Single Mothers in risky neighborhoods: Negative psychological sense of community. Journal of Community Psychology, 24, 347-364. 

Chavis, D.M., Hogge, J.H., McMillan, D.W., & Wandersman, A. (1986). Sense of community through Brunswick's lens: A first look. Journal of Community Psychology, 14(1), 24-40. 

Ekman, P. (2003). Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life. New York: Time Books. Erickson, E. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York: Norton. 

Goldmann, K. (2005). Appropriateness and Consequences: The Logic of Neo-Institutionalism. Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, 18(1), 35-52. 

March, J.G. & Olsen, J.P. (1976). Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations. Bergen, Norway: Universitetsforlaget. 

March, J.G. & Olsen, J.P. (1989). Rediscovering Institutions. New York: Free Press. March, J.G. & Olsen, J.P. (1995). Democratic Governance. New York: Free Press. 

March, J.G. & Olsen, J.P. (1996). Institutional Perspectives on Political Institutions. Governance 93, 147-264. 

March, J.G. & Olsen, J.P. (1998). The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders. International Organization 52, 943-969. 

McMillan, D. W. & Chavis, D. M. (1986). Sense of Community: A definition and theory. Journal of Community Psychology, 14(1), 6-23. 

McMillan, D.W. (2005). Emotion Rituals. New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group. 

McMillan, D.W. (1997). Create Your Own Love Story. Hillsboro, OR: Beyond Words Publishing. 

McMillan, D.W. (1996). Sense of Community. Journal of Community Psychology, 24(4) 315-325. 

Newbrough, J.R. & McMillan, D.W. (2007). Father John Series. 

Newbrough, J. R. (1995), Toward community: A third position. American Journal of Community Psychology, 23, 9-31. 

Nowell, B. & Boyd, N. (2010). Viewing Community as Responsibility as Well as Resource: Deconstructing the Theoretical Roots of Psychological Sense of Community. Journal of Community Psychology, 38(7), 828-841.

Peterson, N., Speer, P., & McMillan, D.W. (2008). Validation of a brief sense of community scale: Confirmation of the principle theory of sense of community. Journal of Community Psychology, 36(1), 61-73.

Wason, P. C. &  Johnson-Laird, P.N., Eds. (1968). Thinking and Reasoning. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Wombacher, J., Tagg, S.K., Burgi, T. & MacBryde, J. (2010). Measuring Sense of Community in the Military: Cross-Cultural Evidence for the Validity of the Brief Sense of Community Scale and its Underlying Theory. Journal of Community Psychology, 38(6), 671-680.

[1] The author wants to recognize the contributions of Paul Speer to this article. His ideas, resources and guidance were helpful in shaping this article.

[2] Note personal investment has two parts. One belongs in membership/spirit. The second belongs in Influence/Trust. McMillan reconsidered this sub-element for this article.

[3] Transformative trading and Generative trading are new ideas added to the theory and first presented here.

[4] Published on his website: drdavidmcmillan.com

[5] Published on his website: drdavidmcmillan.com

[6] Published on his website: drdavidmcmillan.com

Sense of Community, a Pathway to or Bridge from Alienation?

By David W. McMillan, Fisk University, Nashville, TN 
Raymond P. Lorion, Towson University, Towson, MD 

Abstract: Psychological Sense of Community (PSOC) represents a formative conceptual offering of Community Psychology to the social sciences. Nearly five decades ago, PSOC offered a window into the influence of ecological factors to understanding the emotional and behavioral well-being of members of disenfranchised and underserved segments of the population, especially members of minority and low-income subgroups. Our discipline’s founders viewed PSOC as one promising vehicle for pursuing the desired paradigmatic shift from individual to systemically focused interventions to achieve intended outcomes of the emerging community mental health movement. This Commentary reflects the authors’ shared thoughts to the adoption of PSOC by conservative spokespersons to explain the resistance of some to the diversification of the population and growing voice of progressive advocates. 

Overview: This commentary represents an unplanned but, in our view, necessary response to comments by some conservative voices who have adopted Psychological Sense of Community (PSOC) as justification for their positions on parochialism, tribalism, and calls for nationalists to join together to preserve their country’s racial identity. In response to decades of change in the racial, ethnic and cultural topography of populations across the globe and especially within the U.S., these voices argue for resisting and, insofar as possible, reversing racial integration, the entry of non-English-speaking immigrants and the valuing of differences and diversity. Some conservative spokespersons fear and resist impending alterations in their political influence and control. Listening to such discussions, especially when seemingly grounded in a conceptual foundation of our discipline (PSOC), catalyzed a discussion between the authors reflected in this commentary. Initially, we shared a mutual sense of “how dare they” apply PSOC to a world- view in direct opposition to Community Psychology’s seminal principles? As our discussion moved from umbrage to reflection, it evolved into examination of the breadth of PSOC’s applicability specifically and the very nature of “community” generally. What follows represents our thoughts on these issues that we hope will encourage further collegial discussion and debate. We prepared this essay in a hybrid form that is hopefully both personal and scholarly as a response to these bewildering threats to our society. We hope you will join us in this conversation as we attempt to apply our scholarship and expertise in the study of communities to this current world.

PSOC’s conceptual and empirical foundations: Community psychology emerged early in the 1960s in response to legislative intents that the Community Mental Health Center movement design and deliver acceptable, accessible and responsive mental health services to low-income and minority populations (Lorion, 1973, 1974). Our discipline’s initial goals included identifying, understanding and ameliorating ecological factors within communities contributing to emotional and behavioral disorders. By identifying etiological factors leading to dysfunction, the discipline’s founders sought to design and apply secondary interventions to interrupt pathogenetic processes early or primary prevention solutions to avoid them entirely. Among those founders, Sarason (1974) argued for community psychology to focus less on alienation, pathology and what is wrong within communities and instead on “Sense of Community” as an antidote to disorder and disenfranchisement. Referring to Cowen’s (1973) review of the

discipline’s emerging literature, Sarason noted:

“As I read this literature, however, there is one theme not always articulated clearly, which runs through it: the most important criterion by which to judge these efforts is whether they have produced or sustained a more positive psychological sense of community. Whether it be a headstart program, a neighborhood council, schools, senior citizens, drug abuse programs, or any of a score of community settings in which the community psychologist has found himself, his goal has been to create the conditions in which people can experience a sense of community that permits a productive compromise between the needs of individuals and the achievement of group goals.” (Sarason, 1974, p. 155)

In Sarason’s view, the challenge confronting Community Psychology was not to transfer clinical psychology’s emphasis on repairing individual pathology or problems in living to repairing problems in communities. Instead, for Sarason, the challenge was for the discipline to influence the shaping of settings be they classrooms, places of worship or neighborhoods such that by their very nature they promote health and foster positive life-span development. Sarason viewed community mental health as referring not to the location of service delivery but rather to its target! In his view, community psychology’s focus should be on the ecological characteristics of the settings in which people are raised, work and live. When engaged in settings supporting individuals with mental deficiencies, Sarason (1949) argued not for more such settings but rather for supporting such individuals to function in mainstream classrooms, appropriate occupational settings and situations and for the general acceptance of all forms of diversity (Sarason, 1988) across and within communities. In arguing for the centrality of PSOC to daily living, Sarason countered criticisms of its limitations as a non-precise, value-laden, “soft’ concept with:

“some of its {PSOC} characteristics are not hard to state. The perception of similarity to others, an acknowledged interdependence with others, a willingness to maintain this interdependence by giving or doing for others what one expects from them, the feeling that one is part of a larger dependable and stable structure – these are some of the ingredients of the psychological sense of community. You know when you have it and when you don’t. It is not without conflict or changes in its strength. It is at its height when the existence of the referent group is challenged by external events, by a crisis like the air war over London in 1940, or a catastrophe like an earthquake; it is also at its height, for shorter periods, in times of celebration, during a political victory party or an Easter mass. It is one of the major bases for self-definition and the judging of external events. The psychological sense of community is not a mystery to the person who experiences it. It is a mystery to those who do not experience it but hunger for it.” (p. 157)

From the outset, Sarason (1974) acknowledged that PSOC, like “love,” had such ineffable and spiritual qualities that it could not be operationally defined and measured but it and its effects could be studied. Sharing this view of PSOC, others accepted the term as face valid and conducted research with PSOC as a construct (e.g. Riger, et al, 1981; Ahlbrant & Cunningham, 1979; Bachrach & Zantra, 1985; Kascarda & Janowitz, 1974; and Rhoades,1982). Yet others, led in part by the efforts of the senior author, worked to define and measure PSOC (e.g. Doolittle & MacDonald, 1978; Glynn, 1981; McMillan, 1996; McMillan, 1976; McMillan & Chavis, 1976, 1986). 

McMillan’s description of his initial forays into the challenges of operationalizing PSOC informed the authors’ examination of PSOC as an essential element of understanding the lives of those segments of the population (e.g. low-income and minority populations in urban neighborhoods) who have historically been disenfranchised and those (e.g. low-skilled white residents in rural communities) who perceive their economic and cultural worlds eroding through the combined effects of growing demographic diversity and evolving progressive values.

Through our ongoing and, at times, admittedly heated discussions, we arrived at a shared view that understanding the conservative perspective may lead to respectful constructive discourse and, ideally, discovery of common ground. As McMillan explained to his co-author:

“in 1974 I began thinking of my idyllic small-town hometown, Arkadelphia, Arkansas (two colleges, 10,000 people, one hundred in my high school graduating class, thirty-five of my relatives within a two-block radius) as a model of PSOC. With guidance from Larry Wrightsman and J.R. Newbrough, I explored the group cohesiveness literature and discovered approximately twenty-four sub-elements, six within each of the four elements. I presented this theory in my major area paper (McMillan, 1976) and later published it (McMillan and Chavis, 1986).”

The McMillan and Chavis (1986) paper was central to a special issue of the Journal of Community Psychology (1986) focused on PSOC and has been cited in more than 5,000 articles on PSOC’s four dimensional structure. Scale development work on two measures of these PSOC dimensions, i.e. a short eight-item scale ((Peterson, et al, 2008) and a seventy-plus item scale (Chavis et al, 1986) have met psychometric criteria for reliability and validity. Each has provided operational grounding for significant bodies of research.; the brief scale has been used successfully in hundreds of studies nationally and globally. That body of work exemplifies the salience of PSOC to the discipline’s foundational base! 

Returning to our pre-commentary discussion, McMillan described to the co-author how he grew up in largely racist southwest Arkansas and believed that dark skin meant inferior. He explained that until he entered college, he never questioned local and generally negative stereotypes about “Black People.” Recognizing the intelligence, sophistication and shared world-views of minority students in his college, however, changed his perspective. From that point on, he described his ignorance and racial assumptions as melting away. Even now, however, he acknowledges kinship with white supremacists’ commitment to love and respect parents and earlier generations (who likely held racist views). They, like many of us, long for the simplicity of childhood and wish to preserve past or quickly fading communities, mental maps and ways of life.

These reflections led the authors to reflect on the seeming adoption of PSOC by conservative right-wing advocates as a reaction to rapidly emerging cultural and political changes. We appreciated that the fear of change is a widely shared experience. We recognized the desire to hold on to a long familiar but rapidly evaporating world. We understood that conservatives want their present community to remain firmly grounded in the past. Yet, their efforts to protect against alienation widens the gap between then and now! By preserving the values and traditions of their parents and earlier generations and resisting the tide of cultural change they become more alienated from current realities. Attempts to hold on to earlier times through appeals to PSOC can neither be dismissed nor ignored.

In Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt (2013) attempts to bridge the chasm between the political left and right. His thoughtful analysis identified six communal values that humans weave into their moral foundation of their political/communal decisions. They are:

1.     Care/Harm: “The Care/harm foundation evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of caring for vulnerable children. It makes us sensitive to signs of suffering and need; it

makes us despise cruelty and want to care for those who are suffering,” (page 178).

2.     Fairness/Cheating: “The Fairness/cheating foundation evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of reaping the rewards of cooperation without getting exploited. It makes us sensitive to indications that another person is likely to be a good (or bad) partner for collaboration and reciprocal altruism. It makes us want to shun or punish cheaters,” (page 178).

3.     Loyalty/Betrayal: “The Loyalty/betrayal foundation evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of forming and maintaining coalitions. It makes us sensitive to signs that another person is (or is not) a team player. It makes us trust and reward such people, and it makes us want to hurt, ostracize, or even kill those who betray us or our group,” (pages 178-179).

4.     Authority/Subversion: “The Authority/subversion foundation evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of forging relationships that will benefit us within social hierarchies. It makes us sensitive to signs of rank or status, and to signs that other people are (or are not) behaving properly, given their position,” (page 179).

