The Locus Of Control And Attribution Theories

I’ve noticed a difference between me and my friend Iago, during that one class a few weeks ago where we talked about the locus of control me and Iago compared our scores. I was rather surprised to find us being almost at complete opposite ends! I personally appear to have an external locus of control meaning I think external forces are to blame. On the other hand Iago has an internal locus of control meaning he thinks he is in control of situations rather than external forces being the cause.

Incidents and Influences: As I observed this students I began to notice a low level of achievement with an external locus of control. He seem to blame his failure in his writing journal to past experiences, saying that “I can’t do this” and “ I hate writing”. Other locus of control consist of effort when he put his head on his desk. When the teacher asked if he would like a study

In order to comprehend external locus of control we must learn its pair, internal locus of control. According to Myers (2013), we have an internal locus of control, controlled by our own effects in the

Whereas "internal" or "dispositional" attribution assigns causality to factors within the person, such as their own level of intelligence or other variables that make the individual responsible for the event.

There are moments in one’s life that can be attributed to external factors or internal factors, or a mixture of both. However, people have a tendency to reason either external forces or internal forces more than the other for outcomes. Julian Rotter called this dimension locus of control, the extent to which people will perceive outcomes as internally controllable or externally controlled (Myers, 2013, p. 57). If a person attributes outcomes to mostly his or her own control, he or she is said to have an internal locus of control; if a person attributes outcomes to mostly external forces, the person is said to have an external locus of control. In the anime, My Hero Academia, the main character, Izuku Midoriya, displays primarily the external locus of control.

The attribution process deals with how we judge the causes of people’s behavior. Internal attribution is the idea that the person caused the behavior. External attribution is the idea that a situation caused the behavior. The other manager’s attribution of Chen’s refusal to perform the Softdisk audit is viewed as an internal

Moral luck, a person treated as an object of moral judgment and regardless of the facts that support the evidence of the luck. In the “Crash Course Philosophy” video, tells us … “Acts or states of affairs for which you can praise or blame”. A person can only be responsible for things that are possible for them to cause and that anything else would be out of their control. To not have control over what happens whether good or bad would be of nature. The control principle is allied to have control of the situation being able to prevent the good or bad. This allows the conclusion to support the consequences of the situation. The principle sounds plausible but some people decline this method of thinking and leaving the assessment of the situation impossible to determine making this principle “intuitively compelling” (Nelkin).

Then there are the internal locus and external locus of control which concerns what is going on around them. Internal locus of control takes ownership of their own actions and look for promotions because of them. They take the company goals to heart. External locus of control blame others for their actions because they do not believe in them.

Locus of control has to do with how much control a student perceives themselves to have concerning their success in the classroom. There are two distinct points on the locus of control spectrum: internal and external. A student who is externally focused believes that their success depends on influences outside of themselves. A student who is internally focused believes that success in the classroom is dependent upon their own actions. When failing a quiz, a student who is externally focused may believe that the test was “too hard”, or the teacher did not teach the material good enough. A student who is internally focused very often assigns the blame to themselves after experiencing a setback.

Previous research has suggested that there are certain individuals who are more prone to an illusion of control than others (e.g. Alloy & Abramson, 1979; Biner et al., 1995; Delfabbro & LeCouteur, 2009; Friedland et al., 1991; Langer, 1975; Rudski, 2004). Rotter (1966) proposed that ones’ locus of control, which refers to an individual’s generalised expectancy of success based on their previous experience, will influence ones predisposition to illusory control.

The types of Loci of control that affect me personally are high internal locus of control in turn driving me to assume responsibility in all cases. This affects both positively and negatively depending on the result.

According to the Attribution Theory, we tend to explain our own behaviour and the behaviour of others by assigning attributes (or inferences) to these behaviour. There are basically two sources for our behaviour; those influenced by external factors and those influenced by internal factors. Imagine walking into your boss

There are two theories that explain the root of human behaviors and why people behave the way they do; The attribution theory and the covariation model. Heider, the father of the attribution theory, believed that all human beings are amateur scientists, persistently piecing together facts and information in an effort to grasp a situation and the motivations behind it. Typically, one will assume behavior to be a result of internal personal factors such as attitude, feelings, and character traits. A teacher yelling at her student will be criticized for having a bad temper. On the flip side, attributing a behavior to external factors would mean holding the situation and circumstances responsible; The same teacher may actually be yelling at a student because of his/her lack of conduct.

I have heard the term locus of control several times from nursing school. It always makes me think of how much of a “control freak” