Mutual Efficacy and Collective Efficacy: Preventing Neighborhood Disorder

Background: Neighborhood disorder refers to public behaviors that are threatening to residents such as public intoxication, and physical markers like garbage on the streets, graffiti, and abandoned buildings.  Neighborhood disorder is associated with multiple negative outcomes for youth including substance use, mental health issues, physical health issues, and exposure to violence.  Collective efficacy is typically thought of as a combination of social cohesion (e.g. trust, reciprocity, and shared values) and informal social control (e.g. willingness to prevent delinquent behaviors), and is associated with lower levels of social disorder, and better outcomes for youth.

Despite its widespread use in research, social work interventions have struggled to raise collective efficacy.   One possible explanation for this struggle is that an important component of collective efficacy – the belief that collective action can be successful – is not currently included in the discussion of collective efficacy.  This study creates a new concept called, “mutual efficacy,” that is defined as, “community members’ beliefs that collective action will be successful at attaining group goals,” and explores whether or not mutual efficacy mediates the relationship between social cohesion and informal social control.

Method:  Data for this study were drawn from the Seattle Neighborhoods and Crime Survey.  Collective efficacy was measured using eight items based on the original measure developed by Sampson and colleagues.  Mutual efficacy was measured using two items that assess residents’ perceptions of how effective:  1) small groups of neighbors, and 2) organized neighborhood clubs or groups would be at solving neighborhood problems.   

This study is informed the following research questions:  RQ1:  Are social cohesion, mutual efficacy, and informal social control three separate concepts on both the individual and neighborhood level?  RQ2:  Does mutual efficacy mediate the relationship between social cohesion and informal social control.  RQ1 will be tested using multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (MCFA), and RQ2will be tested using a structural equation model (SEM).  Control variables in the SEM are gender, employment, race, and home ownership.

Results:  The study sample consists of 3,365 Seattle residents.  The average age was 48.56 years (sd = 16.32). Two-thirds of the sample owned their home (67.4%; n = 2,267) and were employed (66.8%; n = 2,247) at the time of the survey.  Roughly half of the sample was female (51.9%; n = 1,747) and the sample was predominantly white (77.8%, n = 2,619).

Both the MCFA and SEM demonstrated acceptable model fit.  The MCFA showed that social cohesion, mutual efficacy, and informal social control are three separate concepts at both the individual and neighborhood level.  Further, the SEM demonstrated that mutual efficacy partially mediates the relationship between social cohesion and informal social control controlling for gender, employment, race, and home ownership.

Conclusions:  Findings suggest that collective efficacy is more nuanced than previously suggested.  Future research can continue to develop mutual efficacy, explore other factors that may mediate the relationship between social cohesion and informal social control, and develop methods to raise mutual efficacy in neighborhoods in order to improve outcomes for youth.