Political Self-efficacy Research Articles

The Perceived Political Self-Efficacy Scale–Short Form (PPSE-S)

The present study aims to develop a short form of the Perceived Political Self-Efficacy scale (PPSE-S). The psychometric properties of the short form were first investigated in an Italian sample ( n = 697), and compared with those of the extended version. The cross-cultural replicability of the short form was then investigated in Spain ( n = 354), and Greece ( n = 270). Finally, the relations between the PPSE-S and several indicators of political participation were assessed in each country. Results from confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) supported the unidimensionality of the PPSE-S. Reliability and criterion validity of the short- and the full-length scales were found to be substantially equivalent. Multigroup CFA provided evidence of measurement invariance across Italy, Spain, and Greece. Perceived political efficacy was positively related to political engagement in a stable and consistent way across the three countries. In light of these results, the usefulness and applicability of the PPSE-S for large-scale surveys were discussed.

Does sociability predict civic involvement and political participation?

In contemporary history as well as in political science, a strong associational life known as sociability is thought to explain the roots of modern democracy by establishing a link between the increasing availability of free time to the middle classes, increasing willingness to gather with others in circles or associations, and increasing social capital. In personality psychology, sociability is related to prosocial behavior (i.e., the need for affiliation, agreeableness, openness, and extraversion), whose importance in different political behaviors is increasingly recognized. In the present article, we carried out 5 studies (N = 1,429) that showed that political and associative sociability (a) can be reliably assessed, can have cross-cultural validity, and are properly associated with general social interest measures and personality domains and facets in the five-factor model; (b) do not overlap with similar concepts used in political psychology to account for political participation (political expertise, political interest, political self-efficacy); and (c) predicted political and nonpolitical group membership as well as observable choices in decision-making tasks with political and nonpolitical outcomes. The results are discussed, taking into consideration the extent to which specific facets of sociability can mediate between general personality traits and measures of civic involvement and political participation in a holistic model of political behavior.

The development and validation of an instrument to measure conditions for social engagement of students in higher education

The present article analyzes social engagement as an outcome of higher education. It can be conceived as an attitude that by definition only manifests itself over time, and should therefore not be assessed or measured during the years of study or at graduation. The argument is being made that social engagement should be understood in terms of conditions for social engagement. Based on a conceptual framework three such conditions are being proposed: an interest in social and political issues, self-efficacy, and a positive disposition towards applied skills and knowledge. The present study consists of the design and validation of a tool for measuring these conditions. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, performed on two consecutive samples of freshmen college students, resulted in the Conditions for Social Engagement Questionnaire, which measures conditions for social engagement along four scales: Political Interest, Social Analysis, Valuing Application and Self-efficacy.

The relationship between civic attitudes and voting intention: an analysis of vocational upper secondary schools in England and Singapore

From 2009 to 2011, a team from the Centre for Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies carried out a mixed-methods study of young people in England and Singapore. With regard to civic attitudes, the study showed that there was a greater sense of political self-efficacy and collective (school) efficacy in Singapore than in England. In addition, the group in Singapore scored higher on future voting relative to the group in England. Further, while both political self-efficacy and collective (school) efficacy were correlated with future voting in England, only the latter was correlated in the case of Singapore. For some, the results may seem counter-intuitive. The article reflects on these results, particularly those relating to democratic outcomes.

The effects of 'Naneun Ggomsuda' on college students' political knowledge, political self-efficacy, and political participation -A comparison with TV, newspapers, and the Internet

The effects of 'Naneun Ggomsuda' on college students' political knowledge, political self-efficacy, and political participation -A comparison with TV, newspapers, and the Internet

Üniversite Öğrencilerinin Bireysel Düzey Değişkenlerinin Siyasal Öz Yeterlilik Algısı Üzerindeki Etkileri: Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Örneği

The sense of political efficacy is one of the most important sub-components of the studies that examine the configuration and creating of political attitudes at especially individual-level. Political efficacy that means the feeling that individual political action does have, or can have, an impact upon the political process and that differs from individual to individual recently has been conceptualized and attempted to measure within the framework of social cognitive theory of Bandura. In this study as a basic measure instrument, “perceived political self-efficacy scale’’ was used. This scale was developed by Caprara and et al.(2009) and based on self-efficacy scale developed within the scope of Bandura’s social cognitive theory. In this context, it is examined the relationships between political self-efficacy and individual-level variables or socio-demographic variables. The study was conducted with 1250 participants that attend to Faculty of Economicsl and Administrative Scienses in Suleyman Demirel University. The effect of age, gender and socio-economic factors on political self-efficacy was investigated in this study. As a hypothesis test, one-way anova and t-test was preferred. According to consequence of analyse, it was founded positively and significantly relationships between perceived political self-efficacy and variables such as gender and income. It wasn’t found a significant relationship between age, birth place, the place in which primary school had finished, the education level of mother and father.

The religious experience as affecting ambivalence: the case of democratic performance evaluation in Israel

Religiosity increases both criticism and instability in democratic performance evaluations, and accordingly decreases reliance on these assessments in the construction of political self-efficacy, trust in institutions, and patriotism. This is due to the conflicting experiences that religious citizens of democracies live through; while their personal religious environment often adheres to many undemocratic characteristics, their experience as citizens contains assorted democratic attributes. These results, from heteroskedastic maximum likelihood models using data from a 2006 representative survey among Israeli Jews, augment the exclusive focus of the literature of democratic attitudes on the strength of attitudes, and shift attention from policy attitudes to other evaluative judgements.

Creating a Web of Trust and Change: Testing the Gamson Hypothesis on Politically Interested Internet Users

This study used an online survey of politically interested Internet users to examine the Gamson hypothesis, which asserts that those who are low in political trust and high in political self-efficacy can be most easily mobilized into political action. Previous studies have focused on behavioral effects of trust and efficacy, whereas this study also included an affective measure, feelings of political involvement. This study also employed reliance on Internet components as a measure of political activity. Internet users in general were almost equally divided between being an Assured (high in trust and efficacy) and a Dissident (low in trust and efficacy). This study found mixed support for the Gamson hypothesis.

Did Social Media Really Matter? College Students' Use of Online Media and Political Decision Making in the 2008 Election

This study examined college students' use of online media for political purposes in the 2008 election. Social media attention, online expression, and traditional Internet attention were assessed in relation to political self-efficacy and situational political involvement. Data from a Web survey of college students showed significant positive relationships between attention to traditional Internet sources and political self-efficacy and situational political involvement. Attention to social media was not significantly related to political self-efficacy or involvement. Online expression was significantly related to situational political involvement but not political self-efficacy. Implications are discussed for political use of online media for young adults.

Race and Gender as Peripheral Cues on Political Campaign Web Sites

This study examines the roles candidate race and gender may play in the evaluation of candidates presented via campaign Web sites. Apparent race and gender of a candidate were manipulated while issue information was held constant on a campaign Web site. The candidate's gender was shown to affect evaluations of the candidate (positively for female candidates) after controlling for participant political ideology, political knowledge, and political self-efficacy. The candidate's race did not affect evaluations of the candidate. Findings are discussed in the context of peripheral bias of central processing.

Schools as Incubators of Democratic Participation: Building Long-Term Political Efficacy with Civic Education

Despite a growing consensus that civic education is an important aspect of political socialization, little research has prospectively examined how gains made during civics courses are maintained after high school. This study used a quasi-experimental design to examine longer-term effects of the Student Voices program, which was originally evaluated in Philadelphia public high schools during the 2002–2003 school year. Following the 2004 presidential election, researchers recontacted students who had participated in the program for one or two semesters and students who had been in control civics classrooms. A structural equation model indicated that students who experienced two semesters of the program reported greater self-efficacy for political participation and that this effect carried over to increased political attentiveness as well as to knowledge of candidate positions. In addition, political attentiveness increased knowledge and voting in the election. However, neither knowledge nor efficacy had direct effects on voting once attentiveness was controlled. The results suggest that a supplementary civics education program such as Student Voices can increase subsequent participation in politics by building long-term gains in political self-efficacy and skills in using the news media to follow government and political affairs.

From Group Member to Democratic Citizen: How Deliberating with Fellow Jurors Reshapes Civic Attitudes

This investigation assesses the attitudinal impact of one of America’s most distinctive and famous group activities—jury deliberation. Tocqueville and the U.S. Supreme Court have both reasoned that jury service can promote civic engagement and recent research supports this view. The present study examines whether the attitudinal impact of jury deliberation depends on the quality of one’s jury experience. Two panel surveys of 2,410 total jurors tested the reciprocal relationship between the subjective experience of deliberation and the changes in civic attitudes toward oneself, fellow citizens, and public institutions. Principal results of structural equation models showed multiple effects of jury deliberation on attitudes, but there were no effects on one’s civic identity and political self-efficacy. Reciprocally, every civic attitude except faith in fellow citizens was predictive of deliberative experience in at least one of the two studies. Overall, the study bolsters the claim of deliberative democratic theorists that the experience of consequential face-to-face talk can make private individuals into public citizens by reinforcing their confidence in fellow citizens and public institutions.

Primacy Effects of The Daily Show and National TV News Viewing: Young Viewers, Political Gratifications, and Internal Political Self-Efficacy

This study examines program ordering effects derived from viewing CNN television news relative to The Daily Show on the political gratifications associated with both types of information sources. Internal political self-efficacy is assessed as an individual-difference moderator. Main primacy effects are found on the gratifications associated with both national television news viewing and The Daily Show viewing. However, The Daily Show primacy effect on the political gratifications associated with national television news viewing was isolated among those participants who retain low internal political self-efficacy. Ramifications for these findings are outlined and future lines of research are summarized.

