Hubbry Logo
CommunityCommunityMain
Open search
Community
Community hub
Community
logo
8 pages, 0 posts
0 subscribers
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Contribute something
Community
Community
Community
View on Wikipedia
from Wikipedia
Community townhall
Part of a series on
Community
Academic studies
Key concepts
Community development
See also

A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic(s), being place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, town, or neighborhood) or in virtual space through communication platforms. Durable good relations that extend beyond immediate genealogical ties also define a sense of community, important to people's identity, practice, and roles in social institutions such as family, home, work, government, society, or humanity at large.[1] Although communities are usually small relative to personal social ties, "community" may also refer to large-group affiliations such as national communities, international communities, and virtual communities.[2]

In terms of sociological categories, a community can seem like a sub-set of a social collectivity.[3] In developmental views, a community can emerge out of a collectivity.[4]

The English-language word "community" derives from the Old French comuneté (Modern French: communauté), which comes from the Latin communitas "community", "public spirit" (from Latin communis, "common").[5]

Human communities may have intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, and risks in common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness.[6]

Perspectives of various disciplines

[edit]

Archaeology

[edit]

Archaeological studies of social communities use the term "community" in two ways, mirroring usage in other areas. The first meaning is an informal definition of community as a place where people used to live. In this literal sense it is synonymous with the concept of an ancient settlement—whether a hamlet, village, town, or city. The second meaning resembles the usage of the term in other social sciences: a community is a group of people living near one another who interact socially. Social interaction on a small scale can be difficult to identify with archaeological data. Most reconstructions of social communities by archaeologists rely on the principle that social interaction in the past was conditioned by physical distance. Therefore, a small village settlement likely constituted a social community and spatial subdivisions of cities and other large settlements may have formed communities. Archaeologists typically use similarities in material culture—from house types to styles of pottery—to reconstruct communities in the past. This classification method relies on the assumption that people or households will share more similarities in the types and styles of their material goods with other members of a social community than they will with outsiders.[7]

Sociology

[edit]

Early sociological studies identified communities as fringe groups at the behest of local power elites. Such early academic studies include Who Governs? by Robert Dahl as well as the papers by Floyd Hunter on Atlanta. At the turn of the 21st century the concept of community was rediscovered by academics, politicians, and activists. Politicians hoping for a democratic election started to realign with community interests.[8]

Ecology

[edit]
Main article: Community (ecology)

In ecology, a community is an assemblage of populations—potentially of different species—interacting with one another. Community ecology is the branch of ecology that studies interactions between and among species. It considers how such interactions, along with interactions between species and the abiotic environment, affect social structure and species richness, diversity and patterns of abundance.[9] Species interact in three ways: competition, predation and mutualism:

  • Competition typically results in a double negative—that is both species lose in the interaction.
  • Predation involves a win/lose situation, with one species winning.
  • Mutualism sees both species co-operating in some way, with both winning.

The two main types of ecological communities are major communities, which are self-sustaining and self-regulating (such as a forest or a lake), and minor communities, which rely on other communities (like fungi decomposing a log) and are the building blocks of major communities. Moreover, we can establish other non-taxonomic subdivisions of biocenosis, such as guilds.

A simplified example of a community. A community includes many populations and how they interact with each other. This example shows interaction between the zebra and the bush, and between the lion and the zebra, as well as between the bird and the organisms by the water, like the worms.

Semantics

[edit]

The concept of "community" often has a positive semantic connotation, exploited rhetorically by populist politicians and by advertisers[10] to promote feelings and associations of mutual well-being, happiness and togetherness[11]—veering towards an almost-achievable utopian community.

In contrast, the epidemiological term "community transmission" can have negative implications,[12] and instead of a "criminal community"[13] one often speaks of a "criminal underworld" or of the "criminal fraternity".

Key concepts

[edit]

Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft

[edit]
Main article: Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft

In Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887), German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies described two types of human association: Gemeinschaft (usually translated as "community") and Gesellschaft ("society" or "association"). Tönnies proposed the Gemeinschaft–Gesellschaft dichotomy as a way to think about social ties. No group is exclusively one or the other. Gemeinschaft stress personal social interactions, and the roles, values, and beliefs based on such interactions. Gesellschaft stress indirect interactions, impersonal roles, formal values, and beliefs based on such interactions.[14]

Sense of community

[edit]
Main article: Sense of community

In a seminal 1986 study, McMillan and Chavis[15] identify four elements of "sense of community":

  1. membership: feeling of belonging or of sharing a sense of personal relatedness,
  2. influence: mattering, making a difference to a group and of the group mattering to its members
  3. reinforcement: integration and fulfillment of needs,
  4. shared emotional connection.
To what extent do participants in joint activities experience a sense of community?

A "sense of community index" (SCI) was developed by Chavis and colleagues, and revised and adapted by others. Although originally designed to assess sense of community in neighborhoods, the index has been adapted for use in schools, the workplace, and a variety of types of communities.[16]

Studies conducted by the American Psychological Association indicate that young adults who feel a sense of belonging in a community, particularly small communities, develop fewer psychiatric and depressive disorders than those who do not have the feeling of love and belonging.[17]

Socialization

[edit]
Main article: Socialization
Lewes Bonfire Night procession commemorating 17 Protestant martyrs burnt at the stake from 1555 to 1557

The process of learning to adopt the behavior patterns of the community is called socialization. The most fertile time of socialization is usually the early stages of life, during which individuals develop the skills and knowledge and learn the roles necessary to function within their culture and social environment.[18] For some psychologists, especially those in the psychodynamic tradition, the most important period of socialization is between the ages of one and ten. But socialization also includes adults moving into a significantly different environment where they must learn a new set of behaviors.[19]

Socialization is influenced primarily by the family, through which children first learn community norms. Other important influences include schools, peer groups, people, mass media, the workplace, and government. The degree to which the norms of a particular society or community are adopted determines one's willingness to engage with others. The norms of tolerance, reciprocity, and trust are important "habits of the heart", as de Tocqueville put it, in an individual's involvement in community.[20]

Development

[edit]
Main article: Community development

Community development is often linked with community work or community planning, and may involve stakeholders, foundations, governments, or contracted entities including non-government organisations (NGOs), universities or government agencies to progress the social well-being of local, regional and, sometimes, national communities. More grassroots efforts, called community building or community organizing, seek to empower individuals and groups of people by providing them with the skills they need to effect change in their own communities.[21] These skills often assist in building political power through the formation of large social groups working for a common agenda. Community development practitioners understand how to work with individuals and affect communities' positions within the context of larger social institutions. Public administrators, in contrast, understand community development in the context of rural and urban development, housing and economic development, and community, organizational and business development.

