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The relationship between sense of community and subjective well‐being: A first look
Author(s) -
Davidson William B.,
Cotter Patrick R.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.585
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1520-6629
pISSN - 0090-4392
DOI - 10.1002/1520-6629(199107)19:3<246::aid-jcop2290190308>3.0.co;2-l
Subject(s) - happiness , sense of community , psychology , subjective well being , social psychology , scale (ratio) , life satisfaction , coping (psychology) , clinical psychology , physics , quantum mechanics
Abstract The relationship between sense of community and subjective well‐being (SWB) was tested by conducting telephone interviews with three random samples in South Carolina and Alabama ( ns = 151, 399, and 442). Respondents answered the 17‐item Sense of Community Scale (Davidson & Cotter, 1986), a measure of three facets of SWB (happiness, worrying, and personal coping), and questions about their demographic characteristics and subjective evaluations of their community. Partial correlation coefficients were computed between sense of community and SWB, partialling out the influence of demographic and community‐evaluation variables. Sense of community was significantly related to SWB in all three samples. The effects were especially pronounced for the happiness facet of SWB. Implications are drawn for theory and intervention, and recommendations are made for further research.