Negative Political Ads and Negative Citizen Orientations toward Politics

This study examines the effects of negative political advertising on responses to a Senate and a gubernatorial race. Responses measured include: (1) knowledge about each race; (2) knowledge about a civics training media campaign; (3) confidence in knowledge about the races; (4) mood responses; (5) political cynicism; (6) political self-efficacy; and (7) voting behavior. The survey findings suggest that negative ads are associated with negative feelings toward the political races, the state, and the country; higher political cynicism; and lower perception of political self-efficacy. Implications of these findings for policy concerning political advertising are discussed.

Fuel to the Fire: Talk Radio and the Gamson Hypothesis

The so-called "Gamson hypothesis" posits that the combination of high political self-efficacy and low trust in government is the optimum condition for political mobilization. The results of research on this interaction of self-efficacy and trust, however, have been mixed. This study examines whether talk radio, which has been linked to political mobilization in recent research, acts as a mobilizing influence on persons who believe they can influence public affairs but who have little trust in government. It is also hypothesized that this interaction will be even more powerful for political conservatives. Using national survey data, a fourfold typology was created from government trust and political self-efficacy and these expectations were tested against an overall participation measure and four factors that made up the measure. Little support was found for talk radio being a more powerful predictor of participation among the high efficacy/low trust respondents as compared to other combinations of the variables. However, some support is found for an interaction between talk radio exposure and political conservatives across all the participation variables.

Self-Efficacy, Media Use as Predictors of Current-Events Knowledge

The news quiz has doubtless been used as a tool in journalism classrooms since introductory skills courses were first taught. And just as certainly, journalism instructors have gathered together in hand-wringing sessions to disdain their students' poor performance on those quizzes. However, trends showing dramatic decreases in newspaper reading among young (see Baskette, Sissors, & Brooks, 1992) have given a special imperative to concern about young people's current-affairs awareness, especially among journalism students.News quizzes seem to play two roles in journalism skills classroom: First, they act as a pedagogical catalyst to promote habitual news media use; second, quizzes serve as an evaluative device, to measure current-events knowledge. Implicit in both goals is assumption that increased news-media use will cause student to be better informed about current events. However obvious that assumption may seem, it not consider possibility that background variables other than media use may be driving current-affairs knowledge.Rosenberg's (1968) classic discussion of surveys warned of contingent associations driven by extraneous variables that go unmeasured. Such variables can be collinear with dimensions of central interest to processes under investigation. He points out that strictly speaking there are no spurious relationships, there are only spurious interpretations (p. 28).In that regard, this study looks at effects of two other background variables--political self-efficacy and grade point average--on current-affairs knowledge.Media use as a predictor of knowledge. The paradox of mass media effects research is expectation of a strong relationship, where empirical evidence supports only a weak one. Beniger (1990) documents nine theoretical attempts to unravel paradox, including agenda setting (see McCombs & Shaw, 1972), uses and gratifications (see Blumler & Katz, 1974), spiral of silence (see Katz, 1984), and more.Despite this problem, journalism skills instructors still seem to adhere to a strong effects model when they routinely administer news quizzes. That is, assumption underlying use of quizzes is that mere exposure to news media will result in increased knowledge. However, results of current-affairs knowledge quizzes given in general population do not tend to support that notion (see Newhagen & Reeves, 1992). Results from those studies group people into one of two categories described by Converse (1964). One group is very small and makes up an active, well-informed, political elite. Members are older, belong to middle class, read newspapers every day, and do very well on current-affairs quizzes. The other group, however, is large and poorly in formed, essentially existing outside political system. This group is younger and relies more on television as a source of news (see Robinson, 1975, 1976); its members do badly on current-affairs quizzes.The canons of professional journalism proscribe membership in political elite. This makes sense, because many of characteristics regarded as positive in professional journalism also are to be found among members of political elite described by Converse. The socialization of journalism students to those norms can be seen, really, as part of rites of passage into this political elite. Prominent among traits common to both is active attention to political and civic affairs. This attention is a reflection, in a sense, of political efficacy.Political self-efficacy. Political efficacy was first defined as the feeling that individual political action have, or can have, an impact upon political process, i.e., that it is worthwhile to perform one's civic duties (Campbell, Gurin, & Miller, 1954, p. 187). This definition embodies question does my vote count? and focuses on an assessment of political system more than individual's ability to cope with it. …

Political Self-Efficacy Tested

A subset of citizens in a democratic system directly test their political self-efficacy by petitioning government for assistance of one kind or another. Drawing on survey data gathered in India in 1967, this investigation focuses on the consequences of success or failure for perceived self-efficacy and for perceived government responsiveness. The analysis demonstrates that (1) successful petitioners come to enjoy a somewhat enhanced sense of self-efficacy but do not view government as particularly responsive, (2) unsuccessful petitioners do not see themselves as inefficacious but—possibly instead—do see government responsiveness in distinctly negative terms, and, (3) the kind of evidence that can help sustain a positive sense of self-efficacy will not suffice to undergird a belief in system responsiveness.