Locus of Control Reading--Source unknown

Locus means location. As a personality construct, locus of control refers to where you believe the point of control for your life's circumstances and outcomes are located. Locus of control is a critical determinant of our reactivity to stressful situation. The locus of control construct is related to sever other dimensions of stress associated with personality pattern, such as helplessness and social autonomy versus social identification. This collection of personality facets, which all centers around the idea of control has been found to be associated with the most sever of all psychophysiological reactions. …Locus of control may be the most important cognitive factor that determines the nature and magnitude of the effects of psychogenic stress on our minds and bodies.

Locus of control is generally referred to as either internal or external. Persons with an internal locus of control tend to believe that control over their life is located within themselves. They may believe that the amount of money they make, the kind of job they have, the kind of grades they get in school, and their physical health are all factors within the realm of their control. Internally controlled persons tend to believe that if they are dissatisfied with any aspect of their life, they can change it through their own efforts. Internally controlled persons also tend to feel responsible for the way their life is going at the moment and feel a sense of personal responsibility for both the negative and positive events that occur in their life.

In contrast, externally controlled individuals tend to believe that control over their life is located outside themselves. External personals may believe that luck or chance, or other people, or governmental forces, or the CIA play a greater role in determining what happens to them than their own actions do. Externally controlled persons tend to feel helpless in directing their life. External persons may believe that the job they have is simply a matter of good or bad luck. The amount of money they make has nothing to do with how hard they work. Getting good breaks in life may simply be a matter of being in the right place at the right time--it does not have any relationship to personal effort. Thinking of people as being totally internally or totally externally controlled is inappropriate. In reality, locus of control is a continuum. In some situations, we believe we have some control; in others, we believe we are being manipulated.

Locus of control has nothing to do with objective reality. None of us can know, in an objective way, whether we have influence over what happens. Locus of control does not refer to how much control you have over life, but to whether you believe you have control. The personality construct is only concerned with whether you think you are in control or out of control of events in your life. Internally controlled people believe they can exert an influence over things that happen in life; externally controlled people believe they cannot.