Locus of Control (LOC) relates to a person attributing events internally or externally to themselves. An individual with an internal LOC would believe their behavior or reactions have a direct impact on their lives, the events occurring in their lives and their future. In other words, good things happen because the person behaves in a right way according to their standards and they are goal oriented by nature (Friedman & Schustack, 2016). Internally focused individuals tend to be achievement and goal oriented. A good marriage or promotion is the result of hard work, not good luck or fate. When negative things occur to them, they are more likely to examine the situation and learn from it and endeavor to overcome it. For example, receiving a mediocre or low grade on an exam is less likely to be seen as the instructor being biased or grading unfairly but more likely determined that they need to study harder.
An
externally focused LOC person might believe their behavior is mostly irrelevant
to the outcome of their lives, making them predominantly not in control of
their fate. When good or bad things come to them, it is due to bad luck or
karma, chance or other such beliefs. They get married because it was meant to
be, or they receive a promotion because it was their luck. If something wrong
happens or if they receive a bad grade on an exam it is believed to be because
the test or the instructor was unfair, but not because they did not study hard
or long enough.
Sometimes
these tendencies are inherent to our personality, much like introversion and
extroversion. Similar to this, LOC can ebb and flow along a continuum as
well and may be dependent upon context, accessibility, and priming. Internal or
external LOC can still be positively or negatively reliant on context.
Continuing from the earlier example, a predominating external LOC in academics
would not be beneficial as it provides a crutch for receiving poor grades.
Although, it would be helpful to protect the student's self-esteem if they were
working at their best possible to achieve their academic goals.
LOC with Physical Health
Learned
helplessness occurs when an animal or person is exposed to repeated negative
events they cannot control such as repeated punishments that are independent of
their good or bad behavior over a period. Eventually, they will stop trying to
avoid the punishment as they learned that they are helpless against it
regardless of how they alter their behavior. The person demonstrates a variety
of defense mechanisms in such case ranging from withdrawal and depression to
fear and aggression.
Metanalyses
indicate that depression is more common and likely among those with an external
LOC perspective (Benassi, Dufour, & Sweeney, 1988). A good research topic
in this area might be to compare life stressors and coping mechanisms and
resilience factors between internal and external LOC individuals.
References
Benassi, V. A., Dufour, C. L.,
& Sweeney, P. D. (1988). Is there a relation between locus of control
orientation and depression? Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 97(3), 357-367.
Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3057032
Friedman, H. S. & Schustack,
M. W. (2016). Personality: Classic theories and modern research (6th ed.). MA:
Pearson
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