Everyday, all around the world, communities are formed and maintained. Many communities are generated based on territory or shared space, but through the rise of technology new communities are developing on a daily (virtual) basis. As humans, we know it is difficult, and unpleasant, to live truly alone, so we generate a variety of ways to keep us connected to our peers.
The feeling of belonging that comes with membership to most communities is associated with group empowerment, commitment to and satisfaction with one’s neighborhood, and decreased fears of crime, according to research done on this “sense of community” by David McMillan and David Chavis.
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 member’s needs will be met through their commitment to be together.
McMillan & Chavis, “Sense of Community: Definition & Theory” (pg. 9)
The above quote is McMillan’s proposed definition of the ‘sense of community’ based on prior theory construction by Robert Doolittle and Donald MacDonald. The pair created a 40-item scale to measure one’s sense of community based on degrees of informal interaction, safety, pro-urbanism, neighboring preferences, and localism.
Another study done by Thomas Glynn a few years later in 1981 generalized 120 characteristics from a survey of communities that best predicted an ‘actual’ sense of community. These factors were expected length of residency, satisfaction with the community, and the number of neighbors they could identify by first name. Glynn also identified that a greater sense of community was associated with greater competency within the community.
McMillan and Chavis then synthesized the vast existing theories on this ‘sense of community’ to create their own theory of what generates this phenomenon, and why it is crucial to community and individual success. Their theory is constructed through four basic pillars: Membership, Influence, Integration and Fulfillment of Needs, and Shared Emotional Connection.
- Membership entails a sense of belonging and thus a boundary that excludes those who do not belong, this idea is maintained through excluding or rejecting those who deviate from community norms, or do not share similar traits. The structure of membership creates a sense of security and belonging for the entire group. Personal investments (see the next three pillars) and common symbol systems create cohesion within the member group.
- Influence is the bidirectional influence of an individual over the group and the group over the individual: a sense of “consensual validation” and push towards uniformity (McMillan 11). Greater cohesiveness of a group is associated with greater pressure of the community on its members to conform. “There is a significant positive relationship between cohesiveness and a community’s influence on its members to conform.
- Integration and Fulfillment of Needs is more generally a source of reinforcement within the community. This motivates members to stay within the group, contribute, and care for other members. This can influence the status, competence, shared values, information, and other resources of the community.
- Shared Emotional Connection refers to established and perpetuated social links through extended contact as facilitated by membership to a community. This could involve seeing your neighbors on a monthly basis for a neighborhood potluck and contributing to the group’s meal, or attending dorm meetings and bonding over a shared desire to enjoy dorm life or other common interests.
Table 1 illustrates the four concepts necessary for a sense of community, and the relationships present across and within these concepts. Arrows indicate the effect of one variable on another, with the arrow’s pointing towards the impacted/dependent variable. Addition, subtraction, and multiplication signs demonstrate the ways in which shared emotional connection, for example, if influenced by contact between individuals or feelings of humiliation.
McMillan and Chavis insisted that “a fuller understanding of the variety of communities is essential” and intended their research to be applied to policy generation and revision to strengthen all varieties of community.
As our own project seeks to demonstrate, there is vast diversity within and across communities in our contemporary society. It should no longer be acceptable to label some community groups or structures deviant due to misunderstandings of the function of community and dominant-group biases. For more on this, see our page on further research related to community maintenance. https://sociologyofcommunity.home.blog/maintaining-community/research/
Sources
- McKenzie, R. D. 1924. “The Ecological Approach to the Study of the Human Community.” American Journal of Sociology 30(3):287–301. Retrieved (https//www.jstor.org/stable/2764963).
- McMillan, David W. and David M. Chavis. 1996. “Sense of Community: A Definition and Theory.” Journal of Community PSychology 14:6–23. Retrieved (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/1520-6629(198601)14:1<6::AID-JCOP2290140103>3.0.CO;2-I).
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