Formal accredited programs conducted by universities, as part of degree granting institutions, are often used to build a knowledge base to drive curricula in public administration, sociology and community studies. The General Social Survey from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago and the Saguaro Seminar at the Harvard Kennedy School are examples of national community development in the United States. The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in New York State offers core courses in community and economic development, and in areas ranging from non-profit development to US budgeting (federal to local, community funds). In the United Kingdom, the University of Oxford has led in providing extensive research in the field through its Community Development Journal,[22] used worldwide by sociologists and community development practitioners.

At the intersection between community development and community building are a number of programs and organizations with community development tools. One example of this is the program of the Asset Based Community Development Institute of Northwestern University. The institute makes available downloadable tools[23] to assess community assets and make connections between non-profit groups and other organizations that can help in community building. The Institute focuses on helping communities develop by "mobilizing neighborhood assets" – building from the inside out rather than the outside in.[24] In the disability field, community building was prevalent in the 1980s and 1990s with roots in John McKnight's approaches.[25][26]

Building and organizing

[edit]
The anti-war affinity group "Collateral Damage" protesting the Iraq War

In The Different Drum: Community-Making and Peace (1987) Scott Peck argues that the almost accidental sense of community that exists at times of crisis can be consciously built. Peck believes that conscious community building is a process of deliberate design based on the knowledge and application of certain rules.[27] He states that this process goes through four stages:[28]

  1. Pseudocommunity: When people first come together, they try to be "nice" and present what they feel are their most personable and friendly characteristics.
  2. Chaos: People move beyond the inauthenticity of pseudo-community and feel safe enough to present their "shadow" selves.
  3. Emptiness: Moves beyond the attempts to fix, heal and convert of the chaos stage, when all people become capable of acknowledging their own woundedness and brokenness, common to human beings.
  4. True community: Deep respect and true listening for the needs of the other people in this community.

In 1991, Peck remarked that building a sense of community is easy but maintaining this sense of community is difficult in the modern world.[29] An interview with M. Scott Peck by Alan Atkisson. In Context #29, p. 26. The three basic types of community organizing are grassroots organizing, coalition building, and "institution-based community organizing", (also called "broad-based community organizing", an example of which is faith-based community organizing, or Congregation-based Community Organizing).[30]

Community building can use a wide variety of practices, ranging from simple events (e.g., potlucks, small book clubs) to larger-scale efforts (e.g., mass festivals, construction projects that involve local participants rather than outside contractors).

Community building that is geared toward citizen action is usually termed "community organizing".[31] In these cases, organized community groups seek accountability from elected officials and increased direct representation within decision-making bodies. Where good-faith negotiations fail, these constituency-led organizations seek to pressure the decision-makers through a variety of means, including picketing, boycotting, sit-ins, petitioning, and electoral politics.

Community organizing can focus on more than just resolving specific issues. Organizing often means building a widely accessible power structure, often with the end goal of distributing power equally throughout the community. Community organizers generally seek to build groups that are open and democratic in governance. Such groups facilitate and encourage consensus decision-making with a focus on the general health of the community rather than a specific interest group.[32]

If communities are developed based on something they share in common, whether location or values, then one challenge for developing communities is how to incorporate individuality and differences. Rebekah Nathan suggests in her book, My Freshman Year, we are drawn to developing communities totally based on sameness, despite stated commitments to diversity, such as those found on university websites.

Types

[edit]
A community of interest gathers at Stonehenge, England, for the summer solstice.

A number of ways to categorize types of community have been proposed. One such breakdown is as follows:

  1. Location-based: range from the local neighbourhood, suburb, village, town or city, region, nation or even the planet as a whole. These are also called communities of place.
  2. Identity-based: range from the local clique, sub-culture, ethnic group, religious, multicultural or pluralistic civilisation, or the global community cultures of today. They may be included as communities of need or identity, such as disabled persons, or frail aged people.
  3. Organizationally-based: range from communities organized informally around family or network-based guilds and associations to more formal incorporated associations, political decision-making structures, economic enterprises, or professional associations at a small, national or international scale.
  4. Intentional: a mix of all three previous types, these are highly cohesive residential communities with a common social or spiritual purpose, ranging from monasteries and ashrams to modern ecovillages and housing cooperatives.

The usual categorizations of community relations have a number of problems:[33] (1) they tend to give the impression that a particular community can be defined as just this kind or another; (2) they tend to conflate modern and customary community relations; (3) they tend to take sociological categories such as ethnicity or race as given, forgetting that different ethnically defined persons live in different kinds of communities—grounded, interest-based, diasporic, etc.[34]

In response to these problems, Paul James and his colleagues have developed a taxonomy that maps community relations, and recognizes that actual communities can be characterized by different kinds of relations at the same time:[35]

  1. Grounded community relations. This involves enduring attachment to particular places and particular people. It is the dominant form taken by customary and tribal communities. In these kinds of communities, the land is fundamental to identity.
  2. Life-style community relations. This involves giving primacy to communities coming together around particular chosen ways of life, such as morally charged or interest-based relations or just living or working in the same location. Hence the following sub-forms:
    1. community-life as morally bounded, a form taken by many traditional faith-based communities.
    2. community-life as interest-based, including sporting, leisure-based and business communities which come together for regular moments of engagement.
    3. community-life as proximately-related, where neighbourhood or commonality of association forms a community of convenience, or a community of place (see below).
  3. Projected community relations. This is where a community is self-consciously treated as an entity to be projected and re-created. It can be projected as through thin advertising slogan, for example gated community, or can take the form of ongoing associations of people who seek political integration, communities of practice[36] based on professional projects, associative communities which seek to enhance and support individual creativity, autonomy and mutuality. A nation is one of the largest forms of projected or imagined community.

In these terms, communities can be nested and/or intersecting; one community can contain another—for example a location-based community may contain a number of ethnic communities.[37] Both lists above can be used in a cross-cutting matrix in relation to each other.

Internet communities

[edit]
Main article: Virtual community

In general, virtual communities value knowledge and information as currency or social resource.[38][39][40][41] What differentiates virtual communities from their physical counterparts is the extent and impact of "weak ties", which are the relationships acquaintances or strangers form to acquire information through online networks.[42] Relationships among members in a virtual community tend to focus on information exchange about specific topics.[43][44] A survey conducted by Pew Internet and The American Life Project in 2001 found those involved in entertainment, professional, and sports virtual-groups focused their activities on obtaining information.[45]

An epidemic of bullying and harassment has arisen from the exchange of information between strangers, especially among teenagers,[46] in virtual communities. Despite attempts to implement anti-bullying policies, Sheri Bauman, professor of counselling at the University of Arizona, claims the "most effective strategies to prevent bullying" may cost companies revenue.[47]

Virtual Internet-mediated communities can interact with offline real-life activity, potentially forming strong and tight-knit groups such as QAnon.[48]

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]

