NEGATIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL SENSE OF COMMUNITY: DEVELOPMENT OF A MEASURE AND THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS

A R T I C L E NEGATIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL SENSE OF COMMUNITY: DEVELOPMENT OF A MEASURE AND THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS Terri Mannarini, Alessia Rochira, and Cosimo Talò University of Salento Psychological sense of community (PSOC) has been a focus of extensive research investigation. However, despite the emphasis on the positive aspects of PSOC, scholars have paid relatively little attention on its negative aspects. The present work assumes PSOC to be a bipolar construct (Brodsky, 1996), introduces negative psychological sense of community (NPSOC) as a centrifugal force that drives individuals away from the community, and reports the development of the NPSOC scale. Community residents (N = 612) were sampled and surveyed to examine the statistical validity and the psychometric properties of the NPSOC scale. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) revealed that the second-order factor structure of NPSOC (consisting of four first-order factors) yielded the most satisfactory fit indices, with correlational analyses supporting the construct validity of NPSOC. To lay the foundation for future directions, the concept of NPSOC was further discussed in relation to its implications and to the construct of C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. PSOC.  Psychological sense of community (PSOC) is one of the most investigated constructs in community psychology. This construct was articulated and developed by Sarason (1974) in reference to the previously unnamed feeling that individuals experience in their lives as members of a human system. Four decades after Sarason’s (1974) work, PSOC remains a core research interest of scholars and professionals engaged in community development, well-being, and processes of social empowerment. As a construct, PSOC captures the following core aspects: first, the subjective sense of being part of an organized collectivity and the sharing of common symbols; second, the feeling that everyone’s basic needs Please address correspondence to: Terri Mannarini, Department of History, Society and Human Studies, University of Salento, via Stampacchia 45, 73100 Lecce, Italy. E-mail: terri.mannarini@unisalento.it JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 42, No. 6, 673–688 (2014) Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jcop).  C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. DOI: 10.1002/jcop.21645 674 r Journal of Community Psychology, August 2014 are met by each other in the community; and third, the desire to invest and contribute to both the conservation and the innovation of such a collectivity. Research in PSOC has made progress in three directions: the development of evidence-based models and reliable measures, the testing of models and measures across different domains/targets, and the identification of associated outcomes. In terms of theory, the one that has withstood the test of time is the four-component model proposed by McMillan and Chavis (1986), which remains the reference model in the field almost 30 years after its formulation. According to the four-component model, PSOC reflects the concurrent presence of membership (i.e., a sense of belonging that marks the boundary between those who are part of a community and those who are not), mutual influence (i.e., a sense of bearing upon the community and the awareness of being influenced by the community itself), integration and need fulfillment (i.e., expectations about the possibility of having one’s needs met by a community), and shared emotional connection (i.e., the feeling of being deeply involved in collective experiences). With few exceptions (Mankowski & Rappaport, 1995; Rapley & Pretty, 1999; Brodsky 1996, 2009; Brodsky & Marx, 2001; Mannarini & Fedi, 2009), researchers of PSOC have preferred a quantitative approach, developing measures that provide empirical support for the McMillan and Chavis (1986) model or adapting the model to a variety of contexts. The most widely used measure of PSOC is the Sense of Community Index (SCI), which has been applied to a variety of settings and populations (for psychometric properties and brief versions, see Long & Perkins, 2003; Peterson, Speer, & Hughey, 2006; Peterson, Speer, & McMillan, 2008). Although PSOC has been most frequently studied in geographically delimited communities, the construct has been applied to a variety of domains, including territorial areas (see, among others, Prezza, Pacilli, Barbaranelli, & Zampatti, 2009), work organizations (Peterson, Speer, Hughey, et al, 2008), schools (Admiraal & Lockhorst, 2012; Vieno, Perkins, Smith, & Santinello, 2005), and virtual environments (Blanchard, 2007, 2008; Obst, Zinkiewicz, & Smith, 2002). In terms of population, designated PSOC measures have been created for adolescents (Chiessi, Cicognani, & Sonn, 2010), lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons (Lin & Israel, 2012), and disabled people (Townley & Kloos, 2009). Overall, PSOC has been associated with positive outcomes at both the individual and the collective levels, especially regarding community engagement (Brodsky, O’Campo, & Aronson, 1999; Chavis & Wandersman, 1990; Florin & Wandersman, 1984; Wandersman & Giamartino, 1980), political participation (Davidson & Cotter, 1989; Xu, Perkins, & Chow, 2010), well-being and life satisfaction (Davidson & Cotter, 1991; Evans, 2007; Farrell, Aubry, & Coulombe, 2004; Prezza, Amici, Roberti, & Tedeschi, 2001; Prezza & Costantini, 1998), and urban safety (Perkins & Taylor, 1996). NEGATIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL SENSE OF COMMUNITY The extensive evidence attesting to the benefits of PSOC to individuals and their communities implies that the opposite should also be true. In other words, people who feel that they are not part of the community and that their needs cannot be fulfilled through their membership should experience lower levels of psychological and social well-being, be less satisfied with the quality of their lives, be less engaged in community activities, and feel more insecure in the urban context in which they live. Nevertheless, this is not always the case. As shown by Brodsky’s (1996) study on a group of resilient women living in an underprivileged neighborhood in Washington DC, when the surrounding environment Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop Negative Sense of Psychology r 675 is perceived as being dangerous, unhealthy, and unfit, the active distancing from such an environment can help people to cope with adversity and unfavorable life conditions. According to the author, such an attitude reflects more than a sheer lack of sense of community. Specifically, this attitude is the reverse of having a sense of community. Brodsky conceptualized this reverse attitude as a negative psychological sense of community (NPSOC). The results of this study, whose theoretical implications were further discussed a few years later (Brodsky, Loomis, & Marx, 2002), highlighted two major issues. The first issue relates to the consequences of a sense of community. A positive sense of community cannot be linearly associated with positive outcomes, nor can a negative sense of community be linearly associated with negative outcomes. On the contrary, having negative feelings towards the community can, at times, be beneficial for the individuals. Mannarini and Fedi (2009) also reached similar conclusions, as they argued that a weak sense of belonging to the community does not necessarily result in apathy and lack of concern. Instead, a weak sense of belonging can result from an acute perception of problems, discontent, and injustice, which can serve as motivation to undertake social action. The second issue raised by Brodsky (1996), which is also the core theme of the current paper, relates to the conceptualization of PSOC as a bipolar construct. Astonishingly, research has not yet addressed this point. Hence, this work is an attempt to take one step forward in both the conceptualization of NPSOC and its measurement. According to Brodsky’s (1996) definition that stresses the active relationship linking the individuals to the community, PSOC was conceptualized as a centripetal force that attracts individuals towards the community and symbolically keeps them within its boundaries, with NPSOC being a centrifugal force that symbolically drives individuals away from it. To some extent, defining NPSOC as a driving force that has a strong likelihood of expelling people from the social consortium may be reminiscent of the construct of anomie, which refers to a generalized sense of self-to-others distance and self-to-others alienation as opposed to a diffused sense of self-to-others belongingness (Srole, 1956). Nevertheless, whereas anomie is a psychosocial condition to which individuals are passively subjected, i.e., a condition experienced as a consequence of social and moral decay, the concept of NPSOC requires that individuals assume an active though negative position towards the social environment in which they are embedded, regardless of whether the environment is unhealthy or healthy. Regarding the scope of this study, the components of NPSOC were defined to emphasize the forces that modulate the individual–community dynamic system. The inverse of membership and a sense of belonging was defined as the need to distinguish oneself from the other members of the community, the awareness of being different from (and implicitly superior to) everyone else in the community, and even the refusal of being associated with anyone in the community. This component was labeled distinctiveness. The inverse of mutual influence was defined as a passive and uncaring attitude concerning the community life and events and a tendency to refrain from any type of action in the social domain. The label chosen for this dimension of NPSOC was abstention. The inverse of needs fulfillment was defined as the feeling that the community and its members are sources of frustration. The individual perceives that the community is unfit to meet his or her own needs, expectations, and desires and that the community is an obstacle for his or her achievement and self-actualization. Hence, the label chosen for this third dimension of NPSOC was frustration. Finally, the inverse of emotional connection was defined as the feeling of being extraneous, unfamiliar, and unrelated to the community, its members, and any longestablished habits or traditions. This final dimension was labeled alienage to describe Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop 676 r Journal of Community Psychology, August 2014 the feeling of alienation in one’s own community. In our view, this conceptualization of NPSOC should directly capture the “active lack of feelings of membership, influence, mutual influence, integration and fulfillment of needs, and shared emotional connections with a given community” (Brodsky, Loomis, & Marx, 2002, p. 322). This active lack of feelings is qualitatively different from a passive lack of feelings, which should more appropriately be referred to as a neutral PSOC. STUDY GOAL Based on the conceptualization of NPSOC detailed above, the goal of this study was to develop a new measure of NPSOC and to assess its psychometric properties. The second-order factor structure of the NPSOC scale was evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis. Then the construct validity of the NPSOC scale was examined by investigating its relationship with a set of theoretically relevant variables, including social/political participation, urban insecurity, well-being, and life satisfaction. Based on previous results and in accordance with the conceptual definition of NPSOC, the NPSOC was expected to correlate negatively with all the variables explored in this study and the PSOC was expected to correlate positively with all of these variables and correlate negatively with NPSOC (conceptualized as the reverse of PSOC). METHOD Participants and Procedures The participants comprised 612 individuals (54.4% female) aged between 17 and 86 years (mean = 38.04, standard deviation [SD] = 14.65) that resided in a designated geographical region in Southern Italy. The majority of the participants were high school graduates (55.9%). In terms of occupation, the most frequently represented categories were students (19.4%), clerical workers (16.5%), and workmen (13.7%). Table 1 provides a complete description of the demographic features of the sample. Participants were selected based on quota sampling by gender and age and recruited using a snowball design. The participants were invited to complete a questionnaire, with anonymity assured, about their local community via answering a set of questions regarding relevant social issues. Completing the questionnaire took approximately 15 minutes, and no incentives were given for completing the task. Measures Data were collected using a self-report questionnaire that included the following measures. Well-being. To measure well-being, the Flourishing Scale by Diener et al. (2010) was used. The eight items on the scale deal with satisfactory social relationships, meaningful and purposive life, and feelings of self-competence. Each item is phrased positively and rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Sample items include “My social relationships are supportive and rewarding” and “I am competent and capable in the activities that are important to me.” Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop Negative Sense of Psychology r 677 Table 1. Sociodemographic Characteristics of Participants Gender Women Men Total Education 12th grade or less High school graduate College graduate Graduate school degree: master’s or doctorate degree Other Total Job Self-employed Professionals School teachers Clerical workers Workmen Retired Unemployed Housewives Currently in school or college Other Total Age (min 17, max 86) N % 333 279 612 54.4 45.6 100.0 133 342 115 17 5 612 21.7 55.9 18.8 2.8 .8 100.0 55 45 38 101 84 34 50 55 119 31 612 Mean 38.04 8.9 7.3 6.2 16.5 13.7 5.5 8.1 8.9 19.4 5.1 100.00 SD 14.6 Note. SD = standard deviation. Life satisfaction. The five-item Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) by Diener, Emmons, Larsen, and Griffin (1985) was used to measure the overall asset of one’s life, with life satisfaction perceived as cognitive process. All of the items refer to life as a whole (e.g., “In most ways, my life is close to my ideal” and “I am satisfied with my life”), and respondents were asked to rate their level of agreement on a 5-point scale ranging from 1(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Urban insecurity. To measure the perceived degree of insecurity in the urban environment, the Urban Insecurity Scale (Gattino & Roccato, 2002) was used. The scale lists nine sources of insecurity—physical (such as lack of green areas and pollution), social (such as microdelinquency and incivilities), or relational (such as weak neighboring)— that respondents rated on a 3-point scale (3 = It makes me feel very insecure; 2 = It makes me feel fairly insecure; and 1 = It doesn’t make me feel insecure at all). Social and political participation. To measure the extent of social and political participation, the Participatory Behaviours Scale (Mannarini & Talò, submitted for publication) was used. This 21-item scale addresses three types of participation, including civil participation, formal political participation, and political activism in nonconventional forms. The scale also includes a set of items that assess nonparticipation or disengagement. Respondents were requested to rate a list of specific behaviors, such as “not voting,” “signing a petition,” “working for charity,” and “being a member of a political party,” on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (very unlikely) to 5 (very likely). Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop 678 r Journal of Community Psychology, August 2014 Psychological sense of community. Two measures of PSOC were used, namely, the short version of the Sense of Community Index (SCI-12) developed by Long and Perkins (2003) and the Brief Sense of Community Scale (BSCS-8) developed by Peterson, Speer, and McMillan (2008). Both scales measure the four dimensions posited by McMillan and Chavis (1986), including need fulfillment, membership, mutual influence, and emotional connection. The items were rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). All items were phrased so that the referent community was the city/town in which the respondents lived. Negative psychological sense of community. A new scale was developed based on the conceptualization of NPSOC presented in this article. The scale comprised 32 items, rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), with eight items for each of the four theoretically defined components, including distinctiveness, abstention, frustration of needs, and alienage (see the Appendix section). As for the PSOC scales, all items were phrased so that the referent community was the city or town in which the respondents lived. Background information. Participants were asked to provide information on their age, gender, level of education, profession, place of residence and political orientation. Analyses The following three sets of analyses were performed: exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and bivariate correlation analysis. First, an exploratory factor analysis (maximum likelihood method with Varimax rotation) was conducted on the 32 items of the scale, yielding four factors. Second, a series of CFAs were conducted using Mplus (Muthen & Muthen, 1998), and the hypothesized second-order structure of NPSOC was tested, in which the four dimensions (i.e., distinctiveness, abstention, frustration of needs, and alienage) were hypothesized to be part of one underlying NPSOC construct. The one-factor NPSOC model and four-factor NPSOC model were also tested as alternative accounts. Two CFAs were further conducted to confirm the four-factor structure of the two PSOC measures. The following fit indices were used: (a) chi-square test of model fit that measures the difference between the covariance matrix for the observed data and the covariance matrix from a theoretically specified structure or model. Nonsignificant chi-square values suggest a good fit of the model. However, as the chi-square index is affected by the size of the correlations in the model (i.e., the more the correlations, the poorer the fit), alternative and additive measures of fit have been developed, which we also used. (b) Comparative fit index (CFI; Bentler, 1990) is based on the comparison of χ2 for the implied matrix with χ2 for the matrix of a null-model (all variables are uncorrelated). (c) Tucker-Lewis index (TLI), also known as NNFI (non-normed fit index), is based on the comparison of chi-square for the implied matrix and the chi-square for the matrix of a null-model. Values higher than .90 indicate an acceptable fit, higher than .95 an excellent fit (Marsh, Hau, & Wen, 2004). The most important index after chi-square is the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), which stands for the average of the residual correlation. MacCallum, Browne, and Sugawara (1996) have used .01, .05, and .08 threshold to respectively indicate excellent, good, and mediocre fit. In addition, RMSEA can be evaluated in terms of probability (test of close fit), as it is accompanied by limits on the confidence interval Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop Negative Sense of Psychology r 679 for p = .10 (Hu & Bentler, 1999). Finally, the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR, Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1988) is an absolute measure of fit, which is defined as the standardized difference between the observed correlation and the predicted correlation. A zero value indicates perfect fit. Hu and Bentler (1999) indicate a cutoff value of ≤.08 for good fit. Finally, we computed partial correlations (with demographic variables entered as covariates) between the NPSOC subscales and a set of theoretically relevant variables, i.e., PSOC, social and political participation, urban unsafety, well-being, and life satisfaction. RESULTS Table 2 presents the outcomes of the exploratory factor analysis. Four factors with eigenvalues >1 were extracted, globally explaining 52.36% of the variance. The factor loadings matched the expected distribution of the 32 items on the four hypothesized dimensions. The only exception was item 25 (“Engaging in efforts to change this community is a waste of time”), which was originally included in the abstention dimension but showed a higher loading on the frustration dimension. Cronbach’s alpha values confirmed the good reliability of both the subscales (distinctiveness [DIST] = .84; alienage [ALIE] = .87; abstention [ABST] = .85; frustration of needs [FRUS] = .91) and the overall measure (NPSOC-32 = .95). We then tested a series of CFA models to develop a measure of NPSOC (Table 3 and 4). First, we tested a model in which four first-order latent factors (distinctiveness, abstention, frustration of needs, and alienage) were hypothesized to represent a single second-order latent factor (NPSOC). Because the fit indices were not satisfactory, we tested a second model, excluding the items that showed high loadings on the other latent factors (items 1, 13 [DIST]; 6, 18 [ALIE]; 3, 19 [ABST]; 25, 32 [FRUS]) or presented high residual correlations with other items (items 26, 29 [DIST]; 2, 30 [ALIE]; 31 [ABST]; 20, 24, 28 [FRUS]). This second model, which included four items for each first-order latent factor, yielded adequate fit indices (Figure 1). Indeed, most of the literature on factor analysis recommends maintaining a 4:1 ratio between the observed and latent variables (Conway & Huffcutt, 2003; Fabrigar, Wegener, MacCallum, & Strahan, 1999; Lee & Comrey, 1979). Finally, a third model was tested to validate a brief version of the NPSOC scale. Four other items were excluded (one for each first-order latent factor) because they showed a moderate residual correlation (items 3, 15, 18, and 27). The third model obtained adequate and even more robust fit indices than those obtained using the second model. Alternatively, we tested the one first-order factor NPSOC for the 32-item version and the 12-item version. None of these models yielded satisfactory fit indices. We also tested a four first-order factor NPSOC (distinctiveness, abstention, frustration of needs, and alienage) for the 32-item version, the 16-item version, and the 12-item version. Only the last model yielded satisfactory fit indices, whereas the test of close fit was not significant. The analyses showed that the second-order structure of NPSOC was preferable to the alternative models. Additionally, the CFAs on the two PSOC measures (i.e., SCI and BSCS; see Table 4) corroborated the finding of PSOC as being one second-order factor into which four first-order factors flow. Correlational analyses were then performed to examine the construct validity of the NPSOC. Table 5 presents the bivariate correlations between the demographic variables and the NPSOC. Age was negatively correlated with the general NPSOC (r = −.08), Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop 680 r Journal of Community Psychology, August 2014 Table 2. Rotated Factor Loading Matrix (VARIMAX) and