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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's Biography
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.
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