5.     Sanctity/Degradation: “The Sanctity/degradation foundation evolved initially in response to the adaptive challenge of the omnivore’s dilemma, and then to the broader challenge of living in a world of pathogens and parasites. It includes the behavioral immune system, which can make us wary of a diverse array of symbolic objects and threats. It makes it possible for people to invest objects with irrational and extreme values–both positive and negative–which are important for binding groups together,” (page 179).

6.     Liberty/Oppression: This element comes from splitting the Fairness/Cheating element into two parts. One which emphasizes what the value of karma, represented by the Hindu religious tradition and the Protestant work ethic. This value stresses that people should get what’s coming to them. Once split, this notion remains closet to the Fairness/Cheating element. The other part that is now assigned to the Liberty/Oppression element is reciprocity aspect of fairness more closely related to the value of equality.

The Liberty/Oppression value acknowledges Boehm’s (Hierarchy in the Forest, (1999)) that people have a genetic tendency to create hierarchies. Consequently humans, along with chimpanzees have developed an ability to manage Alpha’s, “to unite in order to shame, ostracize or kill anyone,” (page 199) any alpha that abused their position. “The Liberty foundation obviously operates in tension with the Authority foundation,” (page 301). “…This is not fairness. This is Boehm’s political transition and reverse dominance.” This is a key principle among people who identify as libertarians. It is the “urge to band together to oppose oppression and replace it with political equality,” (page 203).

Haidt distinguished the differences in the political values of liberals and conservatives this way: “Liberals have a three-foundation morality; whereas conservatives use six. Liberal moral matrices rest on Care/Harm (mostly), Liberty/Oppression, and Fairness/Cheating foundations, although liberals are often willing to trade away fairness (as proportionality) when it conflicts with compassion or with the right to fight oppression. Conservative morality rests on all six foundations, although conservatives are more willing than liberals to sacrifice Care and let some people get hurt in order to achieve their many other moral objectives,” page 214.

We respectfully disagree. We suggest that liberals widen their definition of community beyond national boundaries. Their communal frame of reference includes the human community and for some it includes all life on the planet. With an expansive definition of community, liberals use and respect the remaining three values as do conservatives. In our view, they just apply them more widely. As to Loyalty/Betrayal, liberals too yearn to be part of a team where members have roles and they too expect loyalty to the task and the authority structure of their team. The difference is that liberals view of eligible team members is more inclusive than conservatives.

As to Authority/Subversion, liberals respect and protect an authority structure which encourages equal opportunity and freedom of expression. Liberals respect authorities who serve justice and who respect all people equally. They support an authority structure that allows for an orderly change of power, a structure in which rank and office belong to the community and not a person. They oppose people who use the power of a public or community power for personal gain. 

As to Sanctity/Degradation, liberals have sacred stories. They have their pantheon of heroes, their sacred symbols, their treasured rituals, their honored tradition. In the U.S., Inauguration Day is a sacred day filled with important symbols, rituals and traditions. Their sacred heroes risked life and limb for the Enlightenment values Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. They include Nelson Mandela, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Martin Luther King. Liberals sense of disgust is stimulated by injustice and misplaced righteousness.

Haidt’s discussion and conclusions about liberals and conservative values does a better job at challenging liberal righteousness than we do. And we agree that liberal righteousness must be challenged. He is correct to suggest that communities which serve conservative parochial values as they build their PSOC are serving the values that all of humanity should respect and serve. He is right to say that in their opposition, the Left and the Right should recognize that their opponents, too, are people serving their communities according to their principles.

Though we agree that liberals and conservatives should find ways to see one another as opponents worthy of respect and compassion, we do not believe that liberals should be defined as serving only three of the six values in Haidt’s moral foundation. Liberals should not be ashamed of their attempts to expand “Community” beyond national boundaries, language barriers and skin color. Liberals need not abandon their Enlightenment values if Liberty, Equality and Fraternity just to make sure we don’t offend our conservative friends. But liberals should find room in their hearts for people who disagree with them.

With Haidt the authors challenge community psychologists to move beyond its discipline’s myopic focus on power. We suggest that while all communities include a power dimension, it is not the only important leg forming the foundation of a community. Community psychologists have, like Haidt, searched for a community’s moral compass. Nowell and Boyd’s article (2010), Viewing Community as a Responsibility as Well as a Resource was one attempt. They argued that promoting PSOC was part of the moral duty of a community. They opined that PSOC was a force for good. 

This assumption, McMillan explained, was challenged earlier by Brodsky’s (1996) study of single mothers in risky neighborhoods. She observed that residents reporting high levels of PSOC in troubled housing projects had low levels of general well-being; those with higher general well-being scores (psychological health) had lower PSOC scores. Seemingly, higher levels of self-reported psychological health were negatively associated with attachment to their neighborhood as measured by PSOC. Brodsky’s findings implied that PSOC represents not merely external characteristics of a community but the fit between people and their environment. PSOC from this perspective is not inherently positive or negative but rather a reflection of attachment to characteristics and individual reflections of self-defined communities.

In response to Nowell and Boyd’s article Viewing Community as a Responsibility as Well as a Resource (2010), McMillan (2011) proposed that PSOC was a neutral moral force, simply a reflection of individuals’ sense of connectedness with others. Inevitably, that conclusion suggests that PSOC is not necessarily an antidote to some circumstances of alienation but rather a vehicle to avoid feelings of alienation and disenfranchisement across the political spectrum. As such, it can at times be socially problematic, especially when it undergirds identity politics, i.e. the tendency of people sharing a particular racial, religious, ethnic, social or cultural identity to form exclusionary alliances and/or engage in traditional broad-based party politics. Seemingly, PSOC can feed division, hatred and racism if, for example, white supremacists’ groups nurture PSOC as a response to their members’ perceptions of losing influence as demographic and economic changes surround them. Insofar as PSOC reflects our sense of belonging to the world around us, would erosions in that Sense compel efforts to deepen its roots and recapture its nostalgic intensity? We would note that Bowlby (1969) and Ainsworth and Bowlby (1991) argued that each of us has a driving force to belong, to be attached, connected and loved. When this need is not sufficiently met, might we become that person who struggles to hold on to familiar circumstances and connect with individuals linked to seemingly safer times, the values of our parents and their way of life? Might efforts of some to develop PSOC (e.g., recent immigrants or residents of mixed-income housing; LGBTQ individuals) threaten the existing PSOC of others (e.g. long-term residents of demographically changing neighborhoods)?

Sarason (1974) was perhaps among the earliest community psychologists to suggest that PSOC was a force for good (more than just a tool as McMillan (2011) contends and more than just the attachment instinct as Bowlby and Ainsworth suggest). A question for our discipline, therefore, is whether PSOC or related concepts can ease alienation across cultural and political impasses. Can our discipline bridge the divide between those feeling like they are losing life’s meaning and those who seek to gain acceptance into the larger social order? In effect, must some lose if others gain? The authors have struggled between themselves with this question, i.e., to what extent does participation in the social order have to be a zero-sum game?

In his reflections of community psychology and PSOC, Sarason (1974) questioned the potential of empowerment to reduce alienation. He refocused the conversation among community psychologists from PSOC to “Empowerment.” This was his primary answer to alienation. He contended that if everyone’s voice could be heard and everyone believed that they mattered, they would also feel more powerful and thereby less alienated. From this perspective, empowerment refers not just to an individual’s influence on the perspective or priorities of others but also to the responsibility to recognize, accept and respect the expression of the personal values, needs and wishes of others. Empowerment, in this sense, creates a basis for dialogue, understanding, and even perhaps negotiation but ideally, at least a respect for differing perspectives. Empowerment envisions circular influence and power flowing both ways from members to a community that listens to and respects the voices of members and members who listen to and respect the voices of other members and of community leaders. Respectful circular empowerment can discover creativity and avoid the compromise in the zero-sum game paradigm.

Forty-five years later Prilleltensky (2019) builds on the empowerment theme using its synonym “mattering” in place of Sarason’s (1974) version. To address morality in communities in his discussion of empowerment, Prilleltensky (2019) offered the term “mattering.” In our view, this term echoes Sarason’s concept of “Empowerment” and McMillan’s (1976, 1986, 1996, 2011) second element in PSOC, “Influence”. As we understand the concept, “mattering” generally means this: When one person matters to another, that person is moved by their feelings. “Moved” is the operative word here for it equates to feelings of a person having emotional, institutional, or physical power or influence over another. Ideally, all persons involved in persuasive discourse are open to being influenced by others. In this sense “to matter” or “be empowered” means that others are open to sharing your experiences, your feelings both positive and negative. Importantly, it means that others share responsibility for your well-being!

Mattering, however, can also become a tool for manipulating others. By offering or withholding the message that you “matter” to me or to the community, mattering can shape your behavior toward me and towards others. The notion of mattering can be one of the means by which one can appeal to individuals or segments of the population who feel disenfranchised by those deemed to be in control of the allocation of resources be they financial (e.g. some form of economic support), emotional (e.g. expressions of empathy and understanding) or simply commonality of victimization (e.g. your enemy is my enemy; but for “them” your needs would be met). This is McMillan’s second element of PSOC! Finding such a simplistic solution to the complex problem of alienation is what demagogues do as they use PSOC-based arguments to enlist others in their efforts to preserve the past. Simplifying complexity makes it easier to persuade and manipulate others. Conservative values described by Haidt are important and should be respected and integrated into the life of a community. Stating that does not imply that liberal/progressive values are any less important! Both the left and right are vulnerable to simplistic answers to complex questions to dichotomous paradigms of right and wrong instead of considered opinions which are formed by a search for effective win/win solutions.

As noted, our discussion brought us to mutual rejection of the view that power sharing inherently leads to a zero-sum outcome and with the view that increasing power in some does not necessarily reduce power in others! Rather we view the universe as capable of achieving expansions of wealth, knowledge and human compassion for all (Pinker, 2018). If we can expand the pie and use time as a third position (Newbrough, 1995; Newbrough et al, 2008), then we can make room for all of us to feel as if we matter. But if time stands still and if we assume a context of scarce resources where expansion and trade are not possible, then we enter a zero-sum game. The challenge for community psychologists is to find a way to invite those who fear social change to jump into the river of change, swim with the current and lose their fear! 

Mattering must go beyond the emotional to address material needs such as for employment, a living wage, respect in the workplace, a chance for the “American Dream” for people and especially for their kids. If this perspective is legitimate, it explains working-class, white folks and the Mid- American rural population’s attraction to a leader who says their fear of being disenfranchised is legitimate and promises to stop the tide of change! It also explains why those sharing these views must come together, recognize their common interests and together resist change by opposing all who embrace it! Readers may find the analysis appealing until they recognize that the same dynamic applies to many holding extreme progressive views!

Prilleltensky (2019) suggests that what members of the Black Lives Matter movement and the Me Too movement want is to “matter.” Admittedly, they want that but that’s not all they want. Human motivation doesn’t fit inside the one dimension of the lust for influence and recognition, (i.e., the desire to matter) any more than sex is the primary unconscious motive that Freud imagined it was. Prilleltensky (2019) envisions belonging (a sub-element of McMillan’s element #1, membership) as an aspect of mattering.

Thus, advocates of Black Lives Matter and Me Too also want some of the things that white supremacist want beyond mattering. They want to engage or participate or trade (McMillan’s element #3). They want to co-create and be a part of a transcendent story so that their lives have meaning (McMillan’s element #4). And yes, the border between having, for example, meaning (element #4) and mattering (McMillan’s element #2) is fuzzy. These two overlap, but they are also separate. African slaves mattered but in the practical/economic use of the term, matter, not in the emotional sense of the term. Their numbers were used to secure American debt in the Louisiana Purchase. They represented the wealth base of much of the South before the Civil War. The word “matter” does not begin to capture the essence of the motivation of the Black Lives Matter movement any more than “Power” or “Mattering” captures what those in the “Me Too” movement value. Women have power. They matter. They are valued as the builders of human nests, as mother’s to children and as sources of emotional support. They matter in many dimensions but, as reflected in this movement, not so much as individuals deserving of respect of their choices over their bodies!

It’s not just about power or mattering (McMillan’s element #2) it’s about the way they matter. Do they matter enough to have a seat at the table (McMillan’s element #1)? Do they deserve the respect as an equal trading partners in the exchange of goods, services, money and influence (McMillan’s element #3)? Can each individual use their strengths and talents to build a personal legend and leave a legacy for their progeny and can they be part of a community story in their music, dance, art and creativity (McMillan’s element #4, – again the concept of personal and community narratives)?

We return to the question that Marx and Seeman use alienation to answer is: What creates populist revolutions against the established order? The answer is not a simple person’s alienation, nor is it the strong angry emotion of hate. The answer to Marx’s question has more to do with the recipe for social movements. Most social scientist and social thinkers are not so concerned about social movements like the Magna Carta, or the American and French Revolutions or the movements that overthrew colonial governments in the eighteenth century.

