Does collective efficacy do more harm than good?

Last week it seemed like we talked a lot about when collective efficacy is aimed towards positive goals or at least neutral things, a team winning their basketball game, teachers protesting for higher wages, playing video games, and young people fighting for climate change. And while all of that is well and good (literally), but I often think times people have as much if not more collective efficacy for negative things, for doing harm rather than good. Yes, I get this may be seen as cynical in the eyes of some, but I have always believed myself to be a realist. I cannot live in a world of dreaming of what it could be or envisioning what it might be. I tend to be realistic about where we are at, what the state of things today is, and honestly, what is likely to happen, rather than living in a world of hope.

Thus, as I think about collective efficacy what comes to mind, more than all the good, is the bad. A group of kids working together to bully someone or effectively leave them out of the group, online forums where people are attacking or tearing down someone for being different. A group of people collectively believing that others are less than them, that inherently somehow they are more than others due to their sexual orientation, the color of their skin, or the god(s) that they believe in. When the shared purpose of a group is about tearing others down, harming them, belittling them, even killing them. It seems to me that collective efficacy towards “negative things” (yes I understand I am calling them negative and others may not), can do a whole lot of harm, may permeate society more than collective efficacy for positive things.  Negativity seems to spread like wildfire, as Ariana touched on in her post last week, and is the base for many people's actions. Particularly in online settings, there are all kinds of websites, groups, etc. created with the sole purpose of getting people together who all believe in harming others in the same way. With all the harm of negative collective efficacy, is it actually a good thing?

Further, as I think about this idea more ( I won’t bore you with all my rambling thoughts), I cannot help but wonder how an outsider can alter, break up, or change the collective efficacy of a group. As a teacher if a group of students have a lot of collective efficacy for bullying another child, how as an outsider, can one alter their collective efficacy and get them to shift it towards something more positive or at least stop having it for being bullies? How can we get white pride fanatics who have insane levels of collective efficacy for their mission and their goal, of protecting the white race, how can you break up that collective efficacy? How can you change or limit the collective efficacy of religious extremists? Is it all about getting individuals one by one to feel less collective efficacy for the mission and more self-efficacy for something else? Is it about getting them to keep having high levels of collective efficacy but for something different more positive? Can we combat the power of collective efficacy aimed at hurt, and harm of others?