PRACTICE
5.3. EMPOWERMENT'S LINKS WITH OTHER CONSTRUCTS
5.3.1. Empowerment and personality constructs
Empowerment overlaps with a variety of personality concepts including self esteem and self efficacy as well as various aspects of control such as locus of control and learned helplessness.
Self esteem is one of the constructs measured on the empowerment questionnaire and refers to an individual's judgements of his/her own worth (Coopersmith, 1967 in Zimbardoet al., 1995), usually operationalised as the gap between a person's ideal and actual sense of self (Scott and Spencer, 1998). Although only directly explored in a few studies (Kieffer, 1984), a rise in self esteem among empowered individuals and communities is to be expected as
interventions aimed at developing greater control over the environment and seeking to evoke latent strengths and competencies would presumably also lead to a higher sense of self worth.
Differences in self esteem have been linked to a variety of behaviours and experiences. People with higher self esteem are found to be more resilient at handling stress (Brown and McGill,
1989 in Baron, 1995), experience fewer negative emotions and depression (Straumann and Higgins, 1988 in Baron, 1995),have greater confidence in their ability to realise goals (Wells and Marwell, 1976 in Baron, 1995)and are more likely to seek out situations where they excel (Baumeister, 1997),than individuals with low self esteem. They also have a clearer, more consistent view of themselves and their abilities, and are better able to organise their
performance than individuals with a low self esteem, who tend to have a confused, unstable and contradictory view of the self (Campbell, 1990 in Baumeister, 1997).Taken together these findings suggest multiple possible benefits of empowerment, through its impact on raising low self esteem, as hopefully achieved by the empowerment programme in the current study.
Self efficacy refers to "beliefs in one's own capabilities to organise and execute the course of action required to produce given attainments" (Bandura, 1997, p.3), and hence academic self
efficacy can be thought of as beliefs regarding one's ability to succeed academically. Self efficacy may lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. Students with strong beliefs in their academic abilities, for example, put more effort into their studies and hence do well, while those who have little confidence in their ability to succeed often lose motivation and thus fail. The empowerment programme thus sought to impact on students' self efficacy regarding their academic performance by providing opportunities for mastery of learning using an approach similar to the Science Foundation Programme discussed in the previous chapter
(Grayson, 1994).
Direct links have been explored between empowerment and self-efficacy, with Zimmerman and Rappaport (1988) finding a moderate correlation between self efficacy and other aspects included in their construct of psychological empowerment and also fmding that individuals who participated in their communities had a higher self efficacy than those who did not.
Empowerment also overlaps with the study of control, and in particular constructs such as learned helplessness and locus of control. The latter (Rotter, 1966) distinguishes between people on the basis of their tendency to expect outcomes to be the result of their own behaviour or external, uncontrollable forces. Individuals with an internal locus of control perceive
reinforcements as contingent on their own behaviour or internal characteristics, while those with an external locus of control claim to have no control over outcomes but rather view these as a result of fate, luck, powerful others or uncontrollable forces (Rotter, 1966).
Locus of control is linked to empowerment in a number of studies and theoretical approaches.
Rappaport's definition (1987) includes a psychological sense of control as one of the two key aspects of empowerment. He stresses, however, that this, on its own, does not constitute empowerment, but must be combined with actual participation in the community.
Zimmerman (1995) also includes locus of control as part of the intra-personal component of psychological empowermellt, but combines this with interactional and behavioural
components. Locus of control is also included as one of eleven measures of psychological empowermentinZimmerman and Rappaport's study (1988), and a measure of personal and community control forms part of Zimmermanet al. 's study of psychological
empowerment (1992).
Although usually treated as a stable personality trait, recent studies (Cooper, 1991 and Lefcourt, 1981 both in Ncgobo, 1995) suggest that locus of control might have more in·
common with the context-dependent notion of empowerment than at fust seemed the case. As with empowerment (Rappaport, 1984b), it now seems possible for locus of control to vary with life experiences, and for individuals to demonstrate an internal locus of control in one context, but not another (Perkel, 1988 in Ngcobo, 1995).
The aspect of control most closely linked to empowerment is that of learned helplessness, the process whereby experiences of non-control over outcomes lead to a state of helplessness and passivity, even in future controllable situations (Peterson, Maier and Seligman, 1993). Applied to human subjects three components are demonstrated. Firstly a random, uncontrollable
relation between actions and outcomes is experienced. This is followed by cognitions as the individual perceives the relationship as uncontrollable, explains what has happened and forms an expectation of the uncontrollability of future events. Finally these cognitions are acted upon, leading to passive behavioural responses (Petersonet al., 1993).
The observation of high levels of learned helplessness among black students, which motivated this study, may thus have been the result of their perception that no matter how hard they worked they did not achieve success in Psychology. This led to an expectation of future failure and hence they responded passively and gave up trying.
To explain the conditions under which helplessness in one situation generalises to another, concepts from attribution theory are proposed as mediating between one's experience of an uncontrollable event and enduring passive behaviour. Attributions are made along three dimensions. Firstly they are made in terms of the specificity or globality of the cause, which determines whether expectations of hopelessness are limited to one situation or generalise to others. Secondly the event is explained as stable or unstable. This determines whether
expectations of helplessness persist over time. Lastly events are explained as due to internal or external causes. lfthe event is perceived as due to internal causes, loss of self esteem is likely.