Meriting further discussion is exploration of how social movements organized around hate are manipulated by demagogues. The climate crisis reminds us that we all, regardless of political affiliation and cultural identity are guests on what has been a relatively friendly planet.

Importantly, all are slowly beginning to recognize that we are in danger now. We all need the cooperation of everyone or our host planet will find a way to expel us. We need to create a story together for how we saved our species and protected our Mother Earth.

References:

Ahlbrant, R.S. & Cunningham, J.V. (1979). A new public policy for neighborhood preservation. New York: Praeger.

 Ainsworth, M. D. S., and Bowlby, J. (1991). An ethological approach to personality development. American Psychologist, 46, 333–341.

Bachrach, K.M. & Zautra (1985). Coping with a community stressor: The threat of a hazardous waste facility. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 26, 127-141.

Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss. (OKS Print.) New York: Basic Books.

Brodsky, A.E. (1996). Resilient Single Mothers in risky neighborhoods: Negative psychological sense of community. Journal of Community Psychology, 24, 347-364.

Chavis, D. M. M., Hogge, J. H., McMillan, D. W., & Wandersman, A. (1986). Sense of community through Brunswick’s lens: A first look. Journal of Community Psychology, 14, 24-40.

Cowen, E. l. (1973) Social and community interventions. In P. Mussen and M. Rosenzweig (Eds.) Annual Review of Psychology, 24, 423-472.

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The authors thank Drs. Michael Blank, Douglas Perkins and Leonard Jason for sharing their thoughts about this commentary. All views presented are solely those of the authors.

Sense of Community

David W. McMillan
Nashville, Tennessee

This article revisits the theory of sense of community originally developed in 1976 and subsequently presented by McMillan and Chavis (1986). Chavis, Hogge, McMillan, and Wandersman (1986) demonstrated its empirical strength as a theory and developed the Sense of Community Questionnaire. This was essential work in getting the theory used. As reflected in the contents of this special issue, the theory has since stimulated considerable empirical research.[1]

As I enter midlife, I review the issue in terms of the perspective and experiences of that period of my life. Thus, this paper examines the question: Do the past 20 years add any new thoughts to the theory? I believe the answer is “yes.” This article extends the principles offered by McMillan and Chavis (1986). The same four elements remain but are rearranged and renamed as follows: Spirit, Trust, Trade, and Art. Presently, I view Sense of Community as a spirit of belonging together, a feeling that there is an authority structure that can be trusted, an awareness that trade, and mutual benefit come from being together, and a spirit that comes from shared experiences that are preserved as art.

Spirit

            Spirit is the first element of this version of sense of community. Originally, the boundary aspect of the first principle of sense of community was labeled “membership” —membership emphasized boundaries that delimit “us” from “them” and that create the form of emotional safety that encourages self-disclosure and intimacy. Membership referred to one’s sense of belonging and to a sense of confidence that one has as a member as well as the aspect of acceptance from the group that facilitates belonging.

            Membership also alluded to the cognitive dissonance associated with a member’s responsibility to sacrifice for the community. According to McMillan and Chavis (1986) cognitive dissonance facilitates sense of community in these ways. First, it enhances a member’s confidence. Second, it creates in the member a sense of entitlement. Finally, it serves to build loyalty to the group.

            In the current version of the Sense of Community theory, spirit replaces membership as the defining aspect of this principle. Boundaries continue to distinguish members from nonmembers and provide emotional safety. Greater emphasis, however, is now placed on the spark of friendship that becomes the Spirit of Sense of Community. Each of us needs connections to others so that we have a setting and an audience to express unique aspects of our personality. We need a setting where we can be ourselves and see ourselves minored in the eyes and responses of others. In the view of some poets, human nature is naturally driven to express itself:

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung hell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells:
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.
Gerard Manley Hopkins

To be nobody but yourself
In a world that is trying it damnedest
to make you like everybody Else
That’s that hardest Thing
e.e. cummings

Emotional Safety

            Truth is the primary unit of analysis for the Spirit of Sense of Community. This raises two issues. First, membership opens doors. The status of member brings with it the right to be in the group. Second, can the community provide the acceptance, empathy, and support for members to speak their truth and be themselves? “The Truth” in sense of community is analogous to materials in the construction of a building or to an electric spark in the flow of electricity. Without Truth there can be no sense of community. What we mean by “The Truth” is a person’s statement about his or her own internal experience. No one knows better than the speaker how the speaker feels. He or she is the final authority about his or her emotions. If community members are willing to look inside themselves and honestly represent their feelings to others, then they are speaking “The Truth” as they know it. If they say, “this is my opinion,” or “I feel sad,” or “my left ankle hurts,”—who can argue with them? That must be “The Truth.”

            The first task of a community is to make it safe to tell “The Truth.” That requires community empathy, understanding, and caring. There are three steps to creating such a sense of intimacy. The first step require the member’s courage to tell his or her intensely personal truth. The second and third steps involve the community. Can the community accept this truth safely? Can members of the community respond with courage equal to the self disclosing member’s courage and develop a circle of truth tellers and empathy givers?

            Intimacy occurs along a range. At one end, is the most personal, which is telling a person or a group how one feels at the time about that person or group. This takes personal emotional courage and also incurs psychological risk. At the other end of the continuum, intimacy entails speaking about what one thinks about people, events, or things from another place and time.

            McMillan and Chavis (1985) cited several studies to demonstrate that members are attracted to a community in direct relation to their emotional sense of it. Recent studies continue to confirm this point. Generally, these studies asked participants, “Do you disclose more when you feel safe?” The answer has overwhelmingly been “yes” (Canary & Spitzberg, 1989; Brandt, 1989; Canary & Cupach, 1988; Prager, 1989; Rosco, Kennedy, & Pope, 1987; Alexander, 1986).

Boundaries

            My concept of boundaries remains relatively the same as before (McMillan & Chavis, 1986). As noted originally, boundaries make emotional safety possible. Evidence which supported the idea of community boundaries has focused predominantly on the social scientist’s sympathy for the deviant. Recent work continues to voice that concern by explaining the phenomenon of scapegoating as a way of defining group boundaries (Forsyth, 1988; Alexander, 1986; Stein, 1989; Ng & Wilson, 1989). Kalma and Ellinger (1985), for example, found that groups created firmer boundaries defining the “us” vs. “them” in circumstances of scarcity and lack of resources. Vemberg (1990) noted “us” vs “them” boundaries in his study of newcomers to the seventh and eighth grades. These newcomers had difficulty penetrating the boundaries of established peer groups. Recent work has added to the concern for the deviant the recognition of the benefits which boundaries provide to the members of a community. Reported studies demonstrate that boundaries allay fears by identifying who can be trusted as “one of us.” (Keller, 1986; Kaplan, 1988; Weinig, Schmidt, & Midden, 1990; Weiss, 1987; Simon & Pettigrew, 1990; Karasawa, 1988).

            To the above purposes, I would add that boundaries define the logistical time/place settings for a group to be a group. Boundaries also relate to the content of communication. Do members disclose their feelings about the person or persons that are the object of these feelings or do members discuss subjects outside the community that are not shared and not intimate? Boundaries can distinguish the appropriate subject matter for group discourse.

Sense of Belonging

Similar to the concept of boundaries, sense of belonging basically remains intact with minor changes in language and emphasis. Originally, McMillan and Chavis (1986) identified one element of sense of belonging as “expectation of belonging.” At this time, that concept seems best described as the “faith that I will belong.” Acceptance remains unchanged. These two elements emphasize the two points of reference that are constant in sense of community theory—the member and the community.

Faith That I Will Belong

            Faith comes from within the member. Acting on such faith represents a risk and requires courage since humiliation can result if the faith is not validated. In essence, people bond with those whom they believe want and welcome them. In addition to the evidence cited in McMillan and Chavis (1986) supporting the importance of faith, Rugel (1987) provides confirmation in the findings of a sociometric study of psychotherapy groups. In effect, when we believe that we will be welcome, that we fit or belong in a community, we have a stronger attraction to that community.

Acceptance

            This element reflects the community’s response to the aforementioned faith. Just as a member has the responsibility of believing in his or her membership or right to belong, the community’s responsibility is to accept the member as a member. In their study of school football teams, Westre and Weiss (1991) demonstrated that acceptance from the team creates a sense of attachment in individual team members. Unchanged, therefore, is our earlier assertion that when one is accepted by the community one is more strongly attracted to that community.

Paying Dues or Cognitive Dissonance

            Truthtelling, emotional safety, crossing the boundaries from “them” to “us,” and a sense of belonging are not achieved without sacrifice and challenge. Communities need to test new members to determine if they can and will be loyal to the community. Communities must know if a member will make available the time, energy, and financial commitment necessary to be a supportive, effective member. In McMillan and Chavis (1986), I defined this concept in terms of cognitive dissonance. This term, however, is too esoteric to convey the simple notion that to be part of a community involves “paying dues.”

            Paying dues promotes sense of community by first opening a door for a member in the group. It also gives the members a sense of entitlement. In Walt Disney’s movie “Pocahontas,” Kohohan was promised the chief’s daughter for his brave sacrifice in battle. The war veteran’s respect and reward is just one obvious example of a community’s way to express its appreciation for a member’s sacrifices. However, just as paying dues “entitles” a member, a community also has the right to expect that dues will be paid. Children are often told that with rights and privileges comes responsibility. The rights of community membership come with the expectation that the community can call on its members to make sacrifices. The military draft and taxes exemplify this principle.

            Beyond taxes and the findings originally cited by McMillan and Chavis (1986), recent empirical evidence extends the basis for associating paying dues with sense of community. Ingram (1986), for example, studied church congregations. He defined “paying dues” in terms of sharing one’s personal testimony or witness in front of the church. He found that meeting this challenge increases a person’s status in the church. Rugel’s (1987) study of psychotherapy groups demonstrates that the more one invests in a group the more one is accepted by the group. Findings from other recent studies suggest an important qualification to this principle. If the required sacrifice is too great, it can weather the member’s attachment to the community. Swan (1992) and Seta, Seta, and Erber (1993) argue that there is a limit to the amount of sacrifice that creates closeness. This position is consistent with the experience of psychotherapists who treat patients with phobias. When the therapist asks patients to create a desensitization ladder, it is essential that each rung be separated by reasonable increments. If the steps are too far apart, the patient will fail and treatment will increase rather than decrease fear. This caveat about paying dues is consistent with McMillan and Chavis’ (1986) prior discussion of the effect of humiliation on community membership. If members are asked to do more than they can do, then their inadequacy is exposed. The consequent shame may produce a need to distance oneself from the community.

Trust

            The Spirit of sense of community can begin as a spark. With truthtelling, emotional safety, sense of belonging, and dues paying, this spark can become a flame. But it will never become a fire unless there exists in the community an authority structure that can sustain the fire.

            In McMillan and Chavis (1986), this second principle was called Influence. A community must be able to influence its members and members must be able to influence the community. To be effective, a community must have these influences flowing concurrently to create a sphere of influence. The salient element of influence is the development of trust. Trust develops through a community’s use of its power. Who has it? When do they have it? If not present in some members, when don’t they have it? For the spirit of community to survive beyond its first initial spark, the community must solve the problems arising from the allocation of power.

            The first requirement for such resolution is that people must know what they can expect from each other in the community. In effect, some sort of order must be established. This would include the development of community norms, rules, or laws. When a sense of order is present, one can predict, plan, and commit. Knowing a community’s norms or laws allows one to develop a sense of personal mastery. Consider what has been achieved by mankind’s knowing the rules of mathematics, engineering, chemistry, and physics. In a sport such as golf, order is found in knowing and executing the mechanics of a good golf swing. In baseball, knowing how to hold the ball in relation to the seams allows one to throw a curve ball. The relationship between knowledge and behavior extends to almost every human endeavor including dancing, drawing, music, etc.

            Learning the laws of how things work gives one mastery and creates the potential for attaining one’s desired level of performance. In a community, this knowledge translates into social, emotional, and political potential. Without social norms, however, there is only social chaos. The results of studies of group cohesion, (Battenhausen & Murigham, 1991; Dobbins & Zaccaro, 1986; Fuhrer & Keys, 1988; Keller, 1986; Zahrly & Tosi, 1989) for example, suggest that people become more cohesive when they know what to expect from one another.

            Once order exists, the next element for developing trust in a community relates to authority. It is assumed that an individual or individuals has to be in charge. A community must have a way to process information and make decisions. Without this capacity, the community will eventually perish. The decision maker or makers must have authority over the members for the sense of order to be maintained in the community.

