4.

LOCUS OF COTROL

LOCUS OF COTROL
"A locus of control orientation is a belief about whether the outcomes of our
actions are contingent on what we do (internal control orientation) or on events
outside our personal control (external control orientation)." (Zimbardo, 1985, p. 275)
o Aims:
 To assess one’s locus of control orientation and attribution style.
 To assess one’s personal sense of responsibility for the outcome of
situations.
 To assess how a person cope with stress to his/her motivation to take
charge of his/her life.
 To assess how one perceive the causes of his/her success or failure.
o Introduction:

Locus of control in social psychology refers to the extent to which individuals believe
that they can control events that affect them. Understanding of the concept was developed by
Julian B. Rotter in 1954, and has since become an important aspect of personality studies.
One’s “locus” (Latin for “place” or “location”) can either be internal (meaning the person
believes that they control their life) or external (meaning they believe that their environment,
some higher power, or other people control their decisions and their life).

The most famous questionnaire to measure locus of control is the 23-item forced
choice items and six filler items scale of Rotter (1966), but this is not the only questionnaire
—indeed, predating Rotter’s work by five years is Bialer’s (1961) 23-item scale for children.
Also, of relevance to locus of control scale are the Crandall Intellectual Ascription of
Responsibility Scale (Crandall, 1965), and the Nowicki-Strickland Scale. One of the earliest
psychometric scales to assess locus of control, using a Likert-type scale in contrast to the
forced-choice alternative measure in Rotter’s scale, was that devised by W.H. James, for his
unpublished doctoral dissertation, supervised by Rotter at Ohio State University, although
this remained an unpublished scale.

Locus of control is the framework of Rotter’s (1954) social learning theory of

personality. Lefcourt (1976) defined perceived locus of control as follows: “Perceived control

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is defined as a generalised expectancy for internal as opposed to external control of
reinforcements” (Lefcourt 1976, p. 27). Early work on the topic of expectancies about control

of reinforcement had, as Lefcourt explains, been performed in the 1950s by James and Phares
prepared for unpublished doctoral dissertations supervised by Rotter at The Ohio State
University. Attempts have been made to trace the genesis of the concept to the work of
Alfred Adler, but its immediate background lies in the work of Rotter students, such as
William H. James (not to be confused with William James), who studied two types of
expectancy shifts:

o typical expectancy shifts, believing that a success or failure would be followed by a

similar outcome; and
o atypical expectancy shifts, believing that a success or failure would be followed by a
dissimilar outcome.
o Work in this field led psychologists to suppose that people who were more likely to
display typical expectancy shifts were those who more likely to attribute their
outcomes to ability, whereas those who displayed atypical expectancy would be more
likely to attribute their outcomes to chance. This was interpreted as saying that people
could be divided into those who attribute to ability (an internal cause) versus those
who attribute to luck (an external cause). However, after 1970, Bernard Weiner
pointed out that attributions to ability versus luck also differ in that the former are an
attribution to a stable cause, the latter an attribution to an unstable cause.

A revolutionary paper in this field was published in 1966, in the journal Psychological
Monographs, by Rotter. In it, Rotter summarized over ten years of research by himself and
his students, much of it previously unpublished. Early history of the concept can be found in
Lefcourt (1976), who, early in his treatise on the topic, relates the concept to learned
helplessness. Rotter (1975, 1989) has discussed problems and misconceptions in others’ use
of the internal versus external control of reinforcement construct…

o Description of the Test:

The most famous questionnaire to measure locus of control is the 23-item forced
choice items and six filler items scale of Rotter (1966). Predating Rotter’s work by five years
is Bialer’s (1961) 23-item scale for children. Relevance to locus of control scale are the
Crandall Intellectual Ascription of Responsibility Scale (Crandall, 1965), and the Nowicki-

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Strickland Scale. The Locus of Control Test assesses whether a person believes that he or she
has an impact on and can control what happens in his or her life, which can impact
motivation, expectations, self-esteem, and risk-taking behavior. The study aims at clarifying
whether locus of control may act as a bias in organizational decision-making or not.

The test conducted by sending the manual which includes 20 dimensions. The person
had given a general idea about the test over phone and scheduled the time for the same. He
had given time as per his capability to fulfill the dimensions. After completing the test, he had
instructed to send back the filled format via email. Scoring proposed to give according to the
instructions.

o Materials required:

As this test done using online media, a gadget with internet connection was necessary.
After taking the printout the participant had filled all the data according to the instructions
already given. The scoring sheet already provided by the study centre. Scoring had made
using the provided manual.

o Participant’s Profile:
 Name : Mr. Kxxxxxxx P.
 Age : 48 yrs
 Gender : Male
 Education : ITI
 Occupation : Government Servant
o Procedure and Administration:
Preparation: A general instruction already given over phone. As he was an
acquainted
person no introduction was necessary.
Rapport: He was known to me for past 2 years, there was already a good rapport
between us.
Instructions: Instruction as per the manual given telephonically.
Precautions: As there was nothing to conceal, no such precautions were necessary.
Confidentiality of the report assured in the beginning. Ensured that the
participant does not omit any item.

Introspective Report: The participant was facing such a test for the first time. He was
very much eager to know what the test was? For what the test was

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 conducting? How can he be evaluated? Etc. Once he got the manual,
some of the wordings in it was confusing to him. Even though he
participated in the test with utmost interest. He was confident that he
can participate the test without others help.
Dimensions Scoring True Scoring False
1 0 0
2 0 0
3 0 5
4 5 0
5 0 5
6 0 5
7 5 0
8 5 0
o Scoring and Interpretation: The
9 0 5
scoring of the test 10 0 5 was done as per the
11 5 0
manual.
12 0 5
13 0 0
14 0 0
Table 4.1
15 5 0
16 0 0
17 5 0
18 5 0
19 0 0
20 0 5
TOTAL 0 0

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 Table 4.2
Total Score Grand
Name Age Gender Interpretation
True False Total
Internal
Mr. Kxxxxxxx P. 48 M 35 35 70 Locus of
Control

As per the Table 4.2, the participant got 35 scores towards true and 35 towards false.
The aggregate of the two scores is 70. Thus, the participant possesses Internal Locus of
Control.

o Discussion:

Someone with an internal locus of control will believe that the things that happen to
them are greatly influenced by their own abilities, actions, or mistakes. Those with an internal
locus of control are focused on what they can change, meaning they are empowered to
improve. Such people who base their success on their own work and believe they control
their life.
o Conclusion:

As per the introspective report the participant was very confident on his own ability
on the fulfillment of the test. He is a known person with blaming himself what failure
happened to him. He believes that what setbacks happens to a person only because of his/ her
own drawback and vice versa.