Total Variance Explained Factor Item NPSOC 1 NPSOC 5 NPSOC 9 NPSOC 13 NPSOC 17 NPSOC 21 NPSOC 26 NPSOC 29 NPSOC 2 NPSOC 6 NPSOC 10 NPSOC 14 NPSOC 18 NPSOC 22 NPSOC 27 NPSOC 30 NPSOC 3 NPSOC 7 NPSOC 11 NPSOC 15 NPSOC 19 NPSOC 23 NPSOC 31 NPSOC 25 NPSOC 4 NPSOC 8 NPSOC 12 NPSOC 16 NPSOC 20 NPSOC 23 NPSOC 28 NPSOC 32 Eigenvalues % of variance 1 2 3 4 .62 .66 .62 .38 .46 .71 .64 .52 .37 .44 .55 .43 .61 .55 .44 .50 .37 .44 .55 .78 .78 .66 .47 .39 .68 .64 .72 .59 .70 .72 .67 .70 .60 12.44 17.22 2.49 12.52 2.08 11.64 1.57 11.00 Commonalities .39 .47 .46 .33 .35 .57 .45 .44 .51 .40 .55 .35 .56 .55 .48 .53 .49 .31 .43 .72 .71 .56 .58 .67 .65 .64 .45 .66 .71 .64 .65 .51 Total 18.58 52.36 Note. NPSOC = negative psychological sense of community. whereas education was negatively correlated with the frustration subscale (r = −.10). Partial correlations between NPSOC and the set of theoretically relevant variables (life satisfaction α .83; well-being α .82; urban insecurity α .74; participation α .73) and between the NPSOC (16-item version) and PSOC (measured by the BSCS-8 [α .79] and the SCI-12 [α .76]) were also performed. Age, gender, and education were entered as covariates. Overall, the NPSOC exhibited important negative correlations with the overall PSOC measures (BSCS r = −.58; SCI r = −.57). The pattern of relationships linking the NPSOC to the other variables was almost specular to the pattern shown by PSOC. Compared with the relationship between PSOC and the same set of variables, the correlation between NPSOC and well-being (NPSOC = −.27; BSCS = .39; SCI = .35), life satisfaction (NPSOC r −.29; BSCS r = .47; SCI r = .35), and participation (NPSOC r = −.14; BSCS r = .12; SCI r = .12) were opposite in valence, and the strength of the association fluctuated Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop Negative Sense of Psychology r 681 Table 3. Second-Order Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the NPSOC Scale Item 1 5 9 13 17 21 26 29 2 6 10 14 18 22 27 30 3 7 11 15 19 23 31 4 25 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 Distinctiveness Alienage Abstention Frustration Latent factor NPSOC 32 DIST DIST DIST DIST DIST DIST DIST DIST ALIE ALIE ALIE ALIE ALIE ALIE ALIE ALIE ABST ABST ABST ABST ABST ABST ABST FRUS FRUS FRUS FRUS FRUS FRUS FRUS FRUS FRUS NPSOC NPSOC NPSOC NPSOC .59 .66 .68 .55 .59 .75 .62 .64 .68 .59 .75 .58 .69 .73 .71 .73 .63 .52 .66 .82 .80 .74 .64 .69 .62 .73 .63 .81 .84 .79 .80 .72 .73 .97 .79 .78 NPSOC 16 NPSOC 12 .66 .70 .62 .61 .72 .63 .73 .72 .57 .73 .60 .72 .70 .72 .53 .68 .82 .68 .83 .73 .73 .81 .83 .78 .69 .71 .78 .67 .71 .93 .80 .80 .73 .87 .80 .80 Note. ALIE = alienage; DIST = distinctiveness; ABST = abstention; FRUS = frustration of needs; NPSOC = negative psychological sense of community. between a restricted range of values. No significant correlations were found between urban insecurity and the PSOC or NPSOC. As for the correlations between the PSOC and NPSOC dimensions, the associations between the matched dimensions (membership-distinctiveness; mutual influence-abstention; need fulfillment-need frustration; emotional connection-alienage) were all negative, ranging from r = −.38 to r = −.48. DISCUSSION In this study, we developed a measure for the NPSOC and tested its validity. The measure was based on the conceptualization of NPSOC that, on the one hand, reverses the Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop 682 r Journal of Community Psychology, August 2014 Table 4. CFA Fit Indexes for NPSOC, SCI, and BSCS Model [n item] χ2 [N, df] sig. CFI TLI RMSEA [CI] sig. SRMR Four first-order latent factors and a single second-order latent factor NPSOC 1 [32] 2754.25 [612, 460] .00 .80 .78 NPSOC 2 [16] 311.23 [612, 100] .00 .95 .94 NPSOC 3 [12] 160.22 [612, 50] .00 .96 .95 .09 [.08; .09] .00 .06 [.05; .07].03 .06 [.05; .07] .06 .08 .04 .04 One first-order factor NPSOC 4 [32] NPSOC 5 [16] NPSOC 6 [12] 4367.52 [612, 464] .00 943.77 [612, 104] .00 574.67 [612, 54] .00 .65 .78 .80 .63 .75 .76 .12 [.11; .12].00 .12 [.11; .12] .00 13 [.13; .14] .00 .09 .07 .07 Four first-order correlated factors NPSOC 4 [32] 2747.67 [612, 458] .00 NPSOC 5 [16] 306.54 [612, 98] .00 NPSOC 6 [12] 154.88 [612, 48] .00 .80 .84 .96 .78 .83 .94 .09 [.08; .09] .00 .08 [.06; .09] .00 .06 [.05; .07] .06 .08 .06 .04 Four first-order latent factors and a single second-order latent factor SCI [12] 3094.21 [612, 50] .00 .91 .90 BSCS [8] 90.54 [612, 13] .00 .96 .91 .08 [.07; .13] .06 .08 [.06; .11] .00 .06 .04 Note. CFA = confirmatory factor analysis; NPSOC = negative psychological sense of community; SCI = sense of community index; BSCS = brief sense of community scale; df = degree of freedom ; CFI = comparative fit index; TLI = Tucker-Lewis index; RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation; SRMR = standardized root mean square residual. Table 5. Correlations Between Demographics and Negative Psychological Sense of Community (NPSOC-16 Overall Measure and Subscales) Variables NPSOC-16 Frustration Alienage Abstention Distinctiveness Gender Age Education .04 .02 .04 .05 .05 −.08* −.06 −.09 .00 −.12 −.05 −.10* −.02 −.06 .02 Note. NPSOC = negative psychological sense of community. Gender: 0 = female; 1 = male. *p < .05. definition of PSOC and, on the other hand, emphasizes the active position assumed by individuals in their relationship to the community. The NPSOC components (i.e., distinctiveness, alienage, abstention, and frustration of needs) were conceptualized, respectively, as the reverse of the PSOC-relevant components, which included membership, emotional connection, mutual influence, and needs fulfillment. Our results suggest that the secondorder factor model best characterizes the NPSOC, which obtained more satisfactory fit indices than the one-factor and four-factor models. Moreover, analyses of the hypothesized second-order structure indicated that the four components of the NPSOC should be considered as representing one underlying NPSOC construct. Evidence of the construct validity of NPSOC was provided by correlational analyses. As expected, NPSOC and its subscales were negatively associated with PSOC, its subscales, well-being, life satisfaction, and participation. In contrast, the perception of an unsafe urban environment was found to be unrelated to both NPSOC and PSOC. Our findings have implications at the theoretical level. First, the empirical support for the conceptualization of NPSOC indirectly strengthens the validity of McMillan and Chavis’ (1986) PSOC theory. As discussed earlier, NPSOC was defined as a force that Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop Negative Sense of Psychology Figure 1. r 683 NPSOC-16 Structural Equation Model. drives individuals away from the community and results in feelings of distinctiveness, alienage, and frustration and the tendency to refrain from actions that have an impact on the community. These feelings and tendencies represent the subcomponents of NPSOC, whereas membership, emotional connection, mutual influence, and needs fulfillment represent the subdimensions of PSOC. Hence, our findings both confirm the multidimensional nature of NPSOC and also corroborate the multidimensionality of PSOC as posited by McMillan and Chavis’ (1986) model. Above all, this study provided both a theoretical definition and an operational definition for the NPSOC. Research on PSOC has not clarified or assessed the specificity of the NPSOC construct. Although Brodsky (1996), who first proposed the construct, formulated a general definition and suggested that NPSOC was different from low or neutral PSOC, she did not address the nature of its multidimensionality and ways to capture it at the empirical level. Our study is a first attempt towards this goal. Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop 684 r Journal of Community Psychology, August 2014 Nevertheless, in our view, there are three issues that deserve special attention and need to be carefully considered for future investigations and theoretical advancement. The first concerns the relationship between NPSOC and anomie, which, to some extent, inspired the definition of NPSOC used in this study. Anomie has been a well-established concept ever since its introduction by Durkheim (1951). This widely used concept comprises a multidimensional set of attitudes and feelings resulting from the experience of living in a society without solid moral values and is characterized by weak social ties and unworthy institutions (Heydari, Davoudi, & Teymoori, 2011). Because of the multidimensional nature of anomie, researchers have, in turn, emphasized different dimensions, such as the feeling of meaninglessness and loss of interest in achieving long-term goals (Teevan, 1975), the disregard with social norms and moral disarray (Kapsis, 1978), social isolation (Fischer, 1973), alienation (Toch, 1979), disaffection towards groups (Dean, 1961; Fisher, 1973), distrust in formal authority and apparatus (Kapsis, 1978), and the tendency to engage in illegal behavior (Cao 2004, 2007). Though some of these dimensions (e.g., disaffection towards groups and social isolation) were implicitly or explicitly included in our model (specifically in the alienage component), the substantial difference between anomie and NPSOC lies in the fact that subjective anomie is the result of living in a decayed social and moral context and cannot occur in the absence of these conditions, whereas an NPSOC does