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CONFIRMING THE PSOC THROUGH DISCOURSE: TOWARD A GROUNDED THEORY OF DISCURSIVE SENSE OF COMMUNITY (DSOC)
Author(s) -
Comeforo Kristin
Publication year - 2016
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/jcop.21790
Subject(s) - minority stress , grounded theory , offensive , lesbian , sense of community , transgender , social psychology , psychology , psoc , sociology , construct (python library) , empowerment , gender studies , qualitative research , political science , social science , sexual minority , system on a chip , computer science , law , programming language , management , economics , operating system
The psychological sense of community (PSOC) is a valued yet quantitatively underconfirmed construct that forms the foundation of our understanding of community. The current study aimed at and succeeded in confirming the factors, where traditional methods have failed. Using grounded theory as an alternate route to reaching this goal, the current study of 2,298 Facebook comments, surrounding anti‐lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, queer (LGBTQ) remarks made by the CEO of the Barilla pasta brand, revealed cogent communities of LGBTQ, allies, Christians, and opponents, which used each of McMillan and Chavis’ (1986) factors in their discourse, thus confirming PSOC. The discursive residue of PSOC indicated a new phenomenon, discursive sense of community (DSOC), which emerged from factors of expectations and empowerment. The DSOC appeared as a defensive strategy to mitigate minority stress. Testing the model against other datasets is recommended, to determine the extent to which this particular incident (i.e., a member of one group making an offensive comment to members of another group) shaped the qualitative findings.