ARE YOU THE MASTER OF YOUR FATE? Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies

Question

ARE YOU THE MASTER OF YOUR FATE?

Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs, 80, 1–28.

Are the consequences of your behavior under your personal control or are they determined by forces outside of yourself? Think about it for a moment: When something good happens to you, do you take credit for it or do you think how lucky you were? When something negative occurs, is it usually due to your actions or do you chalk it up to fate? The same question may be posed in more formal psychological language: Do you believe that a causal relation- ship exists between your behavioral choices and their consequences?

Julian Rotter, one of the most influential behaviorists in psychology’s history, proposed that individuals differ a great deal in terms of where they place the responsibility for what happens to them. When people interpret the con- sequences of their behavior to be controlled by luck, fate, or powerful others, this indicates a belief in what Rotter called an external locus of control (locus meaning location). Conversely, he maintained that if people interpret their own choices and personality as responsible for their behavioral consequences, they believe in an internal locus of control. In his 1966 article, Rotter explained that a person’s tendency to view events from an internal, versus an external, locus of control is fundamental to who we are and can be explained from a social learning theory perspective.

In this view, as a person develops from infancy through childhood, behaviors in a given situation are learned because they are followed by some form of reward, or reinforcement. This reinforcement increases the child’s expectation that a particular behavior will produce the desired reward. Once this expectancy is established, the removal of reinforcement will cause the expectancy of such a relationship between behavior and reinforcement to fade. Therefore, reinforcement is sometimes seen as contingent upon behavior, and sometimes it is not (see the discussion of contingencies in Reading 11 on the work of B. F. Skinner). As children develop, some will have frequent experiences in which their behavior directly influences consequences, while for others, reinforcement will appear to result from actions outside of them- selves. Rotter claimed that the totality of your individual learning experiences creates in you a generalized expectancy about whether reinforcement is internally or externally controlled.

“These generalized expectancies,” Rotter wrote, “will result in characteristic differences in behavior in a situation culturally categorized as chance- determined versus skill-determined, and may act to produce individual differences within a specific condition” (p. 2). In other words, you have behavior that will influence your future behavior in almost all situations. Rotter believed that your locus of control, whether internal or external, is an important part of your personality.

Which do you think you are: an internal or an external locus-of-control person? Rotter wanted to study differences among people on this dimension and, rather than simply ask them, he developed a test that measured a person’s locus of control. Once he was able to measure this characteristic in people, he could then study how it influenced their behavior.

In a paragraph, explain whether you feel you are an internal or external locus of control person. Give examples to support your choice.

Explanation / Answer

I feel that I am individual who possess moderate to a high internal locus of control. I state this because I believe that I possess the ability to determine the outcomes of events in my own life and make conscious decisions accordingly. To a large degree, I opine that factors like luck and fate can be undermined by hard work and skill. For instance, when I meet with failure, I blame myself for not giving it and my best shot and strive to improve my performance so it may not be repeated again. This view is closely aligned with our predominant cultural tendency to emphasize meritocracy.

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