References

[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Community

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia
Community denotes a social aggregation of individuals linked by recurrent interactions, mutual recognition of interdependence, and a orientation toward shared norms or objectives, frequently anchored in geographic proximity or affinity-based ties. Empirical delineations emphasize four core attributes: a delimited locale or relational sphere, membership defined by biological or social criteria, common institutions facilitating coordination, and bonds of enabling . These elements underpin the entity's functionality, as communities historically served as foundational units for resource pooling, , and cultural transmission, evolving from prehistoric kin-based clusters to agrarian villages and, later, industrial-era neighborhoods. Strong communal structures correlate with measurable benefits, including elevated via sense of belonging—quantified through scales assessing emotional security, shared symbols, and reciprocal influence—and reduced societal pathologies like isolation or norm erosion. Defining traits encompass not merely spatial clustering but causal dynamics of trust accrual through iterated exchanges, where proximity fosters and cultural homogeneity reinforces equilibria over zero-sum rivalries. Notable exemplars span indigenous tribes sustaining ecological via enforced reciprocity to modern intentional groups prioritizing , though scalability challenges persist beyond small-scale settings of roughly 150 members, per derived from primate grooming limits extrapolated to capacity. Contemporaneous data document a precipitous erosion of these ties, with longitudinal surveys registering halved participation in civic associations since mid-20th-century baselines, alongside surging solitary pursuits and attenuated family networks amid rising geographic transience and digital mediation displacing embodied encounters. This attenuation manifests in heightened loneliness metrics—now epidemic in industrialized nations—and diminished social capital, wherein causal vectors include secularization curtailing ritual bonds, welfare expansions supplanting mutual aid, and urban designs prioritizing throughput over congregation, yielding fragmented pseudocommunities online that lack enforceable commitments. Such trends, substantiated across class and racial strata, underscore communities' role not as optional accoutrements but as prerequisites for scalable human flourishing, with restoration hinging on reinstating low-friction interfaces for organic affiliation.

Etymology and Historical Evolution

Origins and Early Usage

The English word "community" originates from the Latin communitas, a noun derived from communis ("common" or "shared"), denoting a fellowship or of individuals bound by mutual obligations, public duties, and commonality rather than mere aggregation. This term emerged prominently in texts around the 11th-12th centuries, applied to structured groups such as religious orders, where members shared spiritual and material responsibilities, and feudal assemblies, emphasizing reciprocal liabilities within hierarchical yet interdependent locales. By the late 14th century, communitas entered Middle English via Old French comuneté, initially signifying the "commonalty" or body of common people organized around shared territorial bounds, customary privileges, or guild-like associations, as seen in legal and administrative records tying inhabitants to local governance and economic interdependence. Through the 15th to 17th centuries, usage in English documents—such as charters and parish rolls—reinforced this sense of organic, duty-bound cohesion in villages, towns, and trade fraternities, prioritizing collective welfare and restraint on individual autonomy over nascent contractual individualism. This Latin-rooted conception diverged from the ancient Greek koinōnia, which conveyed participatory fellowship or joint sharing in civic, philosophical, or kinship affairs, often within fluid tribal or polis structures; the medieval communitas instead formalized such bonds into enduring local entities amid Europe's shift from clan-based tribalism to manorial and ecclesiastical polities, institutionalizing mutual aid as a structural imperative.

Theoretical Foundations in Social Thought

The concept of community in social thought was formalized in the late by , who in his 1887 treatise Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft delineated two ideal types of : Gemeinschaft (community), characterized by organic, affective bonds rooted in , , and shared habits that foster instinctive and mutual support; and Gesellschaft (society), marked by instrumental, rational calculations and contractual relations that prioritize individual interests over collective harmony. Tönnies argued that the transition from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft under industrialization eroded the natural unity of wills, leading to fragmented driven by rather than inherent . This distinction established a causal framework linking pre-modern communal structures to cohesive human interactions, contrasting with modernity's atomizing effects. Building on such analyses, in The Division of Labor in Society (1893) identified mechanical solidarity as the binding force in traditional communities, where similarity in beliefs, occupations, and lifestyles enforces conformity and collective conscience, thereby regulating behavior through repressive laws and shared rituals. In contrast, organic solidarity emerges in differentiated societies via the division of labor, promoting interdependence but risking if not balanced by moral regulation; Durkheim thus posited that communal forms sustain by aligning individual actions with group norms, preventing deviance through inherent likeness rather than calculated exchange. Max Weber extended these ideas by typologizing authority structures, associating with communities where legitimacy derives from sacred traditions, hereditary roles, and personal fealties that stabilize behavior through habitual obedience and patriarchal or patrimonial hierarchies. This contrasts with in bureaucratic societies, grounded in abstract rules, expertise, and impersonality, which Weber saw as enabling efficient coordination but diminishing the affective ties that communities rely on for loyalty and predictability in human conduct. In early 20th-century American sociology, the Chicago School advanced community theory through an ecological lens, with Robert E. Park and colleagues in the 1920s examining urban dynamics as processes of competition, invasion, succession, and segregation that undermined primary communal relations amid rapid city growth. Park's framework treated the city as a mosaic of natural areas where community erosion stemmed from spatial mobility and ethnic heterogeneity, causally linking environmental adaptation to shifts in social interaction patterns from intimate, face-to-face ties to impersonal associations.

Conceptual Frameworks

Sociological and Semantic Definitions

In sociology, community is defined as a collectivity of individuals characterized by sustained social interactions, shared norms and values, and a of mutual identification or belonging, often within a defined spatial or relational boundary. This conceptualization distinguishes communities from transient aggregates like crowds, which lack enduring ties, or impersonal markets, where exchanges occur without normative commitment or reciprocal identification. A seminal by George A. Hillery Jr. in 1955 examined 94 definitions from sociological , identifying convergence on three core elements: a organized into a , an area of interaction, and common ties among members. These elements underscore the necessity of ongoing interpersonal relations and collective orientation, rather than mere proximity or shared interests alone. Semantically, the term has evolved from predominantly territorial connotations—emphasizing geographic locality as the basis for dense, multiplex interactions—to include relational forms unbound by place, such as networks sustained through shared identities or functions. This shift reflects technological and social changes, like and digital connectivity, enabling "communities of interest" without physical co-location. However, prioritizes territorial foundations for causal stability, as physical proximity facilitates repeated face-to-face encounters, norm enforcement, and resilience against disruption, fostering higher levels of trust and than dispersed relational ties. Overly expansive postmodern usages, which extend "community" to any loosely affiliated group based on affinity or , have been critiqued for diluting analytical precision and eroding the concept's utility in explaining bounded . Such definitions obscure distinctions between enduring structures with mutual obligations and ephemeral aggregates, complicating causal assessments of cohesion and ; sociologists like Steven Brint argue for reconstruction emphasizing verifiable interaction density and boundaries to restore rigor. Boundedness remains essential for , as unbounded affinity groups often evade , contrasting with traditional communities where proximity enables monitoring and sanctioning of deviance.

Multidisciplinary Perspectives

In archaeology, communities manifest through material evidence of prehistoric settlements that indicate cooperative organization and ritual practices predating formalized agriculture. Göbekli Tepe, dated to approximately 9600 BCE in southeastern Turkey, features monumental T-shaped pillars arranged in circular enclosures, interpreted as ritual centers that drew participants from surrounding regions, suggesting emergent social bonds through shared ceremonial activities rather than sedentary farming. This site challenges linear narratives of social complexity by evidencing large-scale coordination among hunter-gatherer groups, with settlement patterns revealing deliberate construction and periodic gatherings that fostered group cohesion via symbolic labor. Ecological perspectives define communities as assemblages of interacting populations within a shared , emphasizing trophic dependencies and resource partitioning that sustain equilibrium through mutual adaptations. For instance, in a forest , predator-prey dynamics and symbiotic relations among and exemplify interdependence, where species co-evolve to optimize niche exploitation without centralized direction. Analogies to groups highlight parallels in resource-sharing networks, such as mutualistic interactions reducing individual costs, yet such comparisons risk anthropomorphic by overlooking human capacities for deliberate reciprocity, language-mediated norms, and cultural transmission absent in non-sentient systems. From an economic and political viewpoint, communities emerge as spontaneous orders, per Friedrich 's framework, wherein decentralized interactions among individuals generate adaptive structures superior to imposed state hierarchies due to localized knowledge utilization. distinguished these self-organizing systems—evident in customary laws and market exchanges—from top-down organizations, arguing that the former harness dispersed for resilient coordination. Empirical studies corroborate lower transaction costs in high-trust, tight-knit groups, where repeated interactions and social monitoring diminish , as seen in regional analyses linking generalized trust to reduced risks and enhanced cooperation efficiencies compared to impersonal state bureaucracies.

Core Concepts

Gemeinschaft versus Gesellschaft

introduced the distinction between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft in his 1887 book Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, positing them as ideal types representing fundamental forms of human association driven by distinct wills: the essential will rooted in and for Gemeinschaft, and the arbitrary will guided by rational for Gesellschaft. Tönnies viewed Gemeinschaft as prevalent in pre-modern, agrarian contexts where social bonds arise organically from , neighborhood, and , fostering cohesion through shared customs and affective ties rather than explicit agreements. In contrast, Gesellschaft emerges in modern, urban-industrial settings, where interactions are instrumental, contractual, and oriented toward individual interests, leading to calculated cooperation amid potential fragmentation. Gemeinschaft relies on customary norms and personal relationships that engender mutual obligations, as seen in historical rural European villages where familial and communal interdependence supported stability, though Tönnies' framework lacks direct empirical validation from contemporaneous data and remains theoretically normative. Empirical correlates include lower in traditional settings; for instance, analyses of early modern reveal particularized trust within kin-based networks, enabling but limiting broader due to exclusionary practices like guilds. Such structures causally reinforced cohesion via repeated interactions and shared fates, yet they could stifle , as evidenced by stagnant rural in pre-industrial prior to manufacturing shifts around 1750. Gesellschaft, by emphasizing rational pursuit of , facilitates scalability and specialization in industrial economies but correlates with elevated , or normlessness, as individuals prioritize contracts over enduring loyalties. Émile Durkheim's 1897 analysis of European statistics from 1841–1872 demonstrated this through higher rates in urban, Protestant, and unmarried populations—up to 2–3 times rural baselines—attributing egoistic and anomic s to weakened restraints amid rapid economic change, rather than personal . These patterns reflect causal fragmentation: detached mobility erodes integrative ties, increasing vulnerability to despair, though Gesellschaft also enables adaptive resilience via formalized institutions. The transition from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft accelerated during the starting in the late 1700s, as mechanized production drew rural labor to cities; in Britain, urban dwellers exceeded 50% of the by 1851, dissolving village-based networks through geographic uprooting and discipline that prioritized output over . This shift, while spurring growth—evident in manufacturing's role in England's pre-1750 income rise—causally fragmented familial units, as documented in 19th-century family structure changes from extended to nuclear forms under urban pressures, without inherently valorizing either type but highlighting trade-offs in cohesion versus efficiency. Tönnies observed this not as inevitable but as a tension between organic solidarity and rational , empirically underscored by rising urban social pathologies like Durkheim's documented upticks.

Sense of Community and Belonging

A sense of community encompasses the psychological experience of membership, mutual influence, and emotional interconnectedness among individuals within a group. In 1986, David W. McMillan and David M. Chavis outlined a foundational model identifying four core elements: membership, which involves clear boundaries, emotional safety, personal investment, and a common symbol system; influence, characterized by reciprocal reinforcement where members shape and are shaped by the group; integration and fulfillment of needs, through shared resources and mutual aid; and shared emotional connection, fostered by time together, shared history, rituals, and relational bonds.14:1<6::AID-JCOP2290140103>3.0.CO;2-I) This framework posits sense of community as a dynamic force promoting cohesion without presupposing uniform positivity, as elements like influence can amplify conformity pressures. Empirical measurement of relies on validated scales derived from these models, such as the Sense of Community Index and its brief variants, which assess the four elements via Likert-scale items. Seymour B. Sarason first conceptualized psychological in 1974 as the perception of similarity to others, acknowledged interdependence, and mutual commitment, serving as a foundational construct in . These scales demonstrate reliability ( typically exceeding 0.80) and validity through correlations with behavioral outcomes; for example, higher scores predict greater community participation, with regression coefficients around 0.30-0.50 in diverse samples, indicating that perceived belonging causally drives involvement via reciprocity incentives. Longitudinally, stronger psychological correlates with reduced and improved metrics, such as lower depression scores (odds ratios of 0.85 per unit increase in community scales), by buffering against through perceived support networks. However, these benefits exhibit variability tied to group composition; in heterogeneous settings with low shared attributes, weakens, yielding smaller effect sizes on isolation reduction compared to homogeneous groups where similarity amplifies bonds. Causally, belonging engenders prosocial reciprocity within groups, as members invest in collective efficacy for mutual gain, yet it also entrenches biases; Henri Tajfel's 1971 experiments revealed that even arbitrary categorizations—lacking prior interaction or shared traits—elicited , with participants allocating resources to favor their group by an average maximum difference of 1.3 units on payoff matrices despite no personal stakes. This demonstrates how minimal belonging triggers discriminatory allocations, suggesting can reinforce exclusionary dynamics under causal pressures of social categorization, independent of ideological or material incentives.

Types and Variations

Geographic and Traditional Communities

Geographic communities consist of individuals united by a shared physical location, such as rural villages or urban ethnic enclaves, where proximity enables regular face-to-face interactions and mutual reliance for daily needs. These formations emphasize territorial bonds over abstract affiliations, fostering dense social networks grounded in immediate environmental and interpersonal dependencies. Traditional communities, often overlapping with geographic ones, maintain inherited customs, kinship structures, and localized governance, as observed in longstanding agrarian settlements where generational continuity reinforces collective identity and resource sharing. Empirical evidence highlights the historical stability of such communities, though data indicate erosion in modern contexts. Robert Putnam's analysis in documents a marked decline in U.S. local post-1950s, with participation in community organizations like parent-teacher associations and fraternal groups dropping by 50% or more between 1960 and 1990, reflecting weakened face-to-face ties amid and mobility. This shift correlates with reduced , as measured by lower rates of informal neighborly assistance and local volunteering, contributing to fragmented spatial bonds despite in proximate areas. Notable successes include mutual aid systems in insular groups like Amish settlements, where communal labor for tasks such as barn-raising and informal funds cover major expenses, yielding poverty rates above national averages but social assistance usage far below, often under 5% in surveyed districts compared to broader rural norms. However, geographic and traditional communities can exhibit insularity that promotes exclusion, as in modern gated enclaves where physical barriers and private security correlate with heightened residential segregation, concentrating wealthier demographics and limiting cross-class interactions in suburban settings. Historically, such bounded groups have faced or incited tensions, with ethnic enclaves' self-imposed separation sometimes escalating to external violence, underscoring trade-offs between internal resilience and broader societal integration.

Functional, Interest-Based, and Virtual Communities

Functional communities, also known as occupational or communities, consist of individuals united by shared work-related experiences, skills, and identities rather than geographic proximity. These groups facilitate exchange and essential for specialized tasks, as seen in historical guilds that regulated crafts and modern networks that enhance career mobility and expertise pooling. In regions like , dense networks of engineers and entrepreneurs have driven innovation through informal spillovers, with studies showing that face-to-face interactions and chance encounters among firms correlate with an 8% increase in citations between inventors, underscoring the causal link between such functional ties and technological advancement. Interest-based communities form around common hobbies, values, or ideological commitments, enabling mobilization for collective goals without territorial constraints. Hobby groups, such as clubs or book discussion circles, foster skill development and social bonds through regular activities, while ideological ones like the (NRA) exemplify policy influence, having spent over $30 million on in 2022 alone to shape gun rights via candidate endorsements and campaigns. These structures allow rapid assembly around specific causes, as evidenced by the NRA's role in blocking federal assault weapons bans post-1994, though their narrow focus can amplify echo effects rather than broad consensus. Early virtual communities, precursors to modern online platforms, emerged in the with systems like , a distributed network of discussion groups launched in that connected users across universities for topic-specific exchanges on everything from to . By the mid-, hosted thousands of newsgroups with global participation, demonstrating scalability through asynchronous text-based interaction unbound by location. However, these early forms often exhibited lower member commitment compared to in-person groups, with high turnover due to and lack of enforced , leading to transient engagements rather than enduring loyalties. Unlike geographic communities, these non-territorial variants offer flexibility in membership and adaptation to niche needs, enabling efficient for or , yet they risk internal fragmentation when subgroups prioritize divergent sub-interests, potentially diluting efficacy as seen in splintering forums or ideological factions.

Formation and Dynamics

Processes of Building and Organizing

Communities emerge spontaneously when individuals facing shared incentives, such as geographic proximity or acute crises, coordinate to reduce risks and costs of through repeated low-friction interactions. Proximity fosters organic ties by enabling frequent exchanges that build trust via direct reciprocity, as modeled in agent-based simulations of spatial social networks. Crises amplify this by creating immediate mutual dependencies; after the April 18, , which measured 7.9 magnitude and left approximately 225,000 homeless, residents self-organized into networks providing soup kitchens, ad hoc shelters, and resource distribution, independent of formal authorities. Similar patterns recur in disasters, where emergent groups handle up to 70% of initial search, rescue, and supply tasks through decentralized , driven by prosocial norms activated under threat. Organized community building involves deliberate mechanisms like leadership selection and ritual practices to solidify cohesion beyond initial incentives. Emergent leaders, often those demonstrating competence in egalitarian settings, coordinate resource allocation and conflict resolution, as observed in small-scale societies where task-oriented authority prevents free-riding. Anthropological records indicate that initiation rites—endurance tests or symbolic ordeals in tribal groups, such as scarification among Australian Aboriginals or seclusion in African societies—signal costly commitment, enhancing intragroup trust and fusion-like identification that sustains alliances. These rituals exploit emotional arousal to rewire social bonds, increasing willingness for collective defense or labor. Empirical metrics from quantify building efficacy: high network density, the proportion of realized ties among possible ones (often exceeding 0.2 in cohesive groups versus under 0.05 in sparse ones), correlates with elevated rates, while reciprocity—the mutuality of exchanges—predicts network stability and resident-perceived success in civic outcomes like problem-solving efficacy. In stable communities, these indicators reflect adaptive structures where denser, reciprocal ties buffer against defection, as validated in longitudinal studies of collaborative groups.

Socialization, Maintenance, and Decline

Socialization within communities involves the transmission of norms, values, and behaviors primarily through structures and educational systems, enabling individuals to internalize group expectations and achieve . Empirical studies indicate that cultural socialization by parents and peers fosters a sense of belonging and adherence to shared cultural practices, with discussions and modeling playing key roles in shaping youth's cultural identities and behaviors. This process causally contributes to under group pressure, as evidenced by Solomon Asch's 1951 experiments, where participants faced with unanimous incorrect judgments from confederates conformed in 37% of critical trials, demonstrating how overrides individual perception to maintain group consensus. Such mechanisms ensure that newcomers or younger members align with community standards, reducing internal conflict and promoting cohesion. Maintenance of communities relies on rituals that reinforce norm adherence and sanctions that deter deviance, with empirical evidence linking these practices to enhanced group stability. Rituals, including ceremonial gatherings and repeated symbolic acts, facilitate the transmission and strengthening of social norms by creating emotional bonds and signaling commitment, as observed in cross-cultural analyses where ritualized behaviors correlate with sustained cooperation and reduced free-riding. Sanctions, ranging from social ostracism to rewards for compliance, further uphold order; studies on communities show that monitoring and punitive measures against transgressions predict higher success. Homogeneous groups exhibit greater longevity, as shared ethnic or cultural backgrounds minimize norm conflicts; for instance, ethnic enclaves persist across generations due to reinforced internal ties, contrasting with diverse settings where coordination challenges arise. Decline occurs when factors disrupt these processes, particularly high residential mobility, which fragments repeated interactions essential for trust-building, and ethnic diversity, which empirically erodes in the short term. Robert Putnam's 2007 analysis of over 30,000 U.S. respondents across 41 communities revealed an inverse relationship: higher ethnic fractionalization correlates with lower trust, fewer friendships, and reduced , even controlling for socioeconomic variables, suggesting diversity hampers "hunkering down" behaviors that weaken communal bonds. Mobility exacerbates this by increasing turnover, as longitudinal data link population to diminished associational ties and generalized trust, predictors of dissolution in both geographic and functional communities. These dynamics highlight that without adaptive or maintenance, communities face heightened risks of fragmentation.