not necessarily have to develop in deteriorated environments. Individuals may also develop an NPSOC when they are confronted with “normal” social environments and even “healthy” communities. Moreover, while anomie and its various dimensions are associated with subjective disorientation and anxiety, and even to powerlessness and meaningless, we contend that NPSOC does not necessarily entails such cognitive and emotional states. The second issue concerns the relationship between PSOC and NPSOC. In our data, though the NPSOC was symmetrically correlated with PSOC, NPSOC, and PSOC were separate constructs. Whereas NPSOC was conceptualized as the reverse of PSOC for the development of the scale, we suggest that this reversion be considered not as a quantitative difference but as a qualitative difference. In other words, NPSOC is the reverse of PSOC to the extent that black is the reverse of white. Of these two colors, one cannot say that they are the same or that they are comparable. Yet everyone agrees that one is the reverse of the other. By analogy, one could consider the common sense opposition between love and hate, or the interpersonal conflicting attitudes of collaboration and hostility. A zero degree or a negative degree of love is not sufficient to create hate, as being unwilling to collaborate with someone does not entail being hostile. This observation leads to the third issue under consideration. To better define the relationship between PSOC and NPSOC, we need to consider, at the empirical level, the way in which these two variables interact with other variables. We predict that the more evidence for a reversed pattern of relationship, the more the two constructs are qualitatively similar. The more variations there are, the more the two constructs are qualitatively distinct. While the current analysis showed a symmetrical pattern, this single set of results is not sufficient for drawing any conclusions. It is necessary to conduct further comparative investigations on the antecedents and the outcomes of NPSOC to clarify whether NPSOC is the reverse of PSOC or a separate construct. Moreover, future studies looking at the outcomes of NPSOC should take a comparative perspective and examine the role of mediating variables, both individual and social. 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Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop 688 r Journal of Community Psychology, August 2014 APPENDIX NPSOC Items Factor Item Item wording Distinctiveness 1 5 I feel I’m different from the members of this community I don’t like to get confused with other community members just because we are both part of it I have nothing in common with other members of this community The traditions of this community do not represent me Being part of this community doesn’t say anything about who I am I am delighted when people tell me that I’m different from other members of this community I would really like to emphasize the differences between myself and other community members I have few cultural affinities with the people of this community I am not in tune with the lifestyle of this community I don’t share with the members of this community their passion for local traditions In this community, I feel like a fish out of water Despite my efforts, it is really hard for me to understand the customs of this community The members of this community are like strangers to me I don’t like spending my time with other members of this community I want to get away from this community This community is like a prison to me I don’t care about what happens in this community I rarely rush to assist my fellow community members I prefer to be a bystander rather than an active participant of local life I refuse to actively participate in the public life of this community I don’t take part in community life Every time when there are public events that affect this community, I prefer to stay at home Even if I could do something to improve this community, I feel that it’s not worth trying Engaging in efforts to change this community is a waste of time This community tends to disappoint and fall short of my expectations. There’s no way to meet my needs in this community There’s nothing that can be done in this community to improve my situation To me, this community creates more problems than it solves This community is an obstacle to my personal growth My personal ambitions are often frustrated by this community Living in this community is daunting When I have problems, the members of this community make things worse 9 13 17 21 26 Alienage 29 2 6 10 14 Abstention 18 22 27 30 3 7 11 15 19 23 31 Frustration 25 4 8 12 16 20 23 28 32 Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop