Locus of Control – Part 1
The psychological concepts of an internal or external “locus of control.”
It’s common sense that the more one feels “in control,” the greater one’s well-being. If you generally think your own good choices will, overall, bring you greater happiness if you apply corresponding effort, you’ll tend to be happier. But if you generally think there are forces in the world beyond your control that dominate your life prospects, you’ll apply correspondingly less effort, and be less happy. What does the social psychology research say about the accuracy of that common sense in the real world?
Quite a lot. The technical psychological term that relates to the degree to which we think we have control over our lives is “locus of control,” which can be either generally “internal” or generally “external.”
Stephen Nowicki, a psychology professor at Purdue University, wrote a book about the subject called Choice or Chance: Understanding Your Locus of Control and Why It Matters. He writes:
[T]he Locus of Control scale uniquely captures how we attempt to understand the world and our place in it. If we see ourselves as governed by fate, luck, chance, or powerful others, we are externally controlled, or “External.” If we see ourselves and our own actions as the cause of the circumstances of our lives, we are internally controlled, or “Internal.”
Nowicki adds that the evidence shows that locus of control is not inherited, but rather learned; that we can decide to adjust our locus of control; it has a consistent effect on achievement academically, athletically, professionally, and socially; and that in most instances, “internals” do better than “externals” in setting and meeting life's goals. As Nowicki writes:
Internals often do better than Externals in many arenas of life. They fend off failure, illness, and loss and achieve more in most performance areas, such as academics, sports, and business … The more External mothers are, the more likely their children will have behavioral problems in school, as well as greater feelings of depression and anxiety … Externals live somewhere between 2.5 and 7 years less than Internals … The more External CEOs are, the less financial success and the more bankruptcies their companies are likely to have when economic times are difficult … Internality is one of the best predictors of managerial success across an amazing variety of organizations … Externals are more likely to be diagnosed as depressed, anxious, dyslexic, attention- deficit hyperactive disordered, schizophrenic, or bipolar than Internals.
Nowicki references a study by a group at the World Bank that determined a person’s feelings of control in their own life is most closely associated with life-satisfaction around the world. Their empirical investigation covered over 260,000 individuals from 84 countries during a period of 25 years and concluded:
A very strong association between life-satisfaction and a variable that measures both freedom of choice and the locus of control is found controlling for country and individual characteristics, personal values and social attitudes. This association is stronger and more consistent than the association between life satisfaction and all other known predictors of life satisfaction in a cross-country and within country context … Freedom and control is the only variable that is consistently significant with a positive sign across all ten countries [analyzed in the table below] ... Income rank is significant in only two countries and together with the importance of politics is the least relevant of the variables [in the table below].
As Nowicki describes the study:
Paolo Verme from the University of Turin in Milan, Italy, has written a paper that presents the possibility that Internality is intimately tied to the concept of freedom of choice. He argues that because Internals see themselves as having behavioral choice, they place a higher value on having the freedom to choose. Thus, Locus of Control acts as a regulator of the intrinsic value we place on our freedom of choice, with Externality dampening and Internality increasing the importance of this freedom. Next, Verme points out how past studies have shown happiness and Internality are related, but income and happiness are related only up to a certain level of income, after which other factors take over. Internality may be one of those factors. To answer the question of whether Internality and freedom of choice are related to happiness, Verme used an enormous data set, the Values Surveys 1981–2004 Integrated Questionnaire. It was composed of 267,870 observations on individuals from eighty-four countries. From the 913 variables included in the survey, he developed a freedom of choice and LOC scale. At the end of this study, Verme concludes, “A variable that measures freedom of choice and locus of control is found to predict life satisfaction better than any other known factor such as health, employment, income, marriage or religion across and within countries.” If he were going to bet on what variables would best predict life satisfaction anywhere in the world, Verme says, “my money would certainly go on freedom and control.”
Those are some striking findings. Nowicki continues:
The negative trends associated with Externality also can be found when we look at mental health. One of the most often replicated findings in the field of mental health is a strong association between Externality and depression. This is easy to understand. The core of this disorder is a feeling of helplessness in the face of suffering. We all know the dark, heavy feeling of depression; everyone feels that way sometimes, even if only for brief periods. But for those diagnosed with clinical depression, that feeling is a chronic and omnipresent state of mind, sucking all the joy out of their lives.
Recent research has also chronicled a huge litany of negative character traits that tend to accompany feelings of victimization due to external circumstances, along with the negative feelings that tend to accompany “virtue-signaling,” the practice in which people seek to advertise their own sense of moral superiority. As the study was described in Psychology Today:
The researchers developed a Victim Signaling Scale, ranging from 1 = not at all to 5 = always. It asks how often people engage in certain activities. These include: “Disclosed that I don’t feel accepted in society because of my identity.” And “Expressed how people like me are underrepresented in the media and leadership.” They found that Victim Signaling scores highly correlated with dark triad scores (r = .35). [Note: In psychology, the dark triad comprises the personality traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.] This association held after controlling for gender, ethnicity, income, and other factors that might make people vulnerable to mistreatment. Participants also completed a questionnaire that measured Virtue Signaling. They rated the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with statements about moral traits like being fair, compassionate, and honest. A sample statement is “I often buy products that communicate the fact that I have these characteristics.” They also found that Virtue Signaling was significantly correlated with dark triad scores (r = .18). They replicated this association in a follow-up study. This time they used a different, more robust, dark triad scale. They then found a stronger correlation between the dark triad traits and victim signaling (r = .52). The researchers also found that victim signaling negatively correlated (r = -.38) with Honesty-Humility. This is a personality measure of sincerity, fairness, greed avoidance, and modesty. This suggests that victim signalers may be greedier and less honest than those who do not signal victimhood. Beyond measuring responses to questionnaires, they also had participants play a game. Basically, it was a coin flip game in which participants could win money if they won. Researchers rigged the game so that participants could easily cheat. Participants could claim they won even if they didn’t, and thus obtain more money. Victim signalers were more likely to cheat in this game. The researchers again found that these results held after controlling for ethnicity, gender, income, and other factors. Regardless of personal characteristics, those who scored higher on dark triad traits were more likely to be victim signalers. And may be more likely to deceive others for material gain. The researchers then ran a study testing whether people who score highly on victim signaling were more likely to exaggerate reports of mistreatment from a colleague to gain an advantage over them. Participants were told to imagine they worked with another intern. And that they were competing to land a job. Participants were told, “You keep noticing little things about the way the intern talks to you. You get the feeling the other intern may have no respect for your suggestions at all. To your face, the intern is friendly, but something feels off to you.” Then participants engaged in the feedback performance of the intern. Then they completed the Victim Signaling scale. Victim signalers were more likely to exaggerate the negative qualities of their competitor. They were more likely to agree that the intern “Made demeaning or derogatory remarks,” or “Put you down in front of coworkers.” Nothing in the description of their colleague indicated that they performed these actions. But victim signalers were more likely to report that they did. As the authors note, real victims exist. And they have no intention of deceiving or taking advantage of others. Still, alongside victims, there are social predators among us. In whatever milieu they find themselves in, they will enact the strategies that maximize the rewards of material resources, sex, or prestige. People with dark triad traits will tailor their strategies to obtain these benefits, depending on their social environments. Today, those with dark triad traits might find that the best way to extract rewards is by making a public spectacle of their victimhood and virtue.
Nowicki describes the general test you can take yourself to determine where you’re situated on the locus of control scale:
What follows is a scale that has been administered to nearly a million people. Taking it will help you understand the kinds of questions that are asked to determine Internality and Externality, and it will tell you where you fall along the LOC continuum and how you tend to approach life … The following are the usual instructions given to test takers: We want you to answer the following questions based on the way you feel. There are no right or wrong answers. Don't take too much time answering any one question, but do try to answer them all and try to pick one response for all. Do not leave any item blank. One of your concerns taking the test may be, “What should I do when I feel as though I could answer both yes and no to a question?” It's not unusual for this to happen. If it does, the way we would like you to handle this is to think about whether your answer is more one way than the other. For example, if you'd assign a weight of 51 percent to the yes and a weight of 49 to the no, then make your answer yes.
If you want to take the test yourself, it can be found here. (I took it and scored a 4.)
Nowicki describes how people tend to become more internal in their locus of control as they get older. Nowicki writes:
Similarly, our LOC scores tend to become more Internal as we grow older. The trajectory toward Internality is powered by our improving physical and mental abilities, which help us gain increasingly greater control over our environment. As we become older, not only can we run faster and throw farther, but we can think more complexly and reason more acutely. Due to our increasing skills, our parents and teachers give us more opportunities to engage additional aspects of our environment independently. As we interact more independently with others, we are given new opportunities to learn who we are and what we can do, and we learn through experiences that allow us to observe the positive and negative consequences of our behavior. Typically, we grow to be more Internal as we get older, but, through greater parental support and richer learning experiences, some of us learn to be Internal more quickly than others.
So younger people may naturally be more external in their outlook, based simply on their own relative lack of experience navigating the real world. But what if some modern trends are artificially promoting a more external locus of control among younger people? That will be the subject of the next essay.