Collective efficacy

Collective efficacy is a group’s shared belief in its capacity to coordinate action and achieve common goals. It combines mutual trust with willingness to act together.

Social cohesion: The strength of relationships and solidarity among members of a social group. Trusting relationships help community members coordinate, but cohesion alone does not ensure action.
Albert Bandura: A psychologist known for social-cognitive theory and research on self-efficacy. Bandura developed collective efficacy as a group-level extension of perceived capability.
Neighborhood effects: Influences of local social and physical environments on residents’ opportunities and outcomes. Collective efficacy is studied as a neighborhood-level influence on residents’ lives.
Social disorganization theory: A theory linking neighborhood conditions and weakened social organization to crime and other outcomes. Collective efficacy reframes neighborhood social organization around trust and shared intervention.
Informal social control: A community’s capacity to regulate behavior through everyday interactions rather than formal institutions. Collective efficacy becomes visible when neighbors intervene for shared norms and safety.
Social cognitive theory: A theory explaining behavior through interactions among personal factors, actions, and environments. Collective efficacy emerged within this account of how beliefs shape coordinated behavior.
Crime prevention: Policies and practices intended to reduce crime or prevent it from occurring. Community coordination can support prevention without relying solely on formal enforcement.
Neighborhood violence: Violence occurring within or affecting a local residential area. Studies examine whether collective efficacy helps explain differences in violence between neighborhoods.
Social capital: Resources available through social networks, relationships, and shared norms. Networks and reciprocal ties can supply the connections that coordinated community action requires.
Robert Sampson: A sociologist whose research examines neighborhoods, crime, and social organization. Sampson brought collective efficacy into influential empirical studies of urban neighborhoods.

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