Empirical Benefits

Social Capital and Individual Well-Being

refers to the networks of relationships, trust, and norms of reciprocity that facilitate cooperation within or between communities. In community contexts, it manifests as bonding social capital, which strengthens ties within homogeneous groups through dense, inward-focused connections, and bridging social capital, which fosters links across diverse groups to promote broader cooperation. Empirical trends in the United States indicate a decline in such community-generated since the mid-20th century, evidenced by reduced participation in civic organizations, club memberships, and informal social interactions. This erosion correlates with rising , with approximately one in three U.S. adults reporting frequent feelings of isolation as of 2023, a pattern exacerbated among younger demographics and those with limited networks. Communities rich in contribute to individual by buffering against mental health declines; for instance, a 2023 cross-sectional analysis found that higher neighborhood was associated with fewer depression symptoms, independent of other socioeconomic factors. Similarly, psychological has been shown to inversely correlate with depression severity, mediating effects through reduced perceived stress. Longitudinal evidence from cohesive communities underscores links to physical health outcomes, such as the Roseto effect observed in Roseto, Pennsylvania, during the 1960s, where strong social bonds and family-oriented networks coincided with death rates 30-50% below national averages, despite comparable risk factors like diet and smoking. Individuals in high-social-capital environments also exhibit greater rates, which reinforce personal resilience and purpose, though causal pathways emphasize reciprocal trust over mere participation.

Economic, Health, and Resilience Outcomes

Communities with robust exhibit lower rates and reduced compared to fragmented ones, as evidenced by longitudinal data linking communal networks to economic stability. World Bank panel studies in demonstrate that microfinance groups, which build trust and mutual support among participants, reduced household by 5-10 percentage points over time, with benefits extending to non-participants through local economic spillovers. Similarly, analyses of U.S. urban neighborhoods show that concentrated disadvantage—marked by weak social ties—correlates with elevated rates, whereas stronger informal networks enforce norms that suppress criminal behavior and foster economic participation. Health outcomes improve markedly in settings with dense community interconnections, as strong ties buffer physiological stress responses and promote longevity. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, tracking participants since 1938, reveals that relational satisfaction at age 50 predicts physical health at age 80 more accurately than cholesterol levels, smoking, or socioeconomic status, with those reporting warm relationships facing half the mortality risk. This pattern holds at the community level, where empirical reviews confirm social capital mitigates all-cause mortality by enhancing access to support during illness and reducing isolation-linked inflammation. Resilience to shocks is empirically higher in cohesive communities, where localized networks enable swift, adaptive responses outperforming top-down coordination. During the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which caused over 15,000 deaths, pre-existing social capital in affected regions facilitated grassroots aid distribution—such as neighbor-led evacuations and resource sharing—that filled gaps in centralized efforts delayed by infrastructure damage and bureaucratic hurdles. Cross-disaster studies further substantiate that communities with high bonding and bridging ties recover faster, with social capital accounting for up to 20% variance in post-event functionality through mechanisms like collective preparedness and mutual aid.

Criticisms and Drawbacks

Conformity, Exclusion, and Suppression

Communities often exert pressures that compel individuals to align with group norms, sometimes overriding personal or rationality. In Stanley Milgram's 1961 obedience experiments, 65% of participants administered what they believed to be lethal electric shocks to a confederate under directives, illustrating how situational roles in groups foster destructive compliance. Similarly, Philip Zimbardo's 1971 demonstrated rapid to assigned roles, with "guards" exhibiting abusive behaviors toward "prisoners" within days, highlighting and power dynamics in confined groups. These laboratory findings analogize to real-world communities, such as cults, where empirical accounts reveal enforced uniformity through isolation and socialization processes that induce commitment, akin to "" but rooted in normal social influences amplified by group isolation. Exclusion mechanisms in communities stem from , where members preferentially allocate resources or support to insiders, empirically evidenced in multiplayer dictator games showing higher toward in-group partners over out-group ones. This contributes to , as meta-analyses confirm small-to-medium effects of greater within groups compared to between them, potentially stifling broader . The , positing that intergroup interactions reduce under optimal conditions, frequently fails in divided societies; for instance, in areas of high majority-group density, minority members experience persistent despite proximity, termed the "wallpaper effect," as everyday contact reinforces rather than diminishes . In Northern Ireland's post-conflict context, sustained residential segregation and limited meaningful cross-community engagement have perpetuated ethno-religious divisions, with empirical surveys indicating minimal reduction from superficial interactions. Suppression of dissent within communities amplifies echo chambers, causally linking group cohesion to intolerance of deviation, as seen in historical witch hunts where social turmoil prompted mass accusations and executions to enforce communal purity. Between the 14th and 17th centuries, European authorities executed an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 individuals, predominantly women, amid economic and religious upheaval, using and communal testimonies to quash perceived threats. In the 1692 , group —where shared fears escalated collective judgments—led to 20 executions, driven by informational cascades and normative pressures rather than isolated . Modern affinity groups, such as activist circles, exhibit analogous dynamics through social of nonconformists, where empirical studies link ideological to reduced tolerance for intra-group disagreement, fostering to maintain . Such suppression empirically correlates with diminished , as uniform thought patterns limit critical scrutiny and adaptive responses to challenges.

Conceptual Vagueness and Ideological Exploitation

The concept of community has long been criticized for its definitional ambiguity, with sociologist George A. Hillery Jr. identifying 94 distinct definitions in the sociological literature as of , encompassing variations in emphasis on , social interaction, shared values, or institutional structures, yet lacking consensus on core elements. This proliferation underscores a persistent that permits flexible application but hinders precise empirical , as definitions often prioritize normative ideals over observable behaviors. Robert Brint, in his 2001 critique and reconstruction, further delineates major subtypes of community—such as functional, supportive, and symbolic—tied to differing behavioral outcomes like levels or , revealing how the term's elasticity accommodates diverse phenomena while masking underlying inconsistencies in measurement and comparison. Ideological exploitation of the term's vagueness has manifested in contrasting political agendas, where left-leaning frameworks invoke community to justify aggregating local grievances into broader power structures for state intervention. Saul Alinsky's 1971 exemplifies this by framing as a tactic for to "seize power" from elites, transforming diffuse social ties into coordinated vehicles for redistributive policies and institutional expansion, often blurring with coercive collectivism. In opposition, conservative and libertarian perspectives, as articulated by , caution that such invocations erode by subordinating personal autonomy to group planning, arguing in works like Individualism and Economic Order (1948) that collectivist appeals to community inevitably prioritize centralized control over spontaneous market orders, leading to diminished and economic inefficiency. These divergent uses highlight how the term's looseness enables rhetorical alignment with ideological goals, from progressive empowerment narratives to defenses of decentralized localism. In complex modern societies, the empirical utility of community as an analytical category has been questioned for overstating local insularity at the expense of broader causal forces. Maurice R. Stein's 1960 analysis in The Eclipse of Community critiques canonical American community studies—such as those on or Middletown—for perpetuating a "" of self-contained locales, where findings of social cohesion or decline obscure the pervasive influence of national markets, migration, and corporate structures that transcend parochial boundaries. This perspective posits that rigid adherence to community-centric models distorts understanding of social dynamics, as evidenced by post-World War II shifts toward urban anonymity and , rendering localized studies empirically limited without integrating macroeconomic realities.