Hence an individual who makes global, stable and internal attributions for uncontrollable events will experience a generalised, long-lasting state of learned helplessness and a drop in self esteem (Petersonet al., 1993).
black students who blamed the system for their failures showed higher levels of social activism than those who took responsibility for failures. This study advances learned
helplessness theory by indicating that non-control does not necessarily lead to helplessness but may facilitate change, depending on how a community interpret uncontrollable events. This has implications for intervention, allowing for the identification of strategies whereby expectancies of non-control can be changed and unrealistic attributions adjusted to more specific, external and unstable ones, thus preventing the experience of passivity.
5.3.2. Empowerment and social constructs:
Empowerment also has much in common with various social constructs including the concepts of power, sense of community, social support and collective efficacy. Collective efficacy is an extension of Bandura's concept of self efficacy, and refers to "a group's shared beliefs in its conjoint capabilities to organise and execute the course of action required to produce given levels of attainments" (Bandura, 1997, p. 477). Bandura promotes collective efficacy as a theoretically sounder construct than empowerment, due to the vast body of research and theory related to self efficacy. Results of many studies demonstrate that across diverse types of groups, collective efficacy is a strong predictor of group performance, with groups holding stronger beliefs about their collective ability, able to achieve more than those with weaker collective efficacy (Bandura, 1983 and Prussia and Kinicki, 1996, both in Bandura, 1997).It should be remembered, however, that cognitive aspects such as group beliefs are merely one aspect of the multidimensional construct of empowerment. Aspects of empowerment such as democratic participation in the community, and socio-political understanding of the barriers to empowerment are not included in Bandura's collective efficacy concept.
Social support refers to the enduring support of family, friends and colleagues, who provide one with information, material resources and emotional support (Perkel, 1988 in Ngcobo, 1995). Social support leads individuals to believe they are valued and belong to a community.
Social support has been directly linked to empowerment in a number of studies, including those of Zimmerman (1995) where it forms the basis for his interpersonal component of psychological empowerment, and Speer and Hughey (1995) who argue that empowerment depends in part on the strength of interpersonal relations among community members.
The closely allied concept of sense of community also has links to empowerment. Studies have found that people with a strong relational attachment to their community also tend to participate actively in that community and feel empowered within it (Chavis and Newbrough,
1986, Chavis and Wandersman, 1990 and McMillan and Chavis, 1986). This makes sense as many aspects of empowerment, including gathering resources, forming coalitions and
instituting plans of action depend on a common purpose in the community. Hence it is easier to exert collective influence if the community is a close-knit, supportive one than if members are alienated and disconnected from one another.
Supportive group relations and a sense of common purpose were key aspects of the
empowerment programme for this study. Various strategies were used to encourage a sense of unity within the group, including provision of many opportunities for group discussion, exercises to encourage friendship formation and the encouragement of peer study groups.
The link between empowerment and power is an important one, although directly explored by only a few authors such as Speer and Hughey (1995) who explore the relationship between the empowerment of community members and social power, as discussed earlier. Riger (1984) also explores the links between formal power and empowerment, in her exploration of
feminist organisations. She claims that it is simplistic to assume that empowerment implies the equalisation of power, arguing that organisations that adopt a completely non-hierarchical, collectivist structure, such as many student or feminist organisations, often fail. This is due to their lack of structure, an obsession with process rather than reaching goals, a decision making style based on emotion rather than rational appraisal of alternatives, and the lengthy time required for consultation. Instead, Riger advocates the notion of "mandated responsibility" as empowering, whereby the collective give power to key individuals to make decisions, with clear rules of accountability and mutual respect for one another.
Itis therefore important to distinguish between empowerment and power. The former implies a feeling of self control and active community participation while the latter suggests a formal, structural position of authority in an organisational hierarchy (Zimmerman, 1995). This highlights one of the strengths of empowerment interventions, namely that it is possible for organisational members with low status and little authority to exert influence in an empowered manner (Mechanic, 1962). Gruber and Trickett's (1987) analysis of the participation of parents
and pupils on a school decision making board, for example, revealed that parents and pupils became empowered even though power to change school policy still resided with the school authorities. Parents and pupils gained the confidence to suggest areas for change, developed an understanding of the resources and constraints of the school system and were able to monitor the actions of school authorities, despite their relative lack of formal authority. This issue is of relevance to the current thesis, and will be referred to again later. The programme was not planned to change students' formal position within the university hierarchy. However it was hoped that they would, nonetheless, grow in confidence and control and thus be able to make a contribution to wider change processes .
5.3.3. Empowerment as a bridge between the personal and the political:
Although empowerment overlaps with all of the above concepts, none shares its complex nature. Although self efficacy or control, for example, overlap with the first part of Rappaport's (1987) definition of empowerment (a sense of personal control), they do not overlap with the second half (actual participation in one's community), essential for empowerment to move beyond the intra-psychic to the community and social domains.
Studies such as those ofZimmerman (1990a) and Zimmermanet al. (1992) also demonstrate that control is merely one aspect of empowerment, with other aspects including skills and self development, interpersonal relationships and organisational and community participation.
Empowerment theory and practice can thus be thought of as a valuable bridge between a set of mainstream personality and cognitive constructs like control and self efficacy, on the one hand, and broader issues such as power, sense of community and democratic participation on the other hand. What it offers constructs like control or self efficacy, is evidence of actual experiences of control applied to real life settings rather than research limited to perceptions of increased control in laboratory settings. At the same time it provides intervention strategies that concretise abstract notions like power and politics, indicating how communities and individuals can gain greater control over their environment and increase their access to societal resources. Itthus remains for the last chapter of this literature review to explore some of these strategies as used within various interventions and research studies, with particular emphasis on the application to education, before offering a critique of work in the area
of empowerment.