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Critical Hopefulness: A Person-Centered Analysis of the Intersection of Cognitive and Emotional Empowerment

  • Published:
American Journal of Community Psychology

Abstract

Leaders in struggles for social justice agree on the importance and the difficulty of maintaining hopefulness while developing critical awareness of social issues. Research has indicated that the analogous components of psychological empowerment (emotional and cognitive) often do not co-vary across populations. This study used a person-centered analytic approach, latent class analysis, to identify subpopulations of participants (n = 1,322) according to the cognitive and emotional components of psychological empowerment. Four distinct sub-groups emerged: those who were relatively (1) critical but alienated, (2) uncritical but hopeful, (3) uncritical and alienated, or (4) critical and hopeful. These clusters were then examined for demographic differences and relationships with a set of conceptually relevant variables including social capital, psychological sense of community, openness, organizational participation and mental wellbeing. Results shed light on the complexity of empowerment processes and yield implications for ongoing community research and action.

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Notes

  1. The state in which data were collected is 86 % White (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). Hence, this sample had only a slightly greater proportion of Whites than the state as a whole. The sample of active community leaders had distinctly higher levels of education and household income than the general population in the state.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from the Research Committee of the Graduate School of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The authors thank the participating organizations, as well as Anna Edelstein, Janalle Goosby, Kali Deans, and Rachel Glaza for their participation on the research team. The manuscript benefitted from helpful feedback from Paul Speer and the anonymous reviewers for this journal.

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  1. School of Human Ecology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1300 Linden Drive, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Brian D. Christens, Jessica J. Collura & Faizan Tahir

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Correspondence to Brian D. Christens.

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Christens, B.D., Collura, J.J. & Tahir, F. Critical Hopefulness: A Person-Centered Analysis of the Intersection of Cognitive and Emotional Empowerment. Am J Community Psychol 52, 170–184 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-013-9586-2

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