Sense of community

Sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, and others have theorized about and carried out empirical research on community, but the psychological approach asks questions about the individual's perception, understanding, attitudes, feelings, etc.

[4] Among theories of sense of community proposed by psychologists, McMillan's & Chavis's[5] is by far the most influential, and is the starting point for most of the recent research in the field.

[13][full citation needed] These initial studies lacked a clearly articulated conceptual framework, however, and none of the measures developed were based on a theoretical definition of psychological sense of community.

They prefer the abbreviated label "sense of community", and propose that sense of community is composed of four elements: McMillan & Chavis give the following example to illustrate the dynamics within and between these four elements:[5]: 16 Someone puts an announcement on the dormitory bulletin board about the formation of an intramural dormitory basketball team.

The team is bound by place of residence (membership boundaries are set) and spends time together in practice (the contact hypothesis).