Community Satisfaction as Definition of the Situation: Some Conceptual Issues.

Interest in community satisfaction as a research topic has been increasing among rural sociologists. Although the concept is promising, it offers a set of conceptual problems which must be addressed prior to application and measurement. The purpose of this article is to offer some suggestions which might place community satisfaction within a useful theoretical framework. Specifically, it is argued that community satisfaction can be profitably viewed as one dimension of the definition of the situation, where satisfaction refers to definitional and community a situational component. The theoretical implications and operational possibilities of such a perspective are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]