Abstract
Caprara et al. (European Journal of Social Psychology 39:1002–1020, 2009) criticized existing measures of internal political efficacy for not taking into account psychological theories of self-efficacy and for the resulting low construct validity. As an alternative, they presented a ten-item measure called Perceived Political Self-Efficacy (P-PSE) Scale. Based on social cognitive theory, it adopts a psychological understanding of self-efficacy and captures the phenomenon in a more systematic and complete manner than previous measures of internal efficacy.We translated the P-PSE scale to German and tested it in a German national quota sample, using quotas for age, gender and education (N = 1025). We provided evidence on the scale’s construct validity (by testing its correlations towards related constructs) and on its criterion validity (by regressing political participation propensity on the P-PSE score). The scale explained ΔR2 = 26% of people’s propensity for political participation over and above sociodemographic variables, and ΔR2 = 12% over and above previously existing measures, demonstrating its incremental value. We also tested cross-cultural measurement invariance towards an Italian sample, establishing configural, as well as partial metric and scalar invariance. In addition, we validated a four-item short version of the scale, which proved to be similarly valid as the full version. We argue, that these two measurement instruments provide a more adequate way of assessing internal political efficacy for research in German-speaking countries.
Highlights
Political efficacy is defined as “an individual’s perceived ability to participate in and influence the political system” (Yeich & Levine, 1994, p. 259)
That a focus on the second component is the most useful, because (a) it best separates internal efficacy from related concepts, like external efficacy (e.g., Balch, 1974; Cohen, Vigoda, & Samorly, 2001), political awareness (Zaller, 1992), and political sophistication (e.g., Luskin, 1987); and (b) it matches with the psychological concept of perceived self-efficacy from social cognitive theory (SCT) (Bandura, 1991, 1997)
We did not consider the χ2 test for model rejection, because its sensitivity increases with sample size: In large samples—as is the case in this study—even small model–data discrepancies produce significant results (Bollen & Long, 1993; Cheung & Rensvold, 2002) CFI comparative fit index, RMSEA Root Mean Square Error of Approximation, SRMR Standardized Root Mean-square Residual, Ref. reference model *p < 0.001
Summary
Political efficacy is defined as “an individual’s perceived ability to participate in and influence the political system” (Yeich & Levine, 1994, p. 259). Assumptions about the psychological underpinnings of self-efficacy beliefs can be drawn from the social cognitive theory (SCT) by Bandura (1991). Within the different mechanisms necessary for the exercise of control, self-efficacy beliefs play a central role: They are judgements of personal capability regarding some specific desirable behavior (Bandura, 1997) and influence a person’s motivation, perseverance, performance, and subsequent consequences of the performance (Bandura, 1991). The conceptual similarity between Bandura’s (1997) self-efficacy concept and the concept of internal political efficacy is self-evident. Both strings of literature have developed rather separate from each other. Recently, Caprara, Vecchione, Capanna, and Mebane (2009) have developed a self-report measure of perceived political self-efficacy (P-PSE). In contrast to previously existing measures (e.g., Campbell et al, 1954; Niemi, Craig, & Mattei, 1991), it was developed based on the self-efficacy concept of the SCT framework by Bandura (1991, 1997) and follows the main principles for the construction of selfefficacy measures set by Bandura (2006), like the inclusion of different relevant and measurable tasks as benchmarks of successful behavior
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