THE LOCUS OF CONTROL

Psychologists have spent years etching out patterns in personality traits that suggest that people vary in the degree to which they perceive the world. Some believe that they are capable of controlling events in their lives while others believe that they have no control over the things that are happening to them. The extent to which individuals believe that they can or cannot control events that affect them is referred to as locus of control. It is in this vein that this paper tries to explore locus of control by defining it, outlining the main concepts, bringing out the major proponent, showing how it is measured, outlining how it affects academic performance, bringing out the critics, application to the classroom and finally the conclusion.

Julian B. Rotter’sBiography

Julian B. Rotter was born in October 1916 in Brooklyn, New York, the third son of Jewish immigrant parents. Rotter’s interest in psychology began when he was in high school after reading books of Freud and Adler. After graduation, he attended the University of Iowa and minored in speech pathology. He studied with the semanticist Wendell Johnson, whose ideas had an enduring influence on Rotter’s thinking about the use and misuse of language in psychological science.

In 1941, he did his PhD in clinical psychology and became one of the very first clinical psychologists trained in what is now the traditional mode. He published Social Learning and Clinical Psychology in 1954. Rotter also held strong beliefs about how clinical psychologists should be educated.

In 1963, Rotter left Ohio State to become the director of the clinical psychology-training program at the University of Connecticut. Rotter has served as president of the American Psychological Association’s divisions of social and personality psychology and clinical psychology.

The concept of locus of control

The concept of locus of control was formulated in 1954 by the psychologist Julian Rotter. The word “locus” is a Latin word meaning (“place” or “location“) thus locus of control can be simplified as “place of control“. In his concept he was trying to locate the sense of control in individuals as to whether it is located inside (internal locus of control) or outside (external locus of control).

Rotter assumed that people vary in the degree to which they perceive the things that are happening to them as being under their own internal control or under the control of outside forces. He saw the concept of locus of control of having two dimension: at one end of the continuum the internal individuals who see themselves as being in control of events that affect them and have command over the reinforcements in their lives whereas at the other end of the continuum are the external persons who see themselves as – being ruled by powerful people or outside forces and see the reinforcements in their lives as being driven by causal sources that are independent of their own actions.

In giving it this name, Rotter was bridging behavioural and cognitive psychology. His view was that behaviour was largely guided by “reinforcements” (rewards and punishments) and that through rewards and punishments, individuals come to hold beliefs about what causes their actions. These beliefs, in turn, guide what kinds of attitudes and behaviours people adopt. Hence, the concept is related to individual difference in the way we generalize our expectancies, that is, what we think will happen to us in the future.

TYPES OF LOCUS OF CONTROL

Rotter came up with two types of locus of control, that include; the internal and external locus of control. Thus, he postulated that individuals who believe or have an expectation that they have control over their behaviour or cause events to happen possess an internal locus of control. On the other hand, those with external locus of control believe or have an expectation that they have no control over their behaviour but instead all the outcomes are due to luck, fate, chance, or other forces beyond their control.

FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO EITHER INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL LOCUS CONTROL

continued failure in spite of continued attempts at school tasks leads to an external locus of control. Thus, lack of motivation to study and to be in school in general may allow individuals to perceive failure as their destiny mostly in situation were one feels that despite working hard their efforts only bring disappointment. For example, when a child attempts to make a contribution in class and is made fun of by the teacher or peers, such a child will lose interest in school work.

The socio-economic status of an individual has also an impact on the locus of control. Students of high socio-economic status tend to have internal locus of control. This is because in such families, parents are able to provide their children with rewards that they promise. Furthermore, these families emphasize effort, education, responsibility and thinking. In addition parents in such families are very supportive and consistent in discipline there by helping their children develop internal locus of control.

In contrast, external locus control is typically associated with lower socioeconomic status. Societies that are experiencing social unrest increase the expectancy of being out of control. Therefore, people in such societies become more external and experience high external locus of control. Research conducted by Schneewind (1995) in Turnbull and Turnbull (1997), suggests that children in large single parent families headed by women are more likely to develop an external locus of control. Furthermore, it was discovered that children whose parents had an external locus of control were more likely to attribute their successes and failures to external cause.

Social stimulation:Turnbull and Turnbull (1997), further observe that in families where there is limited social stimulation, children risk experiencing developmental lags in their social lives leading to external locus of control. This is more evident in situations where parents do not spend time with their children or take them out for social events. They are highly overprotective and do not even allow their children to play with friends in the neighbourhood. When such a situation is left to go on, a child stands at a high risk of becoming socially maladaptive thereby having an external locus of control.

Sex: Mamlin, et al, (2001) have indicated that having an internal locus of control can also be referred to as “self-agency”, “personal control” or “self-determination”. As such, they argue that males tend to be more internal than females. So to some extent, gender can also be considered to be the cause of either internal or external locus of control.

AGE: Furthermore, as people get older, they tend to become internal and so, old age can also be the cause for internal locus control. As people get higher in organizational structures, they tend to be more internal than those in lower positions are.

LOCUS OF CONTROL AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

In the context of education, locus of control refers to the types of attributions people make for their successes or failures in school tasks. Thus, internal locus of control is related to higher academic achievement. For example, when receiving test results, people with an internal locus of control would praise or blame themselves and their abilities. For one’s low grade in a test, one will not blame others but will attribute his/her low grade to lack of studying. Hence, he/she will spend more time on homework as well as studying for tests.

On the other hand, external locus of control is related to low academic achievement. Here individuals don’t make an effort to change their poor grades as they strongly believe that their outcome are controlled by fate, luck, or other external circumstances which they cannot influence. As such, they will always praise or blame others for any outcome. For example, having a low grade in a test to them would be due to bad teachers, lack of enough time during the exams or may claim that they are hated by their teachers. In short, they will always point at other people or things to justify their failure or undesirable outcome. This allows the pupil to create the image that he or she is perfect keeping the self-esteem intact. Pupils with an external locus of control are more likely to respond to failure by giving up hope instead of trying harder to improve.

Locus of control also has an impact on responses to success. In one study (Kernis, 1984) in Switlick (1997), pupils were led to make either internal or external attributions for their success at a given task. Those who made an internal attribution performed better on the same task than on a different task when tested again, whereas those who made an external attribution performed better on a different task than on the same task. This suggests that internals are more likely to continue working on a task that they have succeeded at, while externals are likely to stop working on the successful task and move on to a different task.

Research has also shown that internal locus of control is closely linked to positive outcomes in life. Such people tend to be less influenced by others, more politically active, more motivated to achieve, less depressed, less stressed, and are highly successful in socio-economic status and quite happy in life. While People with a strong “external” locus of control tend not to do well and, more importantly, tend to be chronically miserable.

A study conducted by Bollini and others in Mamlin, et al, (2001) in reveals that individuals who have a high external locus of control tend to have higher levels of psychological and physical problems. These people are also more vulnerable to external influences and as a result they become more responsive to stress.