To Örebro University

By scrutinizing previous research, I offer a merger of the two research disciplines concerning the conceptof political efficacy, i.e. the perception held by individuals of their own abilities to execute actions aimedat producing a change in society. Four pathways for how political efficacy develops, building on themerged perspective, are then tested in a single two-step hierarchical OLS regression. The results showthat mastery experiences, role models, encouragement, and empowering outlooks in a political settingare predictors of youths’ political efficacy, over and above the effects of political interest and perceivedpolitical knowledge. This study contributes to theorizing about the development of political efficacy bydiscussing understanding of the concept, with input from both political science and psychology, and byempirically testing an existing multidisciplinary theory