Contemporary Developments

Rise of Digital and Online Communities

Digital communities emerged in the late 1970s with Bulletin Board Systems (BBS), which allowed dial-up access to shared message boards, followed by in 1980 as a distributed discussion system over precursors. These early forms enabled text-based interactions among limited users, primarily academics and hobbyists, but lacked the scale of later platforms. The advent of widespread in the 1990s paved the way for web forums, culminating in social media sites like , launched in 2004 initially for Harvard students before expanding globally. By April 2024, alone reported over three billion monthly active users, facilitating connections based on shared interests rather than physical proximity and diminishing reliance on geographic ties characteristic of traditional communities. Unlike traditional communities bound by locality and face-to-face interactions, digital ones operate at unprecedented scales, with asynchronous, algorithm-driven that prioritizes weak ties and transient memberships over enduring local bonds. This shift enables global participation but introduces dynamics, such as , which empirical analyses link to reduced social accountability and heightened expression of extreme views. For instance, network studies of platforms like and certain Reddit subreddits show how pseudonymous environments fostered alt-right through escalating rhetoric and peer reinforcement, with users progressing from mainstream discourse to ideological echo effects. Such patterns diverge from traditional settings, where and reputational costs constrain deviance. A key controversy involves echo chambers, theorized by in 2001 as self-reinforcing information environments that limit exposure to opposing views, potentially amplifying polarization. While broad empirical rejection of pervasive echo chambers exists—most users encounter diverse content via platform algorithms—2020s studies validate selective reinforcement in polarized subgroups, particularly during events like the , where reliance on ideologically aligned online sources correlated with heightened acceptance and risk misperception. These findings, drawn from network analyses and surveys, underscore how digital scale exacerbates causal pathways to division absent in geographically anchored communities, though and academic sources emphasizing this risk may overstate universality due to institutional biases favoring alarmist interpretations. The prompted a rapid transition to , which empirical studies link to weakened ties due to reduced face-to-face interactions and economic spillovers. A 2021 analysis by the revealed that high-skill remote workers' decreased presence in urban centers reduced demand for local services like dining and retail, straining community-dependent economies and informal social networks. Longitudinal data from 2020 to 2021 further demonstrated that sustained home-based work eroded employees' sense of workplace community and , with causal associations to declines in self-rated health via diminished relational buffers against stress. These shifts persisted into 2023, as surveys indicated persistent isolation among older adults, where canceled in-person engagements failed to be fully offset by virtual alternatives, reducing bridging essential for broader . From 2023 onward, research has increasingly focused on multisector community partnerships to tackle (SDOH), emphasizing participatory models that integrate local input for sustainable interventions. Evaluations of such collaborations, including those from 2023-2024, show they enhance capacity to influence upstream factors like and , leading to measurable shifts that promote equitable outcomes without relying solely on top-down directives. These efforts underscore causal pathways where community-driven SDOH strategies mitigate disparities more effectively than isolated individual actions, though success hinges on sustained funding and cross-sector alignment. Advancements in AI have begun informing , particularly through for mobilization and . By 2023-2025, initiatives adopted tools to process large datasets on participant behaviors, enabling targeted that boosts rates in campaigns addressing local issues like . In contexts, AI-driven forecasting models predict community-level risks, such as disease outbreaks, allowing proactive organizing that aligns interventions with empirical needs rather than reactive responses. However, these applications require community-engaged oversight to avoid algorithmic biases that could exacerbate exclusion. Empirical reviews of online communities highlight dual-edged mental health impacts: forums facilitated coping and symptom management during isolation peaks, with 2023 studies documenting reduced distress via shared experiences and moderated exchanges. Conversely, a 2024 synthesis identifies causal risks from addictive engagement patterns and echo chambers, where algorithms amplify extreme views, fostering hate groups that translate to offline harms like , independent of platform moderation efficacy. Critiques of recent community-centric approaches caution against undue optimism, arguing they often mask state-level failures in core infrastructure provision, as evidenced by pandemic-era mutual aid networks that proved insufficient without governmental backups. Such analyses, drawing from 2020s resilience studies, emphasize that while communities can innovate amid institutional shortfalls, over-reliance on voluntary structures ignores scalable causal dependencies on public policy for equitable outcomes.

