For several years many of us at Peabody College have participated in the evolution of a theory of community, the first conceptualization of which was presented in a working paper (McMillan, 1976) of the Center for Community Studies. To support the proposed definition, McMillan focused on the literature on group cohesiveness, and we build here on that original definition. This article attempts to describe the dynamics of the sense‐of‐community force — to identify the various elements in the force and to describe the process by which these elements work together to produce the experience of sense of community.

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Nashville, TNFirst-order and second-order models of sense of community (SOC) were tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of data gathered from a random sample of community residents (n 5 293) located in the midwestern United States. An 8-item Brief Sense of Community Scale (BSCS) was developed to represent the SOC dimensions of needs fulfillment, group membership, influence, and shared emotional connection. The CFA results for the BSCS supported both the scale's hypothesized first-order and second-order factor structure. The overall BSCS scale and its subscales were also found to be correlated as expected with community participation, psychological empowerment, mental health, and depression. Findings provide empirical support for the BSCS and its underlying multidimensional theory of SOC. Implications of the study are described and directions for future research discussed.

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Although sense of community was heralded by Sarason (1974) as the “overarching value” of community psychology, no theory or definition of the phenomenon has been operationalized or empirically tested. The difficulty in the scientific exploration of sense of community is in the value‐laden and phenomenological nature of the experience. Following McMillan and Chavis (this issue), it is theorized that sense of community is represented by four elements: membership, influence, integration and fulfillment of needs, and shared emotional connection. Brunswik's lens model offers an appropriate method for determining the shared domain of the experience within a diverse population. The goal of this study was to develop a Sense of Community Index (SCI) that would allow the determination of the relative influence of various factors on the judgment of sense of community. Twenty‐one judges, representing four professional groupings selected from three urban centers, where employed in the rating of 100 sense of community profiles of randomly selected individuals. There was a high degree of consensus among the diverse groups of judges, and a regression equation with 23 predictors derived from the sense of community profile accounted for 96% of the variance of mean judges, ratings of overall sense of community. The results were interpreted as supporting the theory of McMillan and Chavis, which appears suitable both for scientific investigation and as a framework for intervention. The relationships of specific profile items (e.g., neighboring behavior, length of residence, home ownership, involvement in voluntary associations) are related to the four elements and to the prediction of overall sense of community.