Applied & Preventive Psychology 1:127-129 (1992). Cambridge University Press. Printed in the USA.
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Some comments on the
"Cognates of personal control"
JULIAN B. ROTTER
University of Connecticut, Storrs
Since the appearance of the monograph on internal ver-
sus external control of reinforcement (Rotter, 1966),
which detailed the theory of "locus of control" and nu-
merous empirical studies going back to 1957, a wide
interest in this variable has been expressed in the social
sciences. As is often the case, the concept has spawned a
series of overlapping, more specific, and related terms.
The monograph reviewed the history of this concept
and introduced a definition that could be easily opera-
tionalized. The concept was applied to learning theory
(chance vs. skill learning situation), and, perhaps of
greater significance to many, data reported in the mono-
graph strongly suggested that relatively stable individual
differences in locus of control could be measured and
used predictively. Previous literature, much of it socio-
logical, had focused primarily on situational or group
differences.
In the literally thousands of studies using this measure
of individual differences, misinterpretations of the con-
cept and the measure were common.
The most common misinterpretation involved the
issue of generality-specificity. In social learning theory,
all broad personality characteristics develop at least par-
tially as a result of a process of generalization; but there
is a gradient of generalization encompassing specificity as
well as generality. Just as there may be a broad need for
achievement, there is also specificity, in that the need for
academic achievement for a person will differ in strength
from the need for athletic achievement. I have attempted
to clarify these and other issues in regard to locus of
control (Rotter, 1975).
As a generalized expectancy that reinforcements occur
as a result of one's own behavior or characteristics, locus
of control operates most strongly in situations that are
relatively novel or ambiguous. Situations in which skill is
dearly recognized by the culture as the major determi-
nant and in which the individual has had considerable
Send correspondence and reprint requests to Julian B. Rotter, Psy-
chology Department, University of Connecticut, Box U-20, Room 207,
406 Cross Campus Road, Storrs, CT 06268.
127
experience would involve locus of control only mini-
mally, as in doing arithmetic problems or dancing. In
such situations, an expectancy for success would depend
primarily on the past history of reinforcement in this task
and others regarded by the person as similar (Rotter,
1954, 1982a).
Locus of Control and Self-Efficacy
Both locus of control and self-efficacy deal with expec-
tancies for reinforcement; otherwise, I see no important
theoretical or necessary relationship between these two
concepts. In Western culture, one might expect that peo-
ple who are reinforced for their efforts more often are
likely to have a higher expectancy for success, whether
specific or general, in skill situations (self-efficacy) and to
have a stronger belief that their own efforts brought
about these reinforcements than those who fail more
often might have. In individual cases in our culture and
in many Eastern cultures, however, people may believe
that fate, luck, chance, or powerful others may control
these reinforcements, whether or not they are frequently
negative or positive.
From the beginning of social learning theory (Rotter,
1954), an expectancy has always been defined as a subjec-
tive expectancy. Operationally, an expectancy involving
passing an arithmetic test is the same as an expectancy
involving performance of the acts necessary to pass the
test. Bandura is simply mistaken in stating that outcome
expectancies differ from expectancies for success (or the
capability of successfully accomplishing a task), as was
clearly pointed out by Kirsch (1985). The problem with
inventing new terms to replace old ones is that the history
and accumulated knowledge obtained with the old term
is ignored and researchers repeat old mistakes rather
than building on what is already known, as Kirsch (1986)
carefully documented. For example, problems associated
with the measurement of such expectancies have been
thoroughly explored in the "level of aspiration" litera-
ture (Rotter, 1954) and have been more or less ignored in
measures of self-efficacy.
128
Expectancies for success in a task have been frequently
investigated and manipulated in cognitive skill and
motor skill tasks (Rotter, 1954) and in studies of phobic
reactions and psychotherapy (Efran & Marcia, 1972;
Kirsch, 1982; Piper, Wogan & Getter, 1972; Schoen-
berger, Kirsch, & Rosengard, 1991). The concept of self-
efficacy would probably not have contributed anything
new or aided prediction in these studies. Locus of con-
trol, however, introduces an additional expectancy (will
it be an unfair test?) that neither self-efficacy or expect-
ancy for success include and will affect such behaviors as
preparation, effort, and persistence. In his original dis-
cussion of self-efficacy, Bandura did not include elements
of internal control but later uses did (Corcoran, 1991).