            In primitive times, the strongest man ruled. When he became weak or died, the community order was threatened or lost and the community’s survival was at risk. Eventually, primogeniture evolved to put an end to the power struggles related to the succession of leaders. This solution, however, left authority or law dependent on the leader’s will or whim. If the leader vacillated, order disintegrated. Leaders could be, and often were, self-serving and capricious and could not always be trusted to serve in other than their self-interest. For this reason in 1212, English noblemen forced King John to sign the Magna Carta. This mandated that the King would rule by establishing law and abide by legal principles instead of his personal will. It introduced into communities the concept that authority can serve many rather than self. Western civilization advanced with the American and French Revolutions to a governance concept of democracy. If leaders did not answer to the people they led, the possibility of rebellion was always present.

            Social scientists have demonstrated that communities and groups are more cohesive when leaders influence members and when members influence leaders concurrently (Grossack, 1954; Thrasher, 1954; Taguriri & Kogan, 1960; Carson, Wirdemeyer, & Brawley, 1988; Newmann, Rutter, & Smith, 1989; Miller, 1990; Steel, Shane, & Kennedy, 1990). Grossack’s (1954) experimental paradigm clarifies this point. One set of participants are instructed to work cooperatively. A second group of participants are instructed to compete against one another. Grossack assumed that these instructions would create respective high cohesive and low cohesive groups. In fact, Grossack found that, in the “cooperative” group, members made more attempts to influence their fellows and accepted more pressure to conform than did those in the competing groups. A review of the social science literature confirms this point—the forces of love, intimacy, and cohesiveness operate from individual participant to the group, and from the group to the individual. This process occurs all at the same time because order, authority, and justice create the atmosphere for the exchange of power. (McMillan & Chavis, 1986).

            Lawler (1992) found that the more unequally the power is distributed within a group the meaner and more ruthless are all members of that group. hung (1991) found that people exerted greater personal force when they were in a relatively strong position compared with others in the group. People exerted less personal force when they were in a weaker position. Lawler also found that people used greater personal force when they believed they were right. When people believe they are following a transcendent principle, they may be inspired to passion. Thus, the belief in “principle above person” can be as effective as authority. Seta et al. (1993) found that when groups expected more than was considered fair, those groups lost the allegiance of their members. The principle of justice as a cohesive force was also observed by Chin (1990) in a study of Hong Kong Chinese college students.

            Cotterell, Eisenberger, & Speicher, (1992) studied wary and suspicious college students. When these students interacted with peers, their distrust was contagious. It is likely that the opposite is also true and that trust can be contagious. Roark and Sharah (1989) compared factors of empathy, self-disclosure, acceptance, and trust to see which of these were more effective in producing intimacy. They found trust to be the most important of these factors.

            When a community has: 1) order, 2) decision making capacity (i.e., authority), 3) authority based on principle rather than person, and 4) group norms that allow members and authority to influence each other reciprocally, then that community has trust that evolves into justice.

Trade

            A community with a live spirit and an authority structure that can be trusted, begins to develop an economy, i.e., members discover ways that they can benefit one another and the community. In their excellent review of the group cohesiveness literature, Lott and Lott (1965) stated: “It is taken for granted that individuals are attracted to groups as a direct function of the satisfaction they are able to derive within them” (p. 285). Since this premise is widely accepted, there is little empirical evidence to clarify exactly what is reinforcing in a relationship or group membership. Rather, most theory and research in this area only underscore the contention that if people associate together, then it must be reinforcing to do so. Since individuals and the groups that they compose are so varied, it would be impossible to define precisely what reinforcements bind people together into a cohesive group. It seems that a community is as strong as the bargains its members make with one another. In addition to a community meeting the needs of its members, sense of community will be stronger if the community can find ways to juxtapose and integrate the members’ needs and resources into a continuous bargaining process.

            McMillan and Chavis (1986) made the point that communities must somehow reward their members. At that time, however, I highlighted the economic quality of community reinforcement. McMillan and Chavis (1986) labeled this principle, “Reinforcement: Integration of Needs.” This principle included the reward factor and the concept that it was the community’s function to integrate members’ needs and resources. Originally, I discussed various types (e.g., status, competence, success, and a member’s honor) of empirically supported rewards that a community might give its members. I now believe that there are innumerable types of such rewards; protection from shame to be chief among these.

            When I first developed my theory of sense of community, I insisted that theory had to support the creation of a diverse community. Because of that, I incorrectly rejected similarity as being an important bonding force. In my ideal community, the democrats loved and supported the republicans and “the lion lay down with the lamb.” I now appreciate that the search for similarities can be an essential dynamic of community development. People seek a social setting where they can be themselves and be safe from shame. As communities begin to form, potential members search for those with whom they share traits. Bonding begins with the discovery of similarities. If one can find people with similar ways of looking, feeling, thinking, and being, then it is assumed that one has found a place where one can safely be oneself.

            This is the driving force behind the tendency for people in groups to think alike. In social psychology, this process is called “consensual validation;” in business, it is called ‘group think.” Basically, the concept implies that individuals are willing to trade independence for safety from shame. For that reason, they tend to conform in groups. Since McMillan and Chavis’ (1986) original examination of the consensual validation literature, findings from additional studies have supported the point. In his study of cohesion and productivity in work groups, for example, Greene (1989) found that group consensus is associated with group productivity and cohesion. In a study of therapist-patient relationships, Klein and Friedlander (1987) found that when patients perceive themselves to be similar to the therapist, they are more attracted to the therapist. In a study of the effect of perceived homogeneity on interpersonal communication in groups, Storey (1991) found that perceived homogeneity facilitates group interaction. Bernard, Baird, Greenwalt, & Karl (1992) found that group consensus increased group cohesion and created room for dissent and disagreement in groups without reducing group cohesion.

            Much of the “group think” literature seems, in my view, to complain about how group collaboration stifles creativity. I believe that it is important that community psychologists recognize how shame drives people to search for similarities (McCauley, 1989; Posner-Weber, 1987; Turner, Pratkinis, Probasco, & Leve, 1992; Turner, 1992). As noted, this search occurs at a relatively early phase of community development. As the group develops, the focus shifts from what members have in common to how they are different. This is strategically important because there can be no real trading unless members have different needs and resources. Simply stated, if members have the same things they would have no need to trade with one another. Differences in possessions create the possibility that one member has something another needs. Once differences are discovered and needs and resources inventoried, then bargains can be negotiated. The only bargain one can have in the discovery of similarities is protection from shame.

            The search for and appreciation of differences represents a beginning step toward the development of a community economy. McMillan and Chavis (1986) referred to this process as involving “complimentarity of needs.” At that time, I cited several studies that made the point that a community builds cohesiveness if it can successfully integrate members’ needs and resources. This is an economic function. A recent study of musicians in rock bands confirmed the point (Dyce & O’Connor, 1992). This study found that if the bands were successful at integrating different personality styles, they were more stable and cohesive as a group.

            A community economy based on shared intimacy, which is implied by the term “sense of community,” represents a social economy. The medium of exchange in a community social economy is self-disclosure. The value of a trade depends on the personal risk involved in self-disclosure. In a social economy, the most risky and valuable self-disclosures involve the sharing of feelings. A community’s members begins by sharing feelings that are similar, i.e., that they have in common. They move on to share positive feelings about one another. Once a base of understanding and support is established, the members can begin to share criticisms, suggestions, and differences of opinion. At this point, the basis of trading becomes part of the social economy. Members have established their safety from shame and believe they can work, learn, and grow safely in their social exchanges.

            Tantum (1990) studied shame in groups. He contended that shame is a primitive response to the breakdown of one’s social presentation. When such a breakdown in pride, self- esteem, and dignity occurs one is likely to become self destructive, to appear “shame-faced,” to become resentful and brazen and/or to compulsively self-disclose. Effective communities protect their members from shame in their social exchanges.

            When a community begins to develop an economy, it is important from the outset that the trades be fair, that exchanges are approximately of equal value. Once fair trading becomes an established practice in its history, the community will evolve to a stage in which its economy has little to do with keeping score and balancing value. Members in such a community give for the joy and privilege of giving, not for the getting. The case of parents caring for children is an example of this. In the middle of the night, a parent does not get up with a crying infant and change the baby’s diapers or feed it because the parent gets something in return. This is an example of giving for the sake of giving, not for what will be gotten back in trade. Polzer (1993) found that intimacy makes people generous to their intimates.

            A community cannot survive unless members make fair trades with one another. But a community is not strong if it must always keep score. When communities transcend score keeping and members enjoy giving for its own sake, communities can be thought of as being in a state of Grace. This is the unexpected and unpredictable culmination of telling the truth together, trusting one another, and making mutually rewarding bargains. As a community develops a trading history, the trust it took to begin trade at the barter level evolves into faith. With a confident faith, the barter economy becomes a market economy and the entire community becomes a potential trading partner.

Art

            The final principle in this theory is “Art.” McMillan and Chavis (1986) labeled this aspect of sense of community “Shared Emotional Connection in Time and Space.” As explained, Spirit with respected authority becomes Trust. In turn, Trust is the basis of creating an economy of social Trade. Together these elements create a shared history that becomes the community’s story symbolized in ART. A picture is truly “worth a thousand words” and stories represent a people’s tradition. Song and dance show a community’s heart and passion. Art represents the transcendent values of the community. But the basic foundation of art is experience. To have experience, the community’s members must have contact with one another. Contact is essential for sense of community to develop.

            The primary points made by McMillan and Chavis (1986) are repeated here. Contact is essential for community building, but the quality of that contact matters. Influences on the quality of community contact are: closure to events, shared outcome from the event, risk and sacrifice, and honor vs. humiliation. McMillan and Chavis (1986) referenced more than 40 empirical studies to support the principle called “shared valent event.” Originally, I offered two formulae to describe how this principle works:

            1. Shared emotional connection equals contact plus high quality interaction.

            2. High Quality Intervention equals events (with successful closure minus ambiguity) times event valence times sharedness of the event plus amount of        honor the event gives to a member minus the amount of humiliation the event       gives to a member.

            At this point I will leave out the formulae. I would replace the term “shared valent event” with “shared dramatic moment.” The primary question at this point is: What collective experiences become art? I would suggest that a community chooses the events that become a part of its collective heritage. These events honor the community’s transcendent values. They challenge the community to meet its highest ideals. These events become represented in the community’s symbols.

            In their classic study of Jonesville, a midwestern community, Werner and associates (1949) recognized the strong integrative function of collective myths, symbols, rituals, rites, ceremonies, and holidays. In order to obtain smooth functioning and integration in the social life of a modern community, a community must provide a common symbol system. Groups use these social conventions to create boundaries. Berneard (1973) observed that Black leaders used symbols to unify the Black community and defy White authority (e.g., Black Power and the clenched fist). Nisbet and Perrin (1977) observed that intimate bonds are symbolic. “The symbol,” they said, “is to the social world what the cell is to the biotic world or the atom to the physical world. . . The symbol is the beginning of the social world as we know it.” (p. 47).

            Writing about sense of community among college students, Schlorshere (1989) suggested that symbolic rituals create a sense of belonging and of being a part of something important. Gregory (1986) studied a group of Air Force personnel who developed and used their own language. This code signified membership and sense of belonging.

            What collective experiences become art? They are stories of community contact. But contact is not enough. The contact must have a certain quality for it to become a collected memory that is art; the community must share in the fate of their common experience in the same way. In effect, it conveys the sense of “all for one and one for all.” If it was a success for one, it was, in some way, a success for all members. In addition to being shared, an event must have a dramatic impact. What makes a moment dramatic is that something is at risk for the community or its representative. Dramatic moments may create a collective memory but this does not make that memory worthy of becoming art that will be passed from one generation to the next. Unresolved ambiguity or cruelty can destroy sense of community. Events that represent these experiences rarely become art. Dramatic moments of tragedy redeemed by courage are events worthy of becoming community stories. These stories represent the community’s values and traditions.

            Symbols, stories, music, and other symbolic expressions represent the part of a community that is transcendent and eternal. They represent values like courage, wisdom, compassion, and integrity, values that outlive community members and remain a part of the spirit of the community. Art supports the Spirit that is in the first element of sense of community and thus, the four elements of community are linked in a self-reinforcing circle.

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[1] I wrote the 1986 McMillan and Chavis piece and left academia in the same year, abandoning the theory to fate. David Chavis established this theory by giving it an empirical base and by taking my sense of Community Questionnaire all the way to validity and reliability. Bob Newbrough championed the theory and embodied its principles. Without them, the theory would not have appeared in texts or become the subject of research. I am especially grateful to Bob Newbrough, my mentor and spiritual inspiration.

