Community Contribution to Moral and Character Development

In approaching the topic of community contribution to moral and character development, we begin with the observations of some prominent political scientists who have challenged rational choice models of human behavior (i.e., that people will make decisions in their own self-interest with little regard for the common good). In their book, Voice and Equality, Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995) note that rational choice theory predicts that few people will be active in community affairs when, in fact, many are. Indeed, people contribute to the common good of their communities because there is a sense of satisfaction from “performing a civic duty or doing one’s share to make the community, nation, or world a better place” (p. 10). In a similar vein, Elinor Ostrom (1998), winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in economics, challenged the notion that states or markets were better than communities of people in determining how best to manage natural resources. She contested the inevitability of a “tragedy of the commons” which assumed that, driven by self-interest, people would destroy and deplete the natural resources on which their community depended. Rather, Ostrom (2010) and her colleagues demonstrated empirically that communities throughout the world use collective decision-making processes to determine how to sustain environmental resources that are their commons. In her Nobel Prize lecture, she contended that humans have more capability and complex motivation to solve social dilemmas than suggested in rational choice theory. Furthermore, this recognition calls for creating policies and institutions that bring out the best in humans as opposed to policies that force individuals, assumed to be driven by self-interest, into behaviors for the common interest. Aspects of community institutions and policies that enable people to freely choose to act in the interests of the commons include extending the breadth of communication to include all participants, possibilities for collective efficacy and the sense among participants that their contributions have an impact, cooperation and trust among participants, and a longterm horizon.