Julian Rotter's Locus of Control: Tornado Deaths, Voters and Veterans

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Clinical psychologist Julian B. Rotter developed the locus of control concept in 1954, pushing back against strict behaviorism by arguing that a person's belief about what causes a reward matters as much as the reward. People with an internal locus see their own effort and ability as driving outcomes; those with an external locus credit chance, fate, powerful others or a world too complex to predict. Rotter treated this as a continuum, and bilocals who mix both traits cope well with stress. In the 1970s Bernard Weiner added stability, producing a matrix of ability, effort, task difficulty and luck. Rotter's 1966 scale was a 23-item forced-choice test open to social desirability bias, so in 1984 Patricia Duttweiler built a 28-item Likert-scale Internal Control Index.

Warm families with consistent discipline tend to raise internals, while chaotic or economically strained homes push children toward externality, and internality typically rises until middle age. A British cohort study of 7,500 people found children with an internal locus at age 10 were less likely to be overweight at 30. Sims and Baumann linked higher tornado deaths in Alabama than in Illinois to a more fatalistic, external outlook among Alabama residents. Studies of the 1972 U.S. election and a 2014 study of adult voters found internals more likely to be Republican, though internals also tend to have higher socioeconomic status. Albert Bandura's self-efficacy, belief in one's competence at specific tasks, works separately from locus of control.

• Weiner first classed effort as internal but unstable, a view critics challenged since words like industrious describe effort as a trait.
• Duttweiler's index measured autonomy, self-confidence, resistance to social influence and delay of gratification.
• Older adults with an internal locus shift control from their declining bodies to their attitude.
• Internals process reading material more deeply and are more likely to leave a bad job or learn new skills.
• Veterans with spinal cord injuries who combined an external locus with low self-efficacy reported more illness-related distress.