This inclusion seems only to make the concept of self-
efficacy even less precise and less dear.
Locus of Control and Explanatory Style
The concept of personal control over severe aversive or
traumatic events could be regarded as a more specific
locus of control, similar to locus of control for health-
related outcomes. Investigations of both antecedents and
consequences of learned helplessness have clearly added
to the applications of the locus of control literature.
However; the attribution of external or internal causality
involves something more than an expectation that one
can or cannot control events. Presumably, these attribu-
tions are after the fact events and defensive reactions,
particularly for negative events, are of prime significance
(Rotter, 1982b). Such attributions are different for fail-
ures in skill tasks than in traumatic events such as death
of a loved one. In any case, they may be more closely
related to defensive externality than to passive, congru-
ent, or true externality. Defensive externals are individu-
als who verbally give external reasons for past failure but
who clearly act as if their behavior will determine out-
comes. Such individuals can be identified and their be-
havior predicted (Hochreich, 1974, 1975; Phares, Ritchie,
& Davis, 1968; Rotter, 1975).
Nevertheless, a study or analysis of the tasks or events
REFERENCES
Corcoran, K. J. (1991). Efficacy, "skills," reinforcement and
choice behavior. American Psychologist, 46, 155-157.
de Charmes, R. (1968). Personal causation. New York: Aca-
demic Press.
Efran, J. S., & Marcia, J. E. (1972). Systematic desensitization
and social learning. In J. B. Rotter, J. E. Chance, & E. J.
Phares (Eds.), Applications of a social learning theory of
personality (pp. 524-532). New York: Holt, Rinehart, and
Winston.
Hochreich, D. J. (1974). Defensive externality and attribution
of responsibility. Journal of Personality, 42, 543-557.
Rotter
that, apart from individual differences, lead people in our
culture to perceive an event as internally or externally
controlled or as skill or chance controlled is a valuable
area of study. How individuals act after such perceptions
is, of course, already the subject of several thousand
studies of individual differences and of many studies of
differences in behavior in culturally defined skill and
chance tasks (Rotter, 1966, 1990).
Cognates of Locus of Control
In social learning theory, the concept of need potential
refers to a generalized potential to act in a way to obtain
a goal or a set of similar or related goals (achievement
behaviors or dependency behaviors), and the behaviors
themselves are commonly predictable. However, in a
generalized expectancy for problem solving, such as
locus of control, the nature of the problem the person is
faced with cuts across many different need areas, and the
similarity of behaviors for making new friends to behav-
iors for mastering a new motor task is not so obvious.
The original notion of locus of control is probably
most similar to the sociological concept of alienation
(Seeman, 1959). Although not relevant to all problem
situations, locus of control is related to such concepts as
passivity, dependency, impulsivity, and learned helpless-
ness, (focusing primarily on the external end of the varia-
ble) and to such concepts as planning, coping, persis-
tence, practice, analyzing situations, other problem
solving techniques, and de Charmes's (1968) construct of
personal causation (focusing on the internal end of the
variable).
Although it has not been experimentally investigated,
extreme internality could lead to debilitating guilt and
self-blame following trauma or failure, which could be a
nonadaptive response, particularly when the perception
is mistaken.
As a consequence, one determinant of optimal adjust-
ment requires not extreme internality but good or veridi-
cal discrimination of the determinants of reinforcement
in any situation.
Hochreich, D. J. (1975). Defensive externality and blame pro-
jection following failure. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 32, 540-546.
Kirsch, I. (1982). Efficacy expectations or response predictions:
The meaning of efficacy ratings as a function of task charac-
teristics. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42,
132-136.
Kirsch, I. (1985). Self-efficacy and expectancy: Old wine with
new labels. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49,
824-830.
Kirsch, I. (1986). Early research on self-efficacy:What we al-
 Comments on "'Cognates of Personal Control"
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Piper, W. E., Wogan, W., & Getter, H. (1972). Social learning
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Rotter, J. B. (1954). Social learning and clinical psychology.
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Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal ver-
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Rotter, J. B. (1975). Some problems and misconceptions related
129
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Rotter, J. B. (1982a). The development and application of social
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