Locus of Control

Understanding Locus of Control

The locus of control construct is rooted in social learning theory, and the foundation for this work comes out of research on human and animals. For example, Herbert Lefcourt notes that when rats were able to exercise control over an aversive stimulus, they exhibited less fear of that stimulus than if they could not exercise such control. Similar results have been found in human studies. For example, when participants believed that their behavior could reduce electric shock duration, they gave lower ratings of the painfulness and aftereffects of shocks, compared with when they thought they did not have control. Anecdotal clinical observations support the importance of the perceived control construct in behavior change; for instance, Lefcourt noted that some clients learned from psychological therapy and other new experiences and subsequently changed their behavior, but other clients did not change their behavior as a result of these experiences. Often, the latter would attribute their lack of change to the belief that it was really other people, not themselves, who controlled relevant outcomes for them. In social learning theory terms, the construct of perceived control is a generalized expectancy of external or internal control of reinforcement, for either positive or negative events. It is an abstraction derived from many expectancy-behavioroutcome cycles in which people viewed the causes of their success or failure as being under internal or external control. A person's actions are a function of the situation, expectations, and values. More specifically, the probability that behavior B by person P will occur in situation S, given reinforcement R, is a function of P's expectation that reinforcement R will occur after P's behavior B in situation S, and of the value V to P of the reinforcement R in situation S.

For example, while in college, Pat has tried to lose weight through diet and exercise many times in the past, and he has always been unsuccessful. Therefore, he has developed a low generalized expectancy of success resulting from his memory of and reflection on years of specific expectancy-behavior-outcome sequences. Based on past experience, Pat has a fairly stable estimate of the probability that certain behaviors will lead to the goal of losing weight. In addition, Pat has developed some beliefs as to why his weight loss efforts have been unsuccessful for so long. Perceived locus of control, then, is Pat's abstraction of why weight loss has been unsuccessful all those times—a generalized expectancy of internal (e.g., “I have no willpower when it comes to food”) or external (e.g., “My busy class and work schedules prevent me from losing weight”). The above example used Pat's failure as an illustration, but Pat's success could also be used as an example. It is important to note that both successes and failures may be related to either internal or external loci of control. So even with successful weight loss efforts, Pat may have external perceived control (“My family's support, my doctor's instructions, and a gym on campus will make it very easy for me to lose weight”). Therefore, perceived locus of control focuses on how the individual perceives self in relationship to things that happen to him or her and the meaning that the self makes of those experiences.

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