Community Psychology Review

Community psychology was born of the mental health movement and the civil rights movement in the United States in1960s.. Community psychology pay close attention to the social and cultural factors influence on mental health and put people in their social background.Power andempowerment are the core concepts of community psychology, and the practice involved with other people's cooperation, these people are often vulnerable groups that are marginalized or whose power are deprived.Value, research and community practice are the three pillars of the community psychology.This article has introduced the core values of community psychology:ecological Marxism, criticism, prevention, empowerment,social justice,and liberation.Community psychology research includes two aspects:methodology and epistemology. Methods includes qualitative research and quantitative research, qualitative research is divided into four action course:asking, witnessing, interpreting, knowing. There are three roles:(1) consistent with the core values of community psychology and supports them;(2) lay the foundation for quantitative research;(3) qualitative research is a powerful tool to understand the causes of human behavior. Quantitative research includes multilevel model, cluster analysis, social network analysis and geographic information systems.These four new methods play a significant role in grasping the contexts. Epistemology includes understanding community, understanding individual in the environments, understanding coping in context and understanding human diversity.Community practice mainly refers to the community intervention, includes prevention and health promotion, community and social change.The research and practice have a great deal of overlap, community psychology research and practice can be collectively referred to as "community practice". This practice process both includes the research process and the community intervention (ie, community action) process. Community psychology inherently includes community interventions and community action. Community psychology is a vivid manifestation of the psychological theory in action.The values should guide the research and practice, so the future of community psychology should toward value-based community practice. This new model consists of four complementary aspects:philosophical inquiry, situational analysis, needs assessment, and practical considerations. The status quo is that there are more research than action, and more applied research than philosophy and political studies. Thus, community psychology should pay more attention to and advocate the values and community practice to compensate for the lack of these two areas.Right now, China is vigorously promoting the important national policy of building a harmonious society, community psychology can provide a theoretical support for community building and practice examples, mainly through community groups researchs, social capital, sense of community.This article first introduces the connotation and background of community psychology, then discusses its core values, researches and practices, then unify the three aspects in the comments section, and pointing out that the ideal vision of the development of community psychology—value-based research and practice, and call for the values and community action. Finally discuss the role and significance of community psychology for building a harmonious community in China.