This research examines the interrelations between community experience and psychological sense of community, advancing theoretical clarity around two influential but often conflated constructs in community sociology. Drawing on data from the Rural Utah Community Study, this study uses structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate the relationships between community attachment and community satisfaction, which are conceptualized together as community experience, and psychological sense of community, which is operationalized using the Brief Sense of Community Scale (BSCS). Rather than treating these constructs as parallel or redundant, this analysis theorizes and tests how experiential evaluations of place are organized onto feelings of belonging, influence, emotional connection, and needs fulfillment. 

Confirmatory factor analyses support the multidimensional structure of the BSCS and its representation as a higher-order latent construct. In contrast, community attachment and satisfaction do not form a clean latent structure at the item level, suggesting that these evaluative dimensions are empirically intertwined in practice despite being conceptually distinct. Structural models indicate that both attachment and satisfaction are positively associated with psychological sense of community, with attachment emerging as the dominant predictor. Indirect pathway analyses further reveal patterned relationships: attachment is most strongly linked to emotional connection and membership, while satisfaction is more closely associated with needs fulfillment and influence. These findings demonstrate that psychological sense of community is best understood as an outcome of lived community experience rather than as an independent psychological disposition. By modeling experiential and psychological dimensions within a single framework, this study clarifies how community operates across evaluative, relational, and psychological levels, contributing to ongoing debates about the conceptualization and measurement of community.