Journal of community Psychology, Vol. 24. No. 4. 315-325 (1996)

© 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0090-4392/96/040315-11

Sense of Community: A Definition and Theory

David W. McMillan and David M. Chavis
George Peabody College of Vanderbilt University

For several years many of us at Peabody College have participated in the evolution of a theory of community, the first conceptualization of which was presented in a working paper (McMillan, 1976) of the Center for Community Studies. To support the proposed definition, McMillan focused on the literature on group cohesiveness, and we build here on that original definition. This article attempts to describe the dynamics of the sense-of-community force—to identify the various elements in the force and to describe the process by which these elements work together to produce the experience of sense of community.

Review of Related Research

Doolittle and MacDonald (1978) developed the 40-item Sense of Community Scale (SCS) to probe communicative behaviors and attitudes at the community or neighborhood level of social organization. The basis of the SCS was what had been called the “critical dimension of community structure” (Tropman, 1969, p. 215), and it was to be used to differentiate low, medium, and high SCS neighborhoods on its five factors; informal interaction (with neighbors), safety (having a good place to live), prourbanism (privacy, anonymity), neighboring preferences (preference for frequent neighbor interaction), and localism (opinions and a desire to participate in neighborhood affairs). The results of Doolittle and MacDonald’s study led to three generalizations. First, there is an inverse relationship between pro-urbanism and preference for neighboring. Second, there is a direct relationship between safety and preference for neighboring. Finally, pro-urbanism decreases as perception of safety increases.

Glynn’s (1981) measure of the psychological sense of community is based on the work of Hillery (1955), augmented by responses to a questionnaire distributed to randomly selected members of the Division of Community Psychology of the American Psychological Association. Glynn administered his measure to members of three communities and hypothesized that residents of Kfar Blum, and Israeli kibbutz, would demonstrate a greater sense of community than residents of two Maryland communities. He identified 202 behaviors or subconcepts related to sense of community, from which 120 items were developed, representing real and ideal characteristics. As predicted, higher real levels of sense of community were found in the kibbutz than in the two American towns. However, no differences were found among the three on the ideal scale, Multiple regression analysis showed that 18 selected demographic items could predict adequately the real scale score (R2 = 6l3, p < .001) but not the ideal score (R2  = .272). The strongest predictors of actual sense of community were (a) expected length of community residency, (b) satisfaction with the community, and (c) the number of neighbors one could identify by first name. Glynn also found a positive relationship between sense of community and the ability to function competently in the community.

Riger and Lavrakas (1981) studied sense of community as reflected in neighborhood attachment and found two empirically distinct but correlated factors they called social bonding and behavioral rootedness. The social bonding factor contained items concerning the ability to identify neighbors, feeling part of the neighborhood, and number of neighborhood children known to the respondent. Behavioral rootedness refers to years of community residency, whether one’s home is owned or rented, and expected length of residency. Using these factors, the authors identified four “meaningful and distinct groups of citizens”: young mobiles (low bonded, low rooted), young participants (high bonded, low rooted), isolates (low bonded, high rooted), and established participants (high bonded, high rooted). In this study, age played a major role in determining attachment.

Examining the relationship between community involvement and level of residents’ fear of crime, Riger, LeBailly, and Gordon (1981) identified four types of community involvement: feelings of bondedness, extent of residential roots, use of local facilities, and degree of social interaction with neighbors. They found that the first two types of bondedness were related significantly and inversely to residents’ fear of crime, while the last two, reflecting behavior rather than feelings, were not related significantly to fear of crime. A plausible explanation for the differential relationships is that variables within a domain (e.g., feelings of bondedness and other feelings) are more likely to be strongly correlated than are variables measured across domains (e.g., feelings and behaviors) (Campbell & Fiske, 1959). Despite the weakness of the study as suggested by such an explanation, we believe that the findings of Riger et al. attest to the force of sense of community in the lives of neighborhood residents.

Ahlbrant and Cunningham (1979) viewed sense of community as an integral contributor to one’s commitment to a neighborhood and satisfaction with it. They found that those who were most committed and satisfied saw their neighborhood as a small community within the city, were more loyal to the neighborhood than to the rest of the city, and thought of their neighborhood as offering particular activities for its residents—the characteristics representing the authors’ conceptualization of sense of community. Also considered to be a contributor to commitment to neighborhood and satisfaction with it was social fabric, a term they used to capture the “strengths of interpersonal relationships” as measured through different types of neighbor interactions.

Bachrach and Zautra (1985) studied the coping responses to a proposed hazardous waste facility in a rural community. They found that a stronger sense of community led to problem-focused coping behaviors—behaviors that attempt directly to alter or counter the threat—and had no bearing on whether emotion-focused coping strategies—efforts to adjust emotionally to the threat—were applied. A path analytic model showed that problem-focused coping contributed strongly to the level of one’s community involvement (e.g., reading reports, attending meetings, signing petitions), and the authors concluded that stronger sense of community may lead to a “greater sense of purpose and perceived control” in dealing with an external threat. In a similar study, Chavis (1983) identified the process of empowerment, which occurs through the development of community. Others have reported consistent findings; Florin and Wandersman (1984) and Wandersman and Giamartino (t980) found high self-reported levels of sense of community to distinguish those who participated in block associations from those who did not.

Bachrach and Zautra (1985) reported that they used a “brief, but face valid” sense of community scale on the basis of questions developed by Kasarda and Janowitz (1974) and Rhoads (1982). Their measure included seven items: feeling at home in the community, satisfaction with the community, agreement with the values and beliefs of the community, feeling of belonging in the community, interest in what goes on in the community, feeling an important part of the community, and attachment to the community. The scale was found to be internally consistent (alpha = .76).

The studies reviewed here contributed to our initial understanding of sense of community and emphasize the importance of this concept for research, intervention, and policy. Most important is the recurring emphasis on neighboring, length of residency, planned or anticipated length of residency, home ownership, and satisfaction with the community. Glynn’s (1981) work is particularly important in its recognition of the discrepancies between real and ideal levels of sense of community and in demonstrating the relationship between sense of community and an individual’s ability to function competently within it. The study by Riger and Lavrakas (1981) is especially significant for its conceptualization of the emotional aspect of the experience.

These were the initial studies in the area of sense of community; however, they cannot be expected to contribute an elaborated theoretical understanding of what sense of community is and how it works, and there are some important limitations to which we hope to respond. All of these studies, for example, lack a coherently articulated conceptual perspective focused on sense of community, and none of the measures used in the studies were developed directly from a definition of sense of community. Five of the studies used factor analytic techniques to create, post hoc, their domains and/or subdomains without theoretical or prior empirical justification, a practice about which Gorsuch (1974) and Nunnally (1978) suggest caution. The sixth (Bachrach & Zautra, 1985) defined its domain on the basis of face validity.

In addition, all authors assumed that each element in their measures of sense of community contributed equally to an individual’s experience, although the value-laden nature of the phenomenon (as expressed by Sarason, 1974) would lead one to believe that some feelings, experiences, and needs would be more important than others. It is also notable that the studies reviewed did not investigate what was common among their participants regarding their sense of community. Rather, the studies focused on proving the validity of their measures through differentiation of communities or individuals.

Primarily, these studies revealed that the experience of sense of community does exist and that it does operate as a force in human life. What is needed now is a full description of the nature of sense of community as a whole. We begin that process of development with a definition and theory.

A Definition and Theory of Sense of Community

Gusfield (1975) distinguished between two major uses of the term community. The first is the territorial and geographical notion of community—neighborhood, town, city. The second is “relational,” concerned with “quality of character of human relationship, without reference to location” (p. xvi). Gusfield noted that the two usages are not mutually exclusive, although, as Durheim (1964) observed, modern society develops community around interests and skills more than around locality. The ideas presented in this article will apply equally to territorial communities (neighborhoods) and to relational communities (professional, spiritual, etc.).

We propose four criteria for a definition and theory of sense of community. First, the definition needs to be explicit and clear; second, it should be concrete, its parts identifiable; third, it needs to represent the warmth and intimacy implicit in the term; and, finally, it needs to provide a dynamic description of the development and maintenance of the experience. We will attempt to meet these standards.

Our proposed definition has four elements. The first element is membership. Membership is the feeling of belonging or of sharing a sense of personal relatedness. The second element is influence, a sense of mattering, of making a difference to a group
and of the group mattering to its members. The third element is reinforcement: integration and fulfillment of needs. This is the feeling that members’ needs will be met by the resources received through their membership in the group. The last element is shared emotional connection, the commitment and belief that members have shared and will share history, common places, time together, and similar experiences. This is the feeling one sees in farmers’ faces as they talk about their home place, their land, and their families; it is the sense of family that Jews feel when they read The Source by James Michener (1965). In a sentence, the definition we propose is as follows: Sense of community is 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 (McMillan, 1976).

 
Membership

Membership is a feeling that one has invested part of oneself to become a member and therefore has a right to belong (Aronson & Mills, 1959; Buss & Portnoy, 1967). It is a feeling of belonging, of being a part (Backman & Secord, 1959). Membership has boundaries; this means that there are people who belong and people who do not. The boundaries provide members with the emotional safety necessary for needs and feelings to be exposed and for intimacy to develop (Bean, 1971; Ehrlich & Graeven, 1971; Wood, 1971).

The most troublesome feature of this part of the definition is boundaries. In Wayward Puritans, Kai Erikson (1966) demonstrated that groups use deviants to establish boundaries. He recounted the banishment of Anne Hutchinson as a heretic in 1637, the persecution of the Quakers from 1656 to 1665, and the witch trials of Salem in 1692. For each of these incidents, Erikson showed how the sense of order and authority was deteriorating and how there was a need for an issue around which the Puritans could unite. The community in each case needed a deviant to denounce and punish as a whole.

Social psychology research has demonstrated that people have boundaries protecting their personal space. Groups often use language, dress, and ritual to create boundaries. People need these barriers to protect against threat (Park, 1924; Perucci, 1963). While much sympathetic interest in and research on the deviant have been generated, group members’ legitimate needs for boundaries to protect their intimate social connections have often been overlooked.

We would like to note two additional points concerning boundaries. First, the harm which comes from the pain of rejection and isolation created by boundaries will continue until we clarify the positive benefits that boundaries provide to communities. Second, while it is clear that groups use deviants as scapegoats in order to create solid boundaries, little is said about the persons who volunteer for the role of deviant by breaking a rule or speaking out against the group consensus in order to obtain attention (Mead, 1918). We think that deviants often use groups, just as the groups use them in the creation of group boundaries.

The role of boundaries is particularly relevant to a neighborhood community. The earliest research on community in American sociology focused on the boundaries established by neighborhood residents (e.g., Pack & Burgess, 1921). Park and the Chicago School’s ecological model explains the mechanisms of classes and ethnic groups as they work out spatial relations among themselves (Bernard, 1973): boundaries define who is in and who is out. However, the boundaries can be so subtle as to be recognizable only by the residents themselves (e.g., gang graffiti on walls marking ethnic neighborhoods) (Berger & Neuhaus, 1977; Bernard, 1973). Berger and Neuhaus (1977) see them as creations of social distance—sources of protection against threat—that are necessary when people are interpersonally vulnerable. Such barriers separate “us” from “them” and allay anxiety by delimiting who can be trusted.

Emotional safety may be considered as part of the broader notion of security. Boundaries established by membership criteria provide the structure and security that protect group intimacy. Such security may be more than emotional; gangs, for example, provide physical security and collectives enhance economic security (Doolittle & MacDonald, 1978; Riger, LeBailly, & Gordon, 1981).

The sense of belonging and identification involves the feeling, belief, and expectation that one fits in the group and has a place there, a feeling of acceptance by the group, and a willingness to sacrifice for the group. The role of identification must be emphasized here. It may be represented in the reciprocal statements “It is my group” and “I am part of the group.”

Personal investment is an important contributor to a person’s feeling of group membership and to his or her sense of community. McMillan (1976) contended (a) that working for membership will provide a feeling that one has earned a place in the group and (b) that, as a consequence of this personal investment, membership will be more meaningful and valuable. This notion of personal investment is paralleled by the work of cognitive dissonance theorists (Aronson & Mills, 1959; Festinger, 1953). For example, the hazing ritual of college fraternities strengthens group cohesiveness (Peterson & Martens, 1972). Personal investment places a large role in developing an emotional connection (such as in home ownership) and wilt be considered again.

A common symbol system serves several important functions in creating and maintaining sense of community, one of which is to maintain group boundaries. Nisbet and Perrin (1977) stated, “First and foremost of the social bond is the symbolic nature of all true behavior or interaction” (p. 39). White (1949) defined a symbol as “a thing the value or meaning of which is bestowed upon it by those who use it” (p. 22). Understanding common symbols systems is prerequisite to understanding community. “The symbol is to the social world what the cell is to the biotic world and the atom to the physical world. . . . The symbol is the beginning of the social world as we know it” (Nisbet & Perrin, 1977, p. 47).

