Explanations of Independent Behaviour - Locus of Control

Question 1

What is Rotter’s locus of control and what are the 2 different types?

Answer 1

Locus of control is how much a person believes that they have control over the successes, failures and events in their life. A person will either have an internal or an external locus of control. Having an internal locus of control means that the person believes they have a great deal of control over their own lives and they take responsibility for their own actions. Having an external locus of control means you blame your life events and behaviour on external forces such as fate and luck.

Question 2

How does locus of control explain how people resist pressures to conform and obey?

Answer 2

Those with an internal locus of control would be better at resisting pressures, as they feel in control of situations and feel that they have a choice to either obey or not obey. They don’t feel like they need social approval of their decisions.

Question 3

What are the strengths of Rotter’s concept of locus of control (LOC)?

Answer 3

1. Elms and Milgram’s research into obedience supports the role of locus of control. Follow up interviews with a sample of the participants showed that disobedient participants had a high internal locus of control and scored higher on a social responsibility scale than those who obeyed, so locus of control AND social responsibility effect whether a person can disobey and/or defy social norms.
2. Atgis’ meta analysis on conformity studies supports link between LOC and conformity. They found that those that scored higher on external locus of control were more likely to conform to the group norm than those with a low score. The correlation was 0.37, which, although low, is statistically significant.

Question 4

What is the limitation of Rotter’s concept of locus of control?

Answer 4

Locus of control is typically assessed using the Rotter scale which is a 23 item forced choice scale. With self-report studies there is the problem of social desirability bias, where participants try to say ‘the right thing’ to please the researcher. This casts doubt on the validity of the categorisation of participants into internal or external locus of control.