References

  1. https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Sociology/Introduction_to_Sociology/Sociology_%28Boundless%29/17%253A_Population_and_Urbanization/17.04%253A_Urban_Life/17.4G%253A_Community
  2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1446907/
  3. https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/recollections/defining-community/
  4. https://www.drdavidmcmillan.com/sense-of-community/sense-of-community-a-definition-and-theory
  5. https://groups.psychology.org.au/assets/files/community-updated-sept061.pdf
  6. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167268100001402
  7. https://sociology.institute/introduction-to-sociology/characteristics-defining-community/
  8. https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/disconnected-places-and-spaces/
  9. https://www.afterbabel.com/p/community-based-childhood
  10. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6934089/
  11. https://www.miraclemessages.org/stories/the-decline-of-social-capital-in-the-united-states-and-its-effect-on-homelessness
  12. https://www.etymonline.com/word/community
  13. https://www.decommerce.com/blog/the-history-of-communities
  14. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40803-023-00197-x
  15. https://www.academia.edu/788641/Freedom_in_Medieval_Community
  16. https://communautedeschercheurssurlacommunaute.wordpress.com/senses-of-community-making-sense-of-the-word-community-in-european-languages/
  17. https://communautedeschercheurssurlacommunaute.wordpress.com/definitions/
  18. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/tonnies-community-and-civil-society/EE830F0E36DFCF728D58344D66523582
  19. https://germanhistory-intersections.org/en/knowledge-and-education/ghis:document-163
  20. https://durkheim.uchicago.edu/Summaries/dl.html
  21. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-introductiontosociology/chapter/types-of-authority/
  22. https://pressbooks.howardcc.edu/soci101/chapter/14-1-power-and-authority/
  23. https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/media/documents/exmym-Chicago-Sociology-T.pdf
  24. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6f39q98d
  25. https://www.lawrist.com/community-meaning-definitions-and-elements
  26. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Definitions-of-community-%253A-Areas-of-Agreement-Hillery/6d4fd8a9893b733c7f23e878c61adabf5a4c2192
  27. https://infed.org/dir/welcome/community/
  28. https://liberalarts.tamu.edu/pols/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/03/Brint-Gemeinschaft-1.pdf
  29. https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15/8/216
  30. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277878875_Rethinking_the_Concept_of_Community
  31. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1572/
  32. https://peterturchin.com/complex-societies-before-agriculture-gobekli-tepe/
  33. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/ecological-community
  34. https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/species-interactions-and-competition-102131429/
  35. https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/hayek-on-kinds-of-order-in-society
  36. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733323000975
  37. http://studymore.org.uk/dsston.htm
  38. https://deflem.blogspot.com/2001/08/tonnies-ferdinand-1855-1936-2001.html
  39. https://www.sociologyguide.com/thinkers/Tonnies.php
  40. https://sheilaghogilvie.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/cesifo1302-trust.pdf
  41. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264999323004029
  42. https://durkheim.uchicago.edu/Summaries/suicide.html
  43. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4807205/
  44. https://www.simplypsychology.org/anomie.html
  45. https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2024/10/31/urban-society/
  46. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1081602X.2013.871570
  47. https://www.scirp.org/reference/referencespapers?referenceid=2080506
  48. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jcop.20217
  49. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4114391/
  50. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10314672/
  51. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11026138/
  52. https://motu-www.motu.org.nz/wpapers/05_09.pdf
  53. https://groups.etown.edu/amishstudies/cultural-practices/mutual-aid/
  54. https://www.beyondintractability.org/bksum/putnam-bowling
  55. https://historyofsocialwork.org/1995_Putnam/1995%2C%2520Putnam%2C%2520bowling%2520alone.pdf
  56. https://kb.osu.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/7ee8f5e4-3ed9-5e87-abff-9b289a282050/content
  57. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7597653/
  58. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13505033.2024.2409132
  59. https://easysociology.com/sociology-of-work/occupational-community/
  60. https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/new-study-quantifies-impact-face-to-face-interactions-innovation
  61. https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/the-role-of-chance-encounters-in-silicon-valley-innovation/
  62. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w30147/w30147.pdf
  63. https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/american-government/interest-groups/types-of-interest-groups
  64. https://writingworkshop.harris.uchicago.edu/policy-primers/gun-policy-landing-page/the-nra-and-gun-lobbyists/
  65. https://www.usenetserver.com/usenet/the-history-of-usenet/
  66. https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/613/534
  67. https://orgo.space/blog/the-24-different-types-of-communities/
  68. https://www2.arpel.org/HomePages/s4E61B/245425/AParadiseBuiltInHellTheExtraordinaryCommuni.pdf
  69. https://rctwg.humboldt.edu/sites/default/files/4_17_2019_1906_social_capital.pdf
  70. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0956247817721413
  71. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319405630_Emergent_groups_and_spontaneous_volunteers_in_urban_disaster_response
  72. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4258461/
  73. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/678698
  74. https://ijpt.thebrpi.org/journals/ijpt/Vol_1_No_1_June_2013/full-text-4.php
  75. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1573-7861.2012.01325.x
  76. https://www.snlab.cs.tsukuba.ac.jp/s-tugawa/PDF/asonam19.pdf
  77. https://implementationscience.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13012-016-0381-y
  78. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4641843/
  79. https://www.verywellmind.com/the-asch-conformity-experiments-2794996
  80. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221790599_The_Essential_Role_of_Ritual_in_the_Transmission_and_Reinforcement_of_Social_Norms
  81. https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/living-ethnically-homogenous-area-boosts-health-minority-seniors
  82. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x
  83. https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/bowling-alone-americas-declining-social-capital/
  84. https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/difference-bonding-bridging-social-capital/
  85. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7967338/
  86. https://www.cdc.gov/social-connectedness/risk-factors/index.html
  87. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7324a1.htm
  88. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11205-025-03625-7
  89. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1695733/
  90. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/284801468013215718/pdf/774910JRN020050ofinance0and0Poverty.pdf
  91. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/199709.pdf
  92. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/
  93. https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/the-importance-of-connections-ways-to-live-a-longer-healthier-life/
  94. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360022089_Social_Capital_and_Community_Resilience_in_Tohoku-Oki_Lessons_from_the_2011_Great_East_Earthquake_and_Tsunami_Disaster_in_Japan
  95. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212420924003856
  96. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3976349/
  97. https://www.apa.org/topics/forensics-law-public-safety/prison
  98. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280570698_Life_inside_a_deviant_religious_group_Conformity_and_commitment_as_ensured_through_%27brainwashing%27_or_as_the_result_of_normal_processes_of_socialisation
  99. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6726232/
  100. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-37732-001
  101. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3859597/
  102. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5282610_Intergroup_Contact_Theory
  103. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2778849
  104. https://online.utpb.edu/about-us/articles/psychology/group-polarization-did-it-play-a-role-in-the-salem-witch-trials
  105. https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1067&context=public_law_and_legal_theory
  106. https://rips-irsp.com/articles/10.5334/irsp.874
  107. https://archive.org/download/RulesForRadicals/RulesForRadicals.pdf
  108. http://www.library.fa.ru/files/Hayek-Individualism.pdf
  109. https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691620459/the-eclipse-of-community
  110. https://www.jstor.org/stable/588525
  111. https://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/networking-the-web/
  112. https://www.cs.odu.edu/~tkennedy/cs300/development/Public/M02-HistoryOfSocialNetworking/
  113. https://www.statista.com/topics/751/facebook/
  114. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304422X21000486
  115. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19331681.2023.2262459
  116. https://hls.harvard.edu/today/danger-internet-echo-chamber/
  117. https://arxiv.org/html/2407.06631v1
  118. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9195485/
  119. https://polecom.org/index.php/polecom/article/download/176/413
  120. https://www.nber.org/digest/202112/remote-work-high-skill-workers-hurt-local-service-economies
  121. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366844873_Working_from_home_during_the_COVID_19_pandemic_a_longitudinal_examination_of_employees%27_sense_of_community_and_social_support_and_impacts_on_self-rated_health
  122. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11636284/
  123. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149718923000757
  124. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/15248399241278968
  125. https://journals.lww.com/jphmp/fulltext/2025/01000/building_healthy%2C_equitable%2C_and_resilient.11.aspx
  126. https://chej.org/how-ai-can-help-strengthen-grassroots-organizing
  127. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394070341_AI-POWERED_FRAMEWORK_FOR_COMMUNITY_HEALTH_FORECASTING_AND_STRATEGIC_PUBLIC_HEALTH_PLANNING
  128. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11121-025-01842-7
  129. https://europepmc.org/article/pmc/pmc9933803
  130. https://mental.jmir.org/2023/1/e41855
  131. https://www.nature.com/articles/s44271-024-00112-6
  132. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23996544251314875
  133. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590061725000444
Add your contribution
Related Hubs
Contribute something
User Avatar
No comments yet.