Warner and Associates (1949), in their classic study of “Jonesville,” a midwestern community, recognized the strong integrative function of collective representation such as myths, symbols, rituals, rites, ceremonies, and holidays. They found that in order to obtain smooth functioning and integration in the social life of a modern community, especially when there is heterogeneity, a community must provide a common symbol system. Groups use these social conventions (e.g., rites of passage, language, dress) as boundaries intentionally to create social distance between members and nonmembers (McMillan, 1976). Bernard (1973) mentioned that black leaders used symbols to unify the black community and defy the white population (e.g., Black Power, clenched fist), and Park (1924) offered a rationale for this strategy. Symbols for a neighborhood may reside in its name, a landmark, a logo, or in architectural style. On the national level, holidays, the flag, and the language play an integrative role, and, on a broader scale, basic archetypes unite humankind (Jung, 1912).

To summarize, membership has five attributes: boundaries, emotional safety, a sense of belonging and identification, personal investment, and a common symbol system. These attributes work together and contribute to a sense of who is part of the community and who is not.

Influence

Influence is a bidirectional concept. In one direction, there is the notion that for a member to be attracted to a group, he or she must have some influence over what the group does (Peterson & Martens, 1972; Solomon, 1960; Zander & Cohen, 1955). On the other hand, cohesiveness is contingent on a group’s ability to influence its members (Kelley & Volkart, 1952; Kelley & Woodruff, 1956). This poses two questions: Can these apparently contradictory forces work simultaneously? Is it a bad thing for a group to exert influence on its members to attain conformity?

Several studies suggest that the forces can indeed work simultaneously (Grossack, 1954; Taguiri & Kogan, 1960; Thrasher, 1954). People who acknowledge that others’ needs, values, and opinions matter to them are often the most influential group members, while those who always push to influence, try to dominate others, and ignore the wishes and opinions of others are often the least powerful members.

The second question has received more attention than the first (see Lott & Lott, 1965), and the major finding has been a positive relationship between group cohesiveness and pressure to conform. Festinger, Schachter, and Back (1950) and Kelley and Woodruff (1956) considered these correlational findings to be a demonstration of the negative effects of group cohesiveness (i.e., loss of freedom and individuality).

There is a set of studies on consensual validation that provides some balance to the contentions about group cohesiveness and conformity. The consensual validation construct assumes that people possess an inherent need to know that the things they see, feel, and understand are experienced in the same way by others, and the studies have shown that people will perform a variety of psychological gymnastics to obtain feedback and reassurance that they are not crazy—that what they see is real and that it is seen in the same way by others (Backman & Secord, 1959; Byrne & Wond, 1962). Implicit in conformity research has been an assumption that group pressure on the individual to validate the group’s world view is the primary force behind conformity (Cartwright & Zander, 1960; Heider, 1958; Newcomb, 1961; Thibaut & Kelley, 1959). However, consensual validation research demonstrates that the force toward uniformity is transactional—that it comes from the person as well as from the group. Thus, uniform and conforming behavior indicates that a group is operating to consensually validate its members as well as to create group norms.

Conformity is not necessarily synonymous with loss of personal choice. A. Hunter and Riger (this issue) caution that many people do try to escape the conformity of the close community in order to express their individual freedom. This emphasizes the need to develop communities that can appreciate individual differences. The group member believes that either directly or indirectly he or she can exert some control over the community. Long (1958) saw that through the leadership role, people can feel that they have influence even when their influence may be only indirect. According to Long, the people in a community sense “a need for a leadership with the status, capacity, and the role to attend to the general problems of the territory and give substance to a public philosophy” (p. 225).

The role of power and influence within a community has been at the head of one of the classic paradigms in sociology (Bernard, 1973). Nisbet (1953) organized The Quest for Community around the ways that power and influence have determined the formation and functions of community. Bernard (1973) believed that as influence is drawn away from a locality, the integration and cohesion of the community are threatened. Voluntary associations act as intermediates (or mediating structures) between the individual and the state (Berger & Neuhaus, 1977) by increasing influence and fostering a sense of efficacy. Through collective action, they cause the environment to be more responsive to the needs of the individual and the small collectivity. Participation in voluntary associations or in government programs yields a sharing of power that leads to greater “ownership” of the community by the participants, greater satisfaction, and greater cohesion (Dahl, 1961; F. Hunter, 1953; Wandersman, 1981). The concepts of power, influence, and participation as they relate to a sense of community can be seen in the growing neighborhood movement, the strength of labor unions, various social movements (Killian, 1964), and the Japanese perspective on management (Pascale & Athos, 1981).

In summary, the following propositions concerning influence can be drawn from the group cohesiveness research:

1. Members are more attracted to a community in which they feel that they are influential.           

2. There is a significant positive relationship between cohesiveness and a community’s influence on its members to conform. Thus, both conformity and community influence on members indicate the strength of the bond.

3. The pressure for conformity and uniformity comes from the needs of the individual and the community for consensual validation. Thus, conformity serves as a force for closeness as well as an indicator of cohesiveness.

4. Influence of a member on the community and influence of the community on a member operate concurrently, and one might expect to see the force of both operating simultaneously in a tightly knit community.

Integration and Fulfillment of Needs

The third component of our definition of sense of community is integration and fulfillment of needs, which, translated into more ordinary terms, is reinforcement. Reinforcement as a motivator of behavior is a cornerstone in behavioral research, and it is obvious that for any group to maintain a positive sense of togetherness, the individual—group association must be rewarding for its members. Given the complexity of individuals and groups, however, it has been impossible to determine all of the reinforcements that bind people together into a close community, although several reinforcers have been identified. One is the status of being a member (Kelley, 1951; Zander & Cohen, 1955). Berkowitz (1956), Peterson and Martens (1972), and Sacks (1952) have shown that group success brings group members closer together. The literature on interpersonal attraction suggests that competence is another reinforcer (Hester, Roback, Weitz, Anchor, & McKee, 1976; Zander & Havelin, 1960). People are attracted to others whose skills or competence can benefit them in some way. People seem to gravitate toward people and groups that offer the most rewards. Rappaport (1977) calls this person–environment fit.

The main point is that people do what serves their needs. But this leaves questions unanswered: How do people prioritize their needs, especially after meeting the basic survival needs? What creates a need beyond that of basic survival? Reinforcement as an organizing principle seems blind and directionless unless it is complemented by other concepts.

One such directing concept is shared values. Our culture and our families teach each of us a set of personal values, which indicate our emotional and intellectual needs and the order in which we attend to them. When people who share values come together, they find that they have similar needs, priorities, and goals, thus fostering the belief that in joining together they might be better able to satisfy these needs and obtain the reinforcement they seek. Shared values, then, provide the integrative force for cohesive communities (Cohen, 1976; Doolittle & MacDonald, 1978). Groups with a sense of community work to find a way to fit people together so that people meet the needs of others while meeting their own needs. (cf. Riley, 1970; Zander, Natsoulas, & Thomas, 1960).

The following summarizes the role of integration and fulfillment of needs in a sense of community:

1. Reinforcement and need fulfillment is a primary function of a strong community.

2. Some of the rewards that are effective reinforcers of communities are status of membership, success of the community, and competence or capabilities of other members.

3. There are many other undocumented needs that communities fill, but individual values are the source of these needs. The extent to which individual values are shared among community members will determine the ability of a community to organize and prioritize its need-fulfillment activities.  

4. A strong community is able to fit people together so that people meet others’ needs while they meet their own.

Shared Emotional Connection

A shared emotional connection is based, in part, on a shared history. It is not necessary that group members have participated in the history in order to share it, but they must identify with it. The interactions of members in shared events and the specific attributes of the events may facilitate or inhibit the strength of the unity.

The following features are important to the principle of shared emotional connection:

1. Contact hypothesis: The more people interact, the more likely they are to become close (Allan & Allan, 1971; Festinger, 1950; Sherif, White, & Harvey, 1955; Wilson & Miller, 1961)

2. Quality of interaction: The more positive the experience and the relationships, the greater the bond. Success facilitates cohesion (Cook. 1970).

3. Closure to events: If the interaction is ambiguous and the community’s tasks are left unresolved, group cohesiveness will be inhibited (Hamblin, 1958; Mann & Mann, 1959).

4. Shared valent event hypothesis: The more important the shared event is to those involved, the greater the community bond. For example, there appears to be a tremendous bonding among people who experience a crisis together (Myers, 1962; Wilson & Miller, 1961; Wright, 1943).

5. Investment: This feature contributes more than just boundary maintenance and cognitive dissonance. Investment determines the importance to the member of the community’s history and current status. For example, homeowners who have invested money and time in their part of a neighborhood are more likely to feel the impact of the life events of that community. Similarly, persons who donate more time and energy to an association will be more emotionally involved. Intimacy is another form of investment. The amount of interpersonal emotional risk one takes with the other members and the extent to which one opens oneself to emotional pain from the community life will affect one’s general sense of community (Aronson & Mills, 1959; Peterson & Martens, 1972).

6. Effect of honor and humiliation on community members: Reward or humiliation in the presence of community has a significant impact on attractiveness (or adverseness) of the community to the person (Festinger, 1953; James & Lott, 1964).

7. Spiritual bond: This is present to some degree in all communities. Often the spiritual connection of the community experience is the primary purpose of religious and quasi-religious communities and cults. It is very difficult to describe this important element. Bernard (1973) calls this factor “community of spirit,” likening it to the nineteenth-century concept of volkgeist (folk spirit). The concept of soul as it relates to blacks and its role in the formation of a national black community is an excellent example of the role of a spiritual bond.

They (blacks] had a spiritual bond that they understood and that white people could not. Soul was an indefinable, desirable something; black people had it but white people could hardly aspire to it. It was the animating spirit behind their music, their dance, and their styles. It even expressed itself in their taste in food, their language, and their speech. Not even all black people shared it. Those who rejected their blackness did not. (Bernard, 1973, p. 130)

This element of shared emotional connection can be traced through Tönnies’ (1957) use of the term gemeinschaft: a social unity based on locale. According to Konig (1968), gemeinschaft’s root, gemeinde (local community), had a long-time original application as “the totality of those who own something in common” (p. 15). Cohen (1976) found this in the related concept of the Bund. Neither gemeinschaft nor Bund nor shared emotional connection as presented here includes the requirement of a small-scale local community. Kasarda and Janowitz (1974) demonstrated that “increased population size and density do not significantly weaken local community sentiments” (p. 338), which further aids us in understanding communities that are not bounded by location.

Future research should focus on the causal factor leading to shared emotional connection, since it seems to be the definitive element for true community. In summary, strong communities are those that offer members positive ways to interact, important events to share and ways to resolve them positively, opportunities to honor members, opportunities to invest in the community, and opportunities to experience a spiritual bond among members.

Dynamics Within the Elements

Now that we have defined the elements of sense of community, we will consider how the subelements work together to create each element and how all work dynamically together to create and maintain sense of community. (See Table 1.)

Five attributes of membership seem to fit together in a circular, self-reinforcing way, with all conditions having both causes and effects. Boundaries provide the protection for intimacy. The emotional safety that is a consequence of secure boundaries allows people to feel that there is a place for them in the community and that they belong. A sense of belonging and identification facilitates the development of a common symbol system, which defines the community’s boundaries. We believe too that feelings of belonging and emotional safety lead to self-investment in the community, which has the consequence of giving a member the sense of having earned his or her membership.

Within the context of influence, community influence on the member allows him or her to have more influence in the community. When one resists the community’s influence or tries to dominate the community, one is less influential. People are more likely to choose a leader who listens and is influenceable rather than one whose mind is made up and will never change. So, allowing others to have power over oneself can eventually lead to having influence with them. The last two attributes of influence, conformity (community norms) and consensual validation, are less clear to us. We believe that if people choose freely whether to conform, their need for consensual validation will strengthen community norms. The more a community provides opportunities for validation of its members, the stronger community norms become.

The transactional dynamics of integration and fulfillment of needs are clearer. Communities organize around needs, and people associate with communities in which their needs can be met; people can solve their problems and meet their needs if they have alternatives and resources. Reinforcement at the community level allows people to be together so that everyone’s needs are met. People enjoy helping others just as they enjoy being helped, and the most successful communities include associations that are mutually rewarding for everyone.

Shared emotional connection can be represented symbolically in two heuristic formulas. Formula 1 specifies the elements of shared emotional connection. Formula 2 deals with the content of high-quality interaction. (See Table 1.)

Dynamics Among the Elements

It is difficult to describe the interworkings of the four elements of sense of community in the abstract. Therefore, the following examples are offered as illustrations.

The university. Someone puts an announcement on the dormitory bulletin board about the formation of an intramural dormitory basketball team. People attend the organization meeting as strangers out of their individual needs (integration and fulfillment of needs). The team is bound by place of residence (membership boundaries are set) and spends time together in practice (the contact hypothesis). They play a game and win (successful shared valent event). While playing, members exert energy on behalf of the team (personal investment in the group). As the team continues to win, team members become recognized and congratulated (gaining honor and status for being members). Someone suggests that they all buy matching shirts and shoes (common symbols) and they do so (influence).

Thus, the elements of sense of community operated in a linear fashion. Individuals sought to meet their needs by integrating them with the needs of others. Membership boundaries were set and practice sessions for members only were scheduled. This allowed for shared time and space, which in turn provided shared valent events. Winning facilitated reinforcement for being a member, which engendered influence and conformity.

The neighborhood. Consider a community organizer, whose prime task is the creation of sense of community. First, he talks to people in an area to find out their problems and concerns, that is, what would reinforce them and motivate them to work together (integration and fulfillment of needs). When a common concern emerges (i.e., something they all seem to need, such as a safe neighborhood), the organizer begins to conceive of ways in which the residents can work together to meet their need. Many of the residents have been victims of muggings, robberies, and assaults. Those who have not been victimized are ruled by their fear of becoming a victim. Fear of further victimization is a shared valent event. The community organizer calls a meeting of concerned neighbors with an announcement that explains whom the meeting is for. This sets the boundaries for belonging. At the meeting, the organizer introduces neighbors to one another and tells them about their common concerns. Members elect officers, set up bylaws, and begin to plan and implement programs (influence and salient event). They talk and plan for getting to know one another, and watching out for one another’s safety emerges as a common theme. Other meetings are planned around buffet suppers at members’ homes (another valent event). People arrange travel to and from these meetings in groups for safety. Neighbors begin calling the police when they see strangers in the area, and intruders breaking into homes are caught (influence). The success continues with neighbors feeling a greater sense of community.

            In this idealized story, one can see how the elements of sense of community were used by the community organizer. He studied needs and thought about their possible integration. He called a meeting of residents, thus creating a potential for membership, and there asked members to discuss the shared valent event of victimization and fear. This led to the formulation of a structured plan and a successful outcome. Members began to accept others’ needs as influencers of their behavior, leading to conformity (going out together in groups). The neighborhood’s sense of community served as a catalyst for participation in local action (cf, Bachrach & Zautra, 1985; Chavis, 1983).

The youth gang. The youth gang is a community generally considered to be composed of alienated individuals. Its formation and maintenance are based on its member’ shared experience of estrangement from traditional social systems and on the security (emotional and physical) that membership provides (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960). Gangs develop both territorial and symbolic boundaries. Gang colors (dress and symbols) and initiation rites serve as the bases for the integration and bonding of members and as important mechanisms for differentiating gang members from others. The gang exerts tremendous pressure on members to conform, and the gang’s status and victories enhance the bonding even moreso. The rules to which members conform are based largely on the shared values and needs met by the gang. Along the same lines as college fraternities, youth gangs give members influence over the environment not available to them as individuals (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960).

The kibbutz. Before World War II, idealistic Zionists began immigrating to Palestine to establish a new state based on humanistic and religious values. After the formation of the state of Israel, the kibbutzim became primary holders of the new state’s values and cultural norms. The following analysis of the kibbutz movement is based on Cohen’s (1976) work.

The people who formed the original kibbutzim were Jews who expressed a hunger for a rebirth of a Jewish community that was not a minority in a dominant culture, but would be the dominant culture. They hoped to experience Jewish fellowship in a way that integrated the best aspects of the Western European ghetto without the oppression. Many had been displaced from their homes in Europe and were in search of a new home. They gathered, then, in hopes of integrating their needs and out of a shared emotional connection, Boundaries of membership were defined by being Jewish and by sharing the vision and symbols of these Jewish pioneers. Kibbutz members made great personal sacrifices in order to reach Israel and to establish a new viable community on a hostile part of the earth. Their sacrifices were a part of their investment in their new world, and while they made their own sacrifices, they watched their fellow members take great personal risks also. Such a willingness to risk for the community gave members a sense of security that they were among people who cared and whom they could trust. This shared caring engendered a sense of belonging that in turn supported strong boundaries and a willingness for personal investment. These dynamics are all part of the principle of membership.

The pioneering spirit, to create a culture that was not capitalistic and individualistic but based instead on caring and a willingness to share their vision and ideals, kept the communities cohesive and intact for some years. Their resources came in part from the government of Israel, which needed citizens of the new slate to inhabit unproductive lands and make them productive. The kibbutz movement was proud that the government used it as one of the chief socializers of the new nation and as an example to the nation and the world that a state in which human caring is as important as power and economic success could exist. The esteem or pride that came about was a source for change in the values of kibbutzim. Dependent on the outside world for economic support and esteem, the kibbutzim were vulnerable to outside demands for change. The needs of the kibbutz communities thus merged with those of the larger community (integration and fulfillment of needs), and the attributes that were appreciated and valued by the government and the greater culture began to filter into the kibbutzim. Simultaneously, as they received attention from the outside world, their inner strength grew.

Once the state of Israel became well established economically, militarily, and politically, it was not as dependent on kibbutzim for socializing immigrants and no longer wanted to support the communities with tax dollars. Consequently, kibbutzim began to feel pressure for economic self-sufficiency. Because of this pressure, many kibbutzim failed and were disbanded or resettled. Others specialized and modernized their means of production. A management structure developed, and power was no longer shared equally. As influence was directed more to the Israeli state, many kibbutzim lost their autonomy. Those that maintained or reinstilled it remained strong.

The formation of classes or subgroups within the kibbutzim came about with the introduction of new members, who were less experienced in all aspects of the community’s life. Housing and resources were often allocated on the basis of seniority of membership. This resulted in a status differential between the new and the old. Seniority came to symbolize commitment and stability, creating a shared emotional connection (Glynn, 1981; Riger & Lavrakas, 1981).

The life stages of the members also changed the value orientation of the kibbutz movement. Members were initially antifamily, but as children were born, members began to identify themselves as family units oriented toward the nurturance of new life. The education of members into specialists, who were part of a profession and whose professional problems and challenges were understood only by other professionals who were likely not to be members of the commune, also weakened members’ orientation toward the kibbutz as the primary reference group. These developments highlight the changes in cohesiveness that must occur when values are no longer closely shared or with differentiation.

With these changes came economic success and abundance; having more than the community needed for subsistence became a serious problem. How were resources to be allocated fairly? Who got to take trips and who got to continue their education? Did the community want to support members to meet individual interests and needs that were irrelevant or unbeneficial to the community, even if it had the resources to do so? A group’s success in negotiating this problem of integration of resources and needs reflected the success of the community itself. Members needed to feel that they had power in such decisions, yet the community needed to know that members would place the community’s needs high on their list of priorities. Abundance, however, meant that the community was basically secure and that members were more concerned with pursuing their individual needs and interests.

Because of the kibbutzim’s organizational success and internal and external changes, cohesive bonds loosened. Day-to-day conduct of affairs became separated from the founding values, and these values were weakened. Life on the kibbutz lost its sacred quality. Social ties rather than idealistic allegiance became the chief integrating force, and subgroups formed.

Given all of these problems one wonders how the kibbutzim have survived and prospered for so long as active and thriving communities. One answer is that members have a shared emotional connection. They have lived and worked together; they have fought their country’s enemies and the hostile climate together; and they have resolved these threats (shared valent events) with positive outcomes. This is reminiscent of the song in Fiddler on the Roof that asks how the Jews have managed to balance on the roof when the world is so hostile. The answer is a loud, deep affirmation, “Tradition.” The kibbutzim, even in their short history, have built a tradition. Each has a story of how it was settled and how its life changed and grew as the community struggled successfully to survive. Members are proud of what they have accomplished together. Their shared story is the basis of their spiritual bond.

The kibbutz provides a good example of the dynamics inherent in the life cycle of a sense of community. Sense of community is not a static feeling. It is affected by time through changing values and external forces such as commerce, the media, transportation, specialization of professions, economics, and employment factors. This example of the kibbutz demonstrates the number of communities that one can belong to, each meeting different needs (e.g., family, kibbutz, nation, profession, religion). Sometimes these communities are compatible and sometimes their requirements are in conflict. Individual values and needs determine one’s top allegiance in such cases. The layering of communities is very much part of modern life (Fischer, 1982), in which multiple affiliations are based both on territoriality and tradition (neighborhood, city, state, nation) and on what Durkheim (1964) called “organic solidarity” (interests, professions, religion, etc.).

A fuller understanding of the variety of communities in our society is essential. The definition and theory of sense of community presented in this article apply equally, we believe, to all types of communities because of their common core, although our four elements will be of varying importance depending on the particular community and its membership. These elements, then, can provide a framework for comparing and contrasting various communities.

Conclusion

The theoretical framework presented here has the potential for a broad range of applications. Dokecki (1983; also Hobbs et al., 1984) has proposed that we should intentionally model public policy around the values of human development and community. He suggested that emerging policies be evaluated against a series of questions that highlight the implications for human development, the family, and the cohesion of a community. Our definition of sense of community influenced the development of Dokecki’s criteria. A clear and empirically validated understanding of sense of community can provide the foundation for lawmakers and planners to develop programs that meet their stated goals by strengthening and preserving community. Glenwick and Jason (1980) have shown that there are many contingencies in a system and that the community psychologist can play a role in identifying and designing mechanisms that reinforce behaviors leading to the development of a sense of community.

For example, consider that most governmental assistance programs require individual application. What if it were required that residents apply as a group to receive certain benefits? This would necessitate that specific group activities take place and that a certain percentage of an area’s residents participate in the decision to apply (though all might not want the assistance themselves). A sense of community could develop, especially if appropriate technical assistance were provided to assist in organizing. A situation is thus established whereby members’ needs are met by being part of the group. Facilitation of the other elements in our definition will further strengthen the formation of a sense of community.

Our understanding of sense of community has implications also for community treatment programs for the retarded and mentally ill. Where “community” means more than residency outside of an institution, strategies can be introduced to allow the therapeutic benefits of community to be developed within group homes and to provide for better integration with communities surrounding such facilities.

Newman (1981) stated that an understanding of how communities are formed will enable us to design housing that will be better maintained and will provide for better use of surrounding areas (streets and parks) and safety from criminal activity. Along similar lines, Ahlbrant and Cunningham (1979) have shown that people make the greatest investments in home improvements in neighborhoods where there is a strong social fabric.

Yankelovich (1981) reported that, in 1973, “roughly one-third of Americans felt an intense need to compensate for the impersonal and threatening aspects of modern life by seeking mutual identification with others,” on the basis of a sense of belonging together. “By the beginning of the 1980s, the number of Americans deeply involved in the search for community had increased from 32% to 47%” (p. 85).

It is clear that sense of community is a powerful force in our culture now. This force does not operate just for good, however. In the South, the Klu Klux Klan is gaining in membership and power. Urban vigilante forces are forming to attack and intimidate people in the name of community. Neighborhoods advertised as exclusive communities are fencing themselves in to keep out people who do not belong and to separate themselves from poverty and problems of social justice. As the force of sense of community drives people closer together, it also seems to be polarizing and separating subgroups of people, The potential for great social conflict is increasing—a side of community that must be understood as well. A critical examination of community is essential.

It is our wish that this article will intensify the search for ways to strengthen the social fabric with the development of sense of community. Somehow we must find a way to build communities that are based on faith, hope, and tolerance, rather than on fear, hatred, and rigidity. We must learn to use sense of community as a tool for fostering understanding and cooperation. We hope that research on this topic will provide a base on which we can facilitate free, open, and accepting communities. We present the concept of community here not as a panacea, rather, as one of the means to bring about the kind of world about which we and others have dreamed.

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Appendix 1

This story is an example of how a community practitioner might use the PSOC theory and its decision tree.

Carroll Retail is a family-owned business. They were having trouble attracting and holding senior executives. They had lost four CFO’s in three years, among other exits of senior corporate staff. The chairman of the board, Sam, was the company founder. He wanted to be seen as an approachable leader who would open his door to all employees from janitor to senior sales manager. He thought of himself as a trouble shooter.

One of his sons, Tom, was the CEO. He was a dedicated hard worker, who was trying to help the company transition from a small business to a publicly traded company. He wanted to have a structured business bureaucracy with delegated authority and clear lines of direct reports. He tried to develop employee manuals, job descriptions and company policies and procedures without success. 

The Sales Manager was a “wunderkind,” Randy, who had developed a company internet presence that was making the most sales and revenues the company had ever seen. And because of this, Randy thought he had the answer for everything, including, for example, how to save money on the light bill, not part of his job description.

The remainder of the Senior Management Team consisted of Barbara, the new CFO, Carl, the head of IT, and Charles, the HR Director. We, Jerome Burt and I, asked to add Dot, Tom’s Executive Assistant, to the group of people I would interview.

