Anthony Siletti
Psychology 101-02
Professor Leippe
December 14, 2016
Study: Are You the Master of Your Fate?
A. Research Problem
Everyday people encounter varying forces that affect their lives. Many of these influences come from the outside – the environment, but a good number also come internally, such as conscientious choice (or non-conscientious choice for that matter). These internal and external forces influence our every day choices in different ways. When these forces affect something we do, and thus determine the consequences, do we consider it to be our fault or something (or someone) else’s fault? To put it simply, does our behavior affect the consequences of our actions, or does something else do it?
B. Theory
Julian Rotter, an influential behavioral scientist proposed, “that individuals differ a great deal in terms of where they place the responsibility for what happens to them” (Hock, 2015, p. 190). When people attribute the consequences of their actions to something other than themselves, external forces, it is what Rotter referred to as an “external locus of control” (Hock, 2015, p. 190). When people do the opposite, i.e. attribute the consequences to their own actions, he called that an “internal locus of control” (Hock, 2015, p. 190). Rotter claimed that this could all be explained from a social learning perspective.
Reinforcement is supposed to have a strong hand in the matter. If, per se, a child made some choice and based on the consequences of that action received a positive reward, and vice versa. These action-consequence-reinforcement events can lead a child to either associate its behavior to the reward, or attribute the reward to something outside of themselves. This leads to what, according to Rotter, is “the totality of your individual learning experiences creates in you a generalized expectancy about whether reinforcement is internally or externally controlled” (Hock, 2015, p. 190). Therefore whatever you learn to attribute your consequences to, as a child, becomes a generalized pattern throughout your adult life.
Rotter intended on demonstrating two main points in his research. He theorized that a test could be created to determine what kind of locus of control the individual has and that the locus of control an individual person has would be stable across their lifetime.
C. The Method
The test Rotter created was simple and straightforward. It consists of many questions, wherein each question had only two answers. One answer signified the external locus of control whereas the second answer signified the internal locus of control. Those who took the test were instructed to choose “the one statement of each pair (and only one) which you more strongly believe to be the case… select the one you actually believe to be more true rather than the one you thin you should choose” (Hock, 2015, p. 191). What they were really asked to do was not just choose whichever one seemed to be truer but decide whether they themselves saw it as a result of an internal or external locus of control.
D. Findings and Importance
Rotter studied and reported on various specific areas of study. These include gambling, persuasion, smoking, achievement motivation and conformity. He discovered some interesting facts regarding those areas. With respect to gambling, he found that the more internal people “tended to prefer betting on ‘sure things’ and liked moderate odds over the long shots” (Hock, 2015, p. 192). In contrast, he found that externals tended to do quite the opposite, they would take those risks even when they should not have and often fell prey to “more unusual shifts in betting, called the ‘gamblers fallacy’” (Hock, 2015, p. 192). He also presented a study on smoking, where “smokers tended to be more external than nonsmokers” and those who quit smoking were “more internally oriented” (Hock, 2015, p. 193). Interestingly enough, by comparing the two aforementioned studies, both the internals and externals of the studies both understood the risks involved with gambling and smoking yet in both cases the externals were much more likely to continue making those risky bets and taking those puffs of smokes, knowing it was killing them.
When studying persuasion he cited a study with college students and fraternities/sororities. The study asked the students who were identified (perhaps not to their knowledge) as being either internal or external in nature, to try to persuade the other students to their argument. The study showed that internals were “found to be significantly more successful than internals in altering the attitudes of others” (Hock, 2015, p. 193). Similar to the study on gambling, internals were more resistant to changes and more successful at what they were trying to do.
In regard to achievement motivation, he found “a positive relationship between a high internal score… and achievement motivation” (Hock, 2015, p. 193). This is not all that difficult to understand, since internals believe that is it they themselves who are responsible for the consequences of their actions, they would take on more responsibility to achieve whatever goal it is they want. He also saw that students who had some type of “plans to attend college… how interested their parents were in the students school work” had higher rates of success. Again, this is not all unexpected since those students are firm believers in that they control the consequences of their actions. In regards to conformity he found that internals “confirmed significantly less to the majority opinion” (Hock, 2015, p. 193). Again, unsurprising since internals are more likely to believe it to be the self that controls them, not others.
Rotter also found out, that culture could play a role in defining whether one is an internal or an external. Overall, he found that “locus of control is a defining characteristic of individuals that operates fairly consistently across various situations” (Hock, 2015, p. 194). Confirming his original hypothesis that whether you have an internal or external locus of control is stable throughout a lifetime.
This study provided an important insight into behavior for psychology. Rotter’s work showed that there was a method of determining how people may act in the future and that people could be grouped into two categories, those with internal loci of control and those with external loci of control. He also showed that these types of people, whether internal or external, tended to respond to each other in a similar way, respective of the type they were placed in. Perhaps most importantly he showed that these characteristics are persistent and perhaps more deeply imbedded into our psyche than it may be suspected.
References
Hock, R. R. (2013). Forty Studies that Changed Psychology: Explorations into the History of Psychological Research (7th edition). New York, NY: Pearson.