What do you think?
Rate this book
Locus of Control in Personality
Slight wear. Some writing/highlighting. Binding is tight.
217 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1976
2 people are currently reading
58 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 7, 2022
The locus of control. It’s something psychology students might have heard of in the 1970s and 80s. These days, nobody in academia talks of it. It’s a forgotten construct. Thus, reading E Jerry Phares’ book on the subject is a very good way to dust off and comprehend a quite brilliant idea somehow lost to time – or at least to understand this idea as it had developed by 1973. Phares was one of the researchers and clinicians deeply invested in this concept, and as a result the book is rich in theory.
Phares begins by explaining how the concept of “locus of control” emerged. The genesis of the idea came from a clinical patient, named “Karl S.” Karl was a unique case. He somehow had a total incapacity to learn. Whilst most people ultimately learn via reward and punishment (be they abstract or material rewards/punishments), Karl seemed immune to the basics of behaviour formation. He passively existed. Whether jobs, romances, or basic tasks, Karl conceptualised the world around him as active and himself as a totally passive being within it. Thus, Karl had no need to learn, for whatever happened happened, and would happen with or without his input. By understanding this, clinicians believed they may have stumbled across a fundamental aspect of human personality.
This aspect was coined the locus of control. An external locus of control is when one believes one’s life is moved by outside forces. An internal locus of control is when one believes one’s life is moved by oneself. For practically the rest of the book, Phares then explains the theory of this construct, how it is measured, and how one’s locus of control influences one’s life. “Internals” are self-driven, information seeking, and act upon such independently found information. They aspire towards mastery over themselves and understanding their environment. “Externals” are more passive. Rather than seeking information for themselves, they rely on social cues to navigate the world, and prefer luck-based tasks and outcomes rather than skill-based.
However, there is a third group. Some “externals” are best characterised as “defensive externals.” Such people view the world as an “internal” would, with the prime mover in their world being themselves, and act as such in their lives. However, when asked, they profess to an “external” worldview, and do so to protect themselves from the failures of their actions to achieve desired goals, deflecting from their own responsibility and placing it on the world at large. Such a characterisation may seem very damning, but Phares argues that it is not at all unfair. However, whilst explaining and outlining these different “groups” was interesting, it was practically the whole book from page 20 to page 150. Too much of the book was spent on explaining differences and not enough was spent on explaining the affects on behaviours, everyday life circumstances, general life outcomes, etc for each “group.” Whilst there may not have been the studies in 1973 to do so, this was seldom even explored as an idea, and made the book very repetitive, each chapter concluding the same as the last.
Another issue I have with Phares’ book is the characterisation of each “group.” There was an emphasis on theory above all else, and Phares was keen to reinforce the supposed differences between “internals” and “externals” even when there was no evidence to do so. For instance, the evidence that “internals” are more competent and self-directed is only present in men, not women, yet Phares refers to this as a defining difference throughout the book. Indeed, there seems to be a pro-internal bias from Phares. When evidence suggested “externals” were more stoic when faced with threats, this is presented as being a maladjustment. Additionally, despite limited evidence, Phares appears convinced that externality must correspond with schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety disorders. Whilst there is some logic to the latter conditions, linking externality to the former seems a real reach, and indeed there was little evidence to back up this theoretical claim. Thankfully Phares, having written all of this, does remind the reader that maladjustment is not a scientific construct, but a subjective, socially determined one. After all, science can only determine behavioural differences between “internals” and “externals,” not make value judgements about such differences.
Perhaps the most fascinating chapter of the book related to the antecedents of locus of control within people. Families which offer fewer but more consistent and stable constraints on children tend to produce “internals.” Here, the children seem to learn to take responsibility for their actions rather than defer to an overbearing adult. However, they also have consistent outcomes (think reward/punishment) for their actions, which reinforce their view of themselves as the primary actor and thus reinforcing an internal worldview. In this sense, locus of control develops as a genuine reflection of a child’s reality. If parents or parental boundaries are unstable, then the consequences of the child’s actions are not related to the action itself.
The book concludes with a salient point about control and freedom. Freedom only means something if people act with enough sovereignty to make something of it. In other words, freedom entails responsibility. If we hold ourselves to the ransom of the outside world, we cannot make anything meaningful for ourselves. With this in mind, perhaps it is, after all, better to adopt a more internal locus of control and look within for a better life, rather than shelter in the world around us. Then again, perhaps this is just my own internal bias speaking.
Phares begins by explaining how the concept of “locus of control” emerged. The genesis of the idea came from a clinical patient, named “Karl S.” Karl was a unique case. He somehow had a total incapacity to learn. Whilst most people ultimately learn via reward and punishment (be they abstract or material rewards/punishments), Karl seemed immune to the basics of behaviour formation. He passively existed. Whether jobs, romances, or basic tasks, Karl conceptualised the world around him as active and himself as a totally passive being within it. Thus, Karl had no need to learn, for whatever happened happened, and would happen with or without his input. By understanding this, clinicians believed they may have stumbled across a fundamental aspect of human personality.
This aspect was coined the locus of control. An external locus of control is when one believes one’s life is moved by outside forces. An internal locus of control is when one believes one’s life is moved by oneself. For practically the rest of the book, Phares then explains the theory of this construct, how it is measured, and how one’s locus of control influences one’s life. “Internals” are self-driven, information seeking, and act upon such independently found information. They aspire towards mastery over themselves and understanding their environment. “Externals” are more passive. Rather than seeking information for themselves, they rely on social cues to navigate the world, and prefer luck-based tasks and outcomes rather than skill-based.
However, there is a third group. Some “externals” are best characterised as “defensive externals.” Such people view the world as an “internal” would, with the prime mover in their world being themselves, and act as such in their lives. However, when asked, they profess to an “external” worldview, and do so to protect themselves from the failures of their actions to achieve desired goals, deflecting from their own responsibility and placing it on the world at large. Such a characterisation may seem very damning, but Phares argues that it is not at all unfair. However, whilst explaining and outlining these different “groups” was interesting, it was practically the whole book from page 20 to page 150. Too much of the book was spent on explaining differences and not enough was spent on explaining the affects on behaviours, everyday life circumstances, general life outcomes, etc for each “group.” Whilst there may not have been the studies in 1973 to do so, this was seldom even explored as an idea, and made the book very repetitive, each chapter concluding the same as the last.
Another issue I have with Phares’ book is the characterisation of each “group.” There was an emphasis on theory above all else, and Phares was keen to reinforce the supposed differences between “internals” and “externals” even when there was no evidence to do so. For instance, the evidence that “internals” are more competent and self-directed is only present in men, not women, yet Phares refers to this as a defining difference throughout the book. Indeed, there seems to be a pro-internal bias from Phares. When evidence suggested “externals” were more stoic when faced with threats, this is presented as being a maladjustment. Additionally, despite limited evidence, Phares appears convinced that externality must correspond with schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety disorders. Whilst there is some logic to the latter conditions, linking externality to the former seems a real reach, and indeed there was little evidence to back up this theoretical claim. Thankfully Phares, having written all of this, does remind the reader that maladjustment is not a scientific construct, but a subjective, socially determined one. After all, science can only determine behavioural differences between “internals” and “externals,” not make value judgements about such differences.
Perhaps the most fascinating chapter of the book related to the antecedents of locus of control within people. Families which offer fewer but more consistent and stable constraints on children tend to produce “internals.” Here, the children seem to learn to take responsibility for their actions rather than defer to an overbearing adult. However, they also have consistent outcomes (think reward/punishment) for their actions, which reinforce their view of themselves as the primary actor and thus reinforcing an internal worldview. In this sense, locus of control develops as a genuine reflection of a child’s reality. If parents or parental boundaries are unstable, then the consequences of the child’s actions are not related to the action itself.
The book concludes with a salient point about control and freedom. Freedom only means something if people act with enough sovereignty to make something of it. In other words, freedom entails responsibility. If we hold ourselves to the ransom of the outside world, we cannot make anything meaningful for ourselves. With this in mind, perhaps it is, after all, better to adopt a more internal locus of control and look within for a better life, rather than shelter in the world around us. Then again, perhaps this is just my own internal bias speaking.
Displaying 1 of 1 review