To develop consultation ideas, I used a Sense of Community decision tree evaluation (see attached) process that I developed from my SOC theory. Remember, there are four elements to the theory. The first has to do with what I first called “Membership” and later called “Spirit.” Essentially, it is about developing a safe place to speak one’s truth, feelings and ideas, believing that because one belongs, one will be heard and cared about. Boundaries creating emotional safety is the theme of this element.

The second element I called “Influence” and later “Trust.” This element is about how decisions are made and how power is used. And the theme here is building and developing trust.

The third element I called “Reinforcement” or “Integration of Needs” and later referred to as “Trade.” This is a community’s economy. Of course, it is a social economy with four types of trade. Here the theme is how well does a community value and use differences.

The fourth element I called “Shared Emotional Connection in Time and Space.” Later, I termed it “Art.” This is about community events and stories. The question posed by this element has to do with the quality of the community’s life events. Are the stories told in a positive light so that symbols, rituals and traditions emerge from the stories? Or do the stories create humiliation and dishonor fragmenting the community’s and injuring its pride?

One’s first stab at using the SOC decision tree evaluation is to focus on the four elements. Once an element has been identified as a problem area, refocus on that element and its sub-elements. (See the decision tree map attached).

So, we begin with the first element and the first question and ask the question of chosen participants. Remember, the first element has to do with belonging and attachment.

The first question is: Do you care about this company and how much or how little?

The answer from Sam was “Yes, I care about the company. It’s part of who I am. I belong here. It’s mine. I want everybody who works here to feel like I do. But clearly, they don’t. I want everybody to know that they can come to me and be heard and I will do something. But my son says we can’t run the company that way anymore. We are too big.”

The answer from Tom was, “Yes, my daddy built this company and I’m proud to have his legacy, but he won’t let go. We’ve grown beyond his ‘I can handle everything’ attitude. I want to put my stamp on this organization. I want to build a culture where people have clear roles that they enjoy playing. That’s not happening here now.”

The answer from Randy was, “Yes, I put this company on the internet. I quadrupled sales. We still have box stores, but they are dinosaurs. People here don’t get that and it’s frustrating when I’m not listened to. I don’t believe in silos. I think everyone should contribute what they know. When you have the right answer, I think you should tell people.”

The answer from Barbara was, “No, not yet, but I hope to grow to care about this company. I want to feel like I belong here.”

The answer from Carl was, “This place is a pay check for me. I’ve got four more years until I can retire and I’m working for that day. No, I don’t belong here. I’m marginal, like almost invisible. I get called when something breaks and blamed when people don’t know the right button to push.”

The answer for Charles was, “No, I don’t belong here. I’m a silly bureaucrat to Sam. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with me trying to institute policies and procedures. My voice is not welcome. I can’t feel much passion about the company. That would be too disappointing and painful.”

The answer from Dot was, “I feel sorry for Tom. I’m loyal to him, but I don’t fit here. I get coffee and I keep my mouth shut. I try to help Tom, but his father undercuts him. Randy won’t take his direction and others, except for the new person, Barbara, feel demoralized. I hope you can help. I don’t think Tom will stand up to his father or to Randy. It’s not safe to tell the truth about how it feels to work here. Sam always says, ‘I’m always willing to hear anyone out’ and when you tell him how you feel, he disapproves of you and says, ‘You shouldn’t feel that way.’”

The first element has to do with a safe place, a place where you believe your emotional truth will be heard and valued. From these answers, one can tell that there is work to be done on the first element. Our work moved to Element One’s decision tree.

In general, the answer to the first question is “No.” People on the Senior staff, except for the father and son, didn’t feel committed or that they belonged.

As to the second question inside Element One’s decision tree, are people aware enough of how they feel? The answer is “Yes.” Then the next question is: Is the truth told? The answer is “No,” So we worked here.

Sam means well but he so wants people to be happy and to appreciate what he tries to do for them that he won’t hear their real feelings. We taught Sam how to listen and value someone telling him their truth more than he valued being affirmed.

When he listened, he heard his son tell him that he had to step back and stop trying to make everybody happy; that his attempts to please everyone created chaos in a growing company; and those rules, norms and policies would create clear expectations and help people avoid conflicts just like knowing to drive on the right side of the road avoids wrecks.

Sam got that, but he needed a task, something he could do to contribute. He understood he needed to back off, but he wasn’t ready to be put out to pasture. Sam had to think of something that he could do that would be helpful.

Sam’s leaving the management to Tom helped some, but Tom had some managing to do. He had Randy, who thought of himself as the unappreciated God’s gift to the company. His insistence or knowing and being right sucked the air out of every working relationship he had. And to others, he seemed to have Tom’s permission to fire his loose cannon whenever.

We suggested to Tom that he rein in Randy and let him know that his contribution of bringing on-line retail to the company was appreciated, but that’s done now and he no longer has the company’s magic bullet; and that Randy’s “right answer” was only one answer and many answers might work when there is buy-in from the whole team; and now, when ideas came from Randy, everyone else was suddenly opposed because Randy made no room for the ideas of others. Tom told him that if he persisted to disempower others, as he often did, he would be fired. When this conversation was leaked to the other team members by Dot, the morale of the management group began to rise.

Still, this did not yet make the answer “Yes” to the first question concerning Element number Two, “Trust/Influence” which was: Do you trust the Company and fellow staff to value your opinion?

The answer from Sam was, “Well, I did until I was told that I had to shut my door and stay in my office. Now, I’m not sure I’m respected here. I founded this Company and that doesn’t seem to count for much.”

The answer from Tom was, “I’m beginning to feel more effective here. My dad has agreed to let me make the decisions. I think Randy got my message and already, I think people are feeling better. What I did with Dad and Randy were two the hardest conversations I have ever had. Being in charge is no fun sometimes. I have to get comfortable with my role.”

The answer from Randy was, “I’m thinking about quitting. I’m not sure they appreciate me here. No one here knows what I know and Tom says that me being smart is a problem. I’m sending out my resume.”

The answer from Barbara was, “I think I can work for Tom. I wasn’t sure at first. Randy was so intimidating and Sam was changing my budget everyday with another unbudgeted purchase order or overtime to be authorized. Tom has made my job easier now.”

The answer from Carl was, “In a Senior Staff Meeting yesterday, someone asked me what I thought. That’s a first. Things are better, but Randy still wants to tell me what computer servers we need.”

The answer from Charles was, “What Tom did was good and all, but we still don’t have a playbook for how people who work here are expected to act. I have written three versions of a policy and procedures manual. We are a self-insured company. We pay our employee medical expenses out of the company’s pocket. We have rules of what we covered until Sam sends a note down telling me to break the rules for this person or that person. We had a late to work policy but Sam acts like a school principal and writes excuses for anyone who asks him. I don’t know how to do my job and it’s been frustrating. Maybe that will stop now.”

The answer from Dot was, “I’m proud of Tom. He stepped up and did what needed doing. It was hard for him, but he finally claimed his place. We needed him to lead and he is doing that. I don’t like people coming into my office and stealing office supplies. I wish we had a better system for knowing where things were and how to access them.”

So, in general if trust means knowing what you can expect and believing that you have influence, the answer to whether or not Senior staff trusts this company the answer is more “no” than “yes.”

This throws us into the decision tree for the Second Element, Influence or Trust. This element is about fairness and respect. The next question: Do you do your part for the company and does the company pay you for what you do with money and respect?

Sam feels disrespected but feels compensated. Tom feels compensated and is beginning to feel that he has influence. Randy feels well paid but disrespected. Carl feels well paid and hopes to have influence and respect. Barbara feels well paid and is hopeful that the management group dynamic will improve. Charles feels well paid, but still doesn’t think his voice is heard or that his concerns matter. Dot does not feel well paid, nor does she feel that her opinion matters.

We recommended to Tom that he support Charles in his attempt to develop Human Resources policies and procedures and to finalize a manual to be given to all employees. We recommended that Dot be given permission to lock the door to her office when she’s not there to keep people from taking supplies from her office and to have the office supply vendor deliver supplies directly to other offices and that she receive a raise.

They did those things. Norms at the company became clearer. Conflicts were reduced because people knew what to expect and what not to expect. Now that Sam had stopped using his authority, it became clear that Tom was the ultimate decision-maker around the daily running of the company.

Trust among members of the Senior management team improved. But the flow of information and the connections between and among team members had not. The team still didn’t know what to do with Randy and Randy didn’t know what to do with other members or with his own energy and ideas. He was not likely to remain still for long. If he didn’t get positive attention for his ideas and his contributions, he would likely settle for getting attention in negative ways. And Randy was right about one aspect of himself. Though he wasn’t indispensable, he was smart and creative and he generated ideas like he was flipping burgers. And Sam, too, was unhappy and felt lost in the company he founded. He spent a lot of time in his office sulking.

This brings us to the Third Element Trade or Reinforcement/Integration of Needs. This element primarily concerns differences and whether or not differences are valued and integrated within the community. This is about whether trades build value or merely feed egos.

While others feel they are treated fairly now, Sam and Randy don’t. Sam wants all the management team to think like he does and allow him to “fix” things as he once did. He, more than anyone, understood the company’s values and he could implement them. For him, these values were to treat everyone with compassion and be flexible and treat every problem differently. This had worked for him as he built the company. He wished everyone would see things as he did.

He wanted to make what the SOC theory called “consensual trades.” These trades feed one’s ego and confirm the status quo, but they don’t facilitate change and growth. If the company was to survive, it had to adapt, change and grow.

This comes only from complementary trades that appreciate and recognize differences and find ways to use people’s various talents and interests to build a team. Tom needed to recognize that his father had special value to the company. He had the ability to pass on the company’s story and its values of caring about its customers and employees. He, more than anyone else, was capable of making generative trades within the company. And Randy, the man full of ideas and imagination, would be perfect at making transformative trades. He could be a scout, like Kit Carson or John Bridger, looking for new ideas and holding seminars for company employees interested in helping the company expand its vision and reach. Perhaps, he might be interested in learning about Chinese culture and expanding the company into the Chinese market, for example.

Tom quickly saw that each of the senior management team had very different personalities and talents. His father was in a position to give his blessing to others and to pass on the company’s values and legacy. Carl was a detached objective person, quiet and sometimes withdrawn, but with a talent for designing systems and fixing things. He didn’t need much attention. For him, a little attention went a long way, but he needed a little. When he talked he needed to be listened to. Dot could talk to a frog. She was a talented communicator. She could get the word out. Barbara was a neat, careful, detail-oriented person, master of the spreadsheet. Charles was good with people and building personnel structures. He liked writing manuals and developing rules. He loved order and respected precedent.

Tom decided to meet with each member of his team sharing with them how he saw their special strengths and talents fitting into the management team. Each of the team members appreciated being known and valued in this way. Sam and Randy were excited to have new assignments within the company. Tom had helped create a better Person/Environment fit or (Person/Role fit) for all members of his management team.

While this helped integrate company differences and make complimentary trades, including transforming trades (Randy teaching and exploring new ideas) and generative trades (Sam finding ways to give his blessing and pass on his legacy), we still have the ghost of the company dysfunctional story hanging in the atmosphere of the company. 

This is where the Fourth element is important. This element has to do with the company’s story. How does it tell its history? SOC theory projects that a community’s story can harm the community in two ways. If its history shames and humiliates the community and its members, the community will fall apart. If the community’s story has an ambiguous outcome, the community will not become close and connected. But if the community’s story honors the community and its members, the community will develop symbols, rituals and traditions from its story.

The first several questions have to do with time spent together, whether its enough time and whether the time is quality time.

Sam consulted with us about his new role. He has the idea of a company newsletter. He would edit this. In it, he would showcase company activities, achievements and employees. The company had awards, like employee of the week. Sam decided to write articles about the award winners. These articles would offer a biography of the winner and highlight their families. He would interview each winner and write the article himself.

Each newsletter would feature an article about one of the company’s past events, giving readers an historical perspective. He would personally write a feature article concerning something the company was doing that made him proud.

He did this and the newsletter became an important company organ. He became the company High Priest offering his blessings to the company’s ventures and to the achievements of the employees.

He was careful to tell old company stories of failures redeemed, mistakes made and lessons learned. When he told these stories, he made his character in the story the comic fool. He laughed at himself and in so doing, suggested that mistakes were to be learned from, not avoided and that laughter and learning could be the product of mistakes, not ridicule and punishment.

            Barbara. The new CFO has remained with the company. Sam, the founder, has become comfortable in his role as elder statesman mentor. Carl, the head of IT did not take early retirement and seems to feel wanted and appreciated. Randy has enjoyed his new role as company education director. Tom, the CEO, has become more comfortable with his authority and seems comfortable captaining his ship. Perhaps Dot is the happiest with our work. She got a raise, a bonus and more formal authority as gatekeeper to the CEO.