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Much attention has been paid to the effects of political efficacy and trust on political participation. Most studies tend to use efficacy or trust as an independent variable to explain political actions such as voting, campaign involvement, and the like. Despite their importance in explanations of political behavior, relatively little is known regarding mechanisms through which social involvement may influence trust and efficacy. If efficacy and trust are of value, then it is important that we determine how their development can be fostered, and especially whether their development can be promoted through social interaction—such as a sense of community. Borrowing from the field of community psychology, I employ the Sense of Community Index to provide a more nuanced measure of community based on individual perceptions of their community that previous studies were unable to capture. Analyzing original survey data, this paper examines to what extent, if any, a sense of community matters for trust and efficacy. The results demonstrate that social forces, such as community, exert positive and significant effects on internal and external efficacy and personal and political trust, independently of individual traits such as income, age, gender, and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a model in which protective factors are expected to reduce the impact of economic, family, and community risk factors on parental well-being. The researchers found that protective factors do not buffer familial relationships, but marital happiness and school environment are indeed related to parental well-being. The results agreed with previous studies that multiple ecological contexts are required for a total understanding of parenting, however, they also found that protective factors do not have buffering effects, but instead serve as compensatory factors.

An Inventory designed to examine women's perception of the female role as home- and family-oriented versus the female role as outward-achieving-oriented was administered to women selected from one North American and two South American urban-industrial communities. The purpose was to determine how the women perceived themselves in these roles as opposed to how they thought the "man's ideal woman" would perceive these roles. Results indicated that both North American and South American women believed that man's ideal woman would be traditionally submissive and place home and family above outward-achieving strivings. North American women, more than South American women, felt career could be integrated with family life and were more aggressive towards outward achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the social-psychological aspects of community study in the U.S. For the most part, research sociologists have tended to give relatively little emphasis to social-psychological aspects of community study. Where these aspects have been studied they have often been incidental to other aspects or the emphasis has tended to be on the static rather than on the dynamic phases. As a result most dramatic social-psychological study of communities has been by non-sociologists, especially by action people. In 1947, August B. Hollingshead brought the trends in community study down to date by his analysis of the field during the preceding fifteen years. He limited his discussion to three categories of community study and omitted special reference to the social-psychological as a separate category, although the social-psychological was, of course, implicit in the three he distinguished. Until recently, it must be confessed, the relationship between those engaged in scientific research and those interested in action research has not been cordial. It may be objected that the measuring and plotting of dynamic group interaction is not community study. A field for study in the dynamic social-psychological aspects of community open to sociologists has to do with the evaluation of programmes undertaken by communities and their agencies.