The Psychological Sense of Community: Prospects for a Community Psychology

Sarason defines the psychological sense of community as the sense that one is part of a readily available, mutually supportive network of relationships upon which one can depend, and as a result of which one does not experience sustained feelings of loneliness [citation:2]. He calls it the 'overarching value' because it should inform all action in community psychology, not function as one goal among many [citation:6]. This is a substantive claim about the field's identity: community psychology is not defined by its methods, settings, or client populations but by its commitment to fostering this sense of belonging and mutual support. Sarason's definition has been widely cited and became a foundational concept in community psychology research [citation:12].

Sarason argues that the psychological sense of community must apply internally within institutions—to the staff and personnel, not just to clients. He observes that this 'internal sense' falls 'victim to the work ethic,' in which the criterion of helping the client diverts attention from what is happening to the helper [citation:6]. Teachers, for example, experience loneliness because selection and reward systems discourage the development of community among faculty. Sarason's point is that an institution cannot genuinely serve its clientele if it does not also create conditions for its own members to learn, change, and grow. This internal dimension of community is one of the book's most distinctive arguments and shaped Sarason's later work on schools and workplaces.

Cowan's 1975 review expressed concern that Sarason's philosophy favored the 'community' pole of a dialectic between individual and collective needs, warning that the field must not 'fixate' on either pole [citation:6]. The reviewer feared that under Sarason's framework there would not exist a healthy tension between autonomy and community. Sarason's concluding chapter is itself cautionary: he acknowledges that agreement on the value of community does not ensure agreement on a course of action, and leaves readers with what one source calls a 'circular contradiction'—asserting that when individual and group conflict, the decisive consideration is maintaining the sense of community [citation:6]. The book thus raises a question it does not resolve: how to balance the sense of community against other values when they conflict.

Sarason's 1974 book predates Putnam's Bowling Alone by decades, but the concepts are deeply related. Putnam's social capital refers to networks of trust and mutual assistance, and his argument is that these have weakened in advanced societies, producing social harms. Sarason's psychological sense of community is the subjective experience of being part of such networks—the felt dimension of what Putnam measures structurally [citation:2]. A Japanese scholarly note observes that understanding social capital requires understanding community, and that Sarason's book offers a psychological perspective on community that is valuable for researchers in behavioral economics and related fields [citation:2]. The book is thus a precursor to the social capital literature, framing the problem in psychological rather than sociological terms.

McMillan and Chavis's 1986 theory operationalized Sarason's concept into four dimensions: membership, influence, integration and fulfillment of needs, and shared emotional connection [citation:8]. Subsequent research expanded the concept to include negative sense of community—Brodsky's work with resilient single mothers showed that a negative sense of community can be psychologically healthy [citation:8]. Researchers also recognized that individuals belong to multiple communities simultaneously (territorial and relational), and studies have examined sense of community in diverse contexts including neighborhoods, universities, schools, correctional facilities, churches, and workplaces [citation:8]. The concept has been studied cross-nationally, with studies in Ethiopia, China, Norway, India, and elsewhere showing its association with participation, satisfaction, and prosocial behavior [citation:10].

Sarason argues that agencies and institutions hoping to have a semblance of psychological sense of community must attend to three levels: their own clientele, their own personnel, and the larger community in which they are embedded [citation:6]. An institution's viability over time is always related to how it relates to its surrounding community. For Sarason, the sense of community in a setting like a college is partly a function of how that setting relates to the larger geographic setting. This multi-level conception—internal, client-facing, and external—distinguishes his account from purely interpersonal or purely geographic definitions. It also explains why he saw the resource exchange network, which crosses institutional boundaries, as a vehicle for realizing the psychological sense of community.