Efficacy


 * Definition**

The term efficacy shares a similar etymology with the word effect, and its original meaning was to “accomplish” (Efficacy, 2010). Today the Oxford English Dictionary defines the general meaning of efficacy to be “power or capacity to produce effects” or “a process or mode of effecting a result” (Efficacy). However, like effect, the concept of efficacy has developed distinct meanings within the Communication realm.

Efficacy, or more specifically self-efficacy as applied to Communication, Persuasion, and Psychology, was the conceptual brain-child of psychologist Albert Bandura, who dedicated much of his life’s work to the role of efficacy in human behavior (see, for example, Bandura, 1977; 1982; 1984; 1986; 1994; 1997).


 * Bandura's view on self-efficacy**

According to Bandura, self-efficacy is “concerned not with the number of skills you have, but with what you believe you can do with what you have under a variety of circumstances” (1997, p. 37). These beliefs often, at least partially, determine how people think, feel, and behave in a given circumstance (Bandura, 1997, p. 37; 1994, p. 71). Those with highly perceived self-efficacy take on challenges more easily, have a stronger sense of commitment to interests, and cope better with unexpected events or disappointments (Bandura, 1994; p. 75). However, those with low self-efficacy judge their capabilities more harshly, thus avoiding challenges and often failing at tasks perceived to be beyond their abilities (Bandura, 1982, p.123; Bandura, 1994, p. 75).

Furthermore, Bandura argued that the development of self-efficacy related to any singular task is cyclical; as one masters a particular skill, this reinforces or increases the belief one can perform that skill and believing one can perform the skill improves the actual performance of the skill (Bandura, 1994, p. 79). The conceptualization that personal efficacy is a belief that one is capable of doing something has been adopted by the majority of scholars across a variety of fields both within and related to Communication (for example, Dijkstra & DeVries, 2000, p. 501; Bohn, 2002, p. 65; Stephenson & Witte, 2001, p. 94; Conner & Norman, 2005, p. 11). It is worth noting that although some scholarship uses the term agency and efficacy interchangeably, these are related but distinct concepts from one another.According to Bandura (1997), agency refers to the power one possesses to act intentionally, whereas efficacy is a factor of agency referring to the belief that one has the ability to act (p. 3).


 * Collective Efficacy**

Within Communication, efficacy is often considered within the specific contexts of collective efficacy, organizational efficacy, or self-/personal efficacy. Collective efficacy refers to a whole social system’s shared belief or judgment of their capabilities to act on a particular issue (Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997, p. 919; Bandura, 1997, p. 469), and is often studied within the context of communities. For example, Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls found that collective efficacy was a moderator for neighborhood stratification and associated violent crime (1997, p. 920).


 * Organizational Efficacy**

Organizational efficacy is related to collective efficacy in the sense that it involves the combined beliefs of a group of individuals to act as a whole, but differs in that it deals with structured organizations in particular. According to Bohn (2002), organizational efficacy “exists as an aggregated judgement of an orgnaization’s individual members about their (1) sense of collective capacities, (2) sense of mission or purpose, and (3) a sense of resilience” (p. 65). Efficacy within organizational sub-groups or of whole organizations has been studied in Communication and related fields and has examined issues such as efficacy and organizational commitment (Len & Peng, 2010), leadership (Arnetz & Blomkvist, 2007), organizational citizenship behaviors (Dussault, 2006), and even workplace safety adherence (Real, 2008). Additionally, Bandura (1997) discussed how efficacy might affect behaviors with respect to organizational and managerial decision making and adaptation (pp. 450-451). To further explain the interconnectedness of collective or organizational efficacy and personal efficacy, Bandura (1997) states,

Although perceived personal and group efficacy are clearly separable conceptually, in reality they usually go together because people have to rely, at least to some extent, on others in accomplishing their tasks. People working independently within a group structure do not function as social isolates totally immune to the influence of those around them (p. 469).


 * Self-/ Personal Efficacy**

While collective and organizational efficacies are conceptually important, personal efficacy has received the lion’s share of attention within communication research. Although personal or self-efficacy is sometimes used within interpersonal communication to hypothesize the success of particular interactions, it is most commonly employed as a variable or moderating factor within the health behavior and persuasion as well as media and political literature. The concept is a psychological one; that is, it pertains to one’s beliefs about oneself. However, this cognitive process has proven an important predictor in the success of persuasive health prevention, intervention, and detection efforts (Bandura, 1997, p. 279) in a variety of health contexts including exercise, diabetes regimen adherence, self-breast exams, and smoking cessation, among others (Maddux, Brawley, & Boykin, 1995, pp. 176-177, 181). The more likely one is to believe they have the ability to do a particular recommended action, the more motivated they are to follow through with that action, and persuasive efforts to increase one’s self-efficacy have been shown to effectively increase intention to act (Bandura, 1997, p. 101).

Self-efficacy has also been addressed by political communication scholars. For instance, Kenski and Stroud (2006) found that exposure to political information via the Internet has the potential to increase both internal (self) efficacy and external efficacy (effectiveness of the political system) (p. 187). This increased self-efficacy, in turn, may lead to greater political participation and active citizenship as "political efficacy is a determinant of political behavior" (p. 174). Furthermore, scholars argue that those who engage in newspapaper browsing experience a greater degree of perceived social and political self-efficacy as a result of their ability to engage in informed interpersonal discussions regarding current events (Tewksbury et. al, 2008, p. 267). Thus, it appears that such scholars study self-efficacy in the context of its potential to increase engagement and interpersonal interaction regarding citizenship.


 * Efficacy in Health Behavior**

Because of this important predictor, a number of health persuasion theories and models have incorporated efficacy as a variable or factor. For example, the health belief model, protection motivation theory, stages of change model, social cognitive theory and theory of planned behavior all utilize efficacy to help predict health behavior change, as well as to help design messages to facilitate that change (Conner & Norman, 2005, pp. 8-12; Maddux, Brawley, & Boykin, 1995, pp. 182-185).

One theoretical approach which largely relies on efficacy messages in order to have desired effects is fear appeal. Many scholars argue that fear appeal messages must possess efficacy components, including both self-efficacy (the belief that one can do an action) and response efficacy/outcome expectancy (the belief that a recommended action will have a desired outcome) (Perloff, 2008, p. 272; Witte, 2001, pp. 94-98; Witte, Meyer, & Martell, 2001, p. 21). To change a health behavior after exposure to a fear appeal, people must believe there is a corresponding action they are capable of doing and that the action will successfully alleviate the threat (Beck & Lund, 1981, p. 403; Witte, p. 94-98; Witte, Meyer, and Martell, pp. 26-27).

Efficacy has also been approached theoretically in an interpersonal health communication context, specifically within doctor-patient interactions. The ask, understand, and remember assessment (AURA) is designed to measure a patients' perceived self-efficacy when attempting to obtain and process information from their doctor. Scholars argue that by increasing this communication self-efficacy, the patient may be better able to act on the information they receive (Clayman et. al, 2010, p. 76).

Currently, efficacy is continuing to be reconceputalized by applying the theory to different skills or stages of varying behavioral health changes. For example, Dijkstra and DeVries (2000) recategorized efficacy based on tasks (“situational,” “skill,” “relapse,” and “try”) and examined whether these specific types of self-efficacies were distinct concepts in a smoking cessation program:
 * 1) Situational-- "the perceived self efficacy with regard to engaging in [a] new behavior in different situations" (p. 502).
 * 2) Skill-- perceived self efficacy in relation to the skills needed to overcome obstacles that go against the behavior change (p. 502).
 * 3) Relapse-- perceived self efficacy regarding the ability to continue behavioral changes even in the face of a relapse (p. 502).
 * 4) Try-- perceived self efficacy relating to attempting to temporarily or partially adopt a new behavior (p. 502).

They found these four types of efficacies were distinguishable from one another and, furthermore, that a //situational// task was further segmented into social and emotional efficacy (p. 507). Studies like this show that efficacy is a multi-layered complex cognitive process that continues to warrant new exploration.

Because of its psychological origins, much self-efficacy research continues to develop in Psychology and other fields. However, the conceptual overlap only adds to the growing body of work on efficacy and Communication researchers continue to discover new and important implications for Communication scholarship.

Moderate Edits by Heather Zupancic (July 2012).

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 * References**

Arnetz, B., & Blomvkist, V. (2007). [|Leadership, mental health, and organizational efficacy in health care organizations.] Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 76, 242-248.

Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84, 191-215.

Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. American Psychologist, 37, 122-147.

Bandura, A. (1984). Recycling misconceptions of perceived self-efficacy. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 8, 231-255.

Bandura, A. (1986). The explanatory and predictive scope of self-efficacy theory. Journal of Clinical and Social Psychology, 4, 359-373.

Bandura, A. (1994). Self-efficacy. In V.S. Ramachaudran (Ed.), Encyclopedia of human behavior, 4. New York: Academic Press, pp. 71-81.

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.

Beck, K.H., & Lund, A.K. (1981). The effects of health threat seriousness and personal efficacy upon intentions and behavior. Journal of Applied Social Pscyhology, 11(5), 401-415.

Bohn, J.G. (2002). The relationship of perceived leadership behaviors to organizational efficacy. The Journal of Leadership and Organization Studies, 9, 65-79.

Clayman, M. L., Pandit, A. U., Bergeron, A. R., Cameron, K. A., Ross, E., & Wolf, M. S. (2010). Ask, Understand, Remember: A Brief Measure of Patient Communication Self-Efficacy Within Clinical Encounters. // Journal Of Health Communication //, // 15 //72-79. doi:10.1080/10810730.2010.500349

Conner, M., & Norman, P. (2005). Predicting health behavior: A social cognition approach. In M. Conner & P. Norman (Eds.), Predicting health behavior (2nd ed.), (pp. 1-27). Berkshire, England: Open University Press.

Dijkstra, A., & De Vries, H. (2000). Self-efficacy expectations with regard to different tasks in smoking cessation. Psychology and Health, 15, 501-511.

Dussault, M. (2006). Teachers’ self-efficacy and organizational citizenship behaviors. Psychological Reports, 98, 27-32.

Efficacy. (2010). In Oxford English Dictionary online. Retrieved from []

Kenski, K., & Stroud, N. (2006). Connections between Internet use and political efficacy, knowledge, and participation. Journal Of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, //50//(2), 173-192. doi:10.1207/s15506878jobem5002_1 Lin, C., & Peng, T. (2010). From organizational citizenship behaviour to team performance: The mediation of group cohesion and collective efficacy. Management and Organization Review, 6, 55-75.

Maddux, J.E., Brawley, L., & Boykin, A. (1995). Self-efficacy and health behavior: Prevention, promotion, and detection. In J.E. Maddux (Ed.), Self-efficacy, adaptation, and adjustment (pp. 193-202). New York: Plum Press.

Perloff, R.M. (2008). The dynamics of persuasion: Communication and attitudes in the 21st century (3rd ed.). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Real, K. (2008). Information seeking and workplace safety: A field application of the risk perception attitude framework. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 36, 339-359.

Sampson, R.J., Raudenbush, S.W., & Earls, F. (1997). Neighborhoods and violent crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science, 277, 918-924.

Stephenson, M.T., & Witte, K. (2001). Creating fear in a risky world: Generating effective health risk messages. In R.E. Rice & C.K. Atkins (Eds.), Public communication campaigns (3rd ed.), (pp. 88-102). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Tewksbury, D., Hals, M. L., & Bibart, A. (2008). The efficacy of news browsing: The relationship of news consumption style to social and political efficacy. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, //85//(2), 257-272.

Witte, K., Meyer, G., & Martell, D. (2001). Effective health risk messages: A step-by-step guide. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.