Locus of control

Developed by Julian B. Rotter in 1954

Locus of control is a theory in personality psychology referring to the extent to which individuals believe that they can control events that affect them.

Locus of control can be 

• either internal the person believes they can control their life 

or 

• external meaning they believe that their decisions and life are controlled by environmental factors which they cannot influence.

Example of internal locus of control 

Individuals with a high internal locus of control believe that events in their life derive primarily from their own actions; 

for example, if a person with an internal locus of control does not perform as well as they wanted to on a test, they would blame it on lack of preparedness on their part. If they performed well on a test, they would attribute this to ability to study.

External locus of control:

If a person with a high external locus of control does poorly on a test, they might attribute this to the difficulty of the test questions. If they performed well on a test, they might think the teacher was lenient or that they were lucky.