Understanding the Psychosocial Dimensions of Poverty: A Community Psychology Approach

Abstract

The purpose is to analyze, from Community Psychology's perspective, psychosocial expressions of poverty and their contributions for intervention in public policy. Community Psychology accents the criticism about the factors that maintain those material and symbolic aspects that interfere with the subjective constitution of the poor. Exploratory research, quantitative and qualitative, was conducted with 417 adult subjects from a rural and urban community in Brazil. Poverty involves moral explanations about the poor. Family, neighbors and religion are emphasized as sources of support, which highlights the need for strategies then community relations and resizing of performance in public policy.