Citizen participation, perceived control, and psychological empowerment

TLDR

Psychological empowerment is defined as the link between personal competence, a desire to act, and willingness to engage in public affairs. The study seeks to integrate citizen participation and perceived control literature to deepen understanding of psychological empowerment. The authors identified 11 indices of empowerment and conducted three studies—one laboratory manipulation and two field studies—to examine how participation relates to these indices. Across all studies, higher participation predicted higher empowerment scores, and discriminant analysis revealed a single empowerment dimension positively associated with leadership and negatively with alienation.

Abstract

The research integrates the citizen participation literature with research on perceived control in an effort to further our understanding of psychological empowerment. Eleven indices of empowerment representing personality, cognitive, and motivational measures were identified to represent the construct. Three studies examined the relationship between empowerment and participation. The first study examined differences among groups identified by a laboratory manipulation as willing to participate in personally relevant or community relevant situations. Study II examined differences for groups defined by actual involvement in community activities and organizations. Study III replicated Study II with a different population. In each study, individuals reporting a greater amount of participation scored higher on indices of empowerment. Psychological empowerment could be described as the connection between a sense of personal competence, a desire for, and a willingness to take action in the public domain. Discriminant function analyses resulted in one significant dimension, identified as pyschological empowerment, that was positively correlated with leadership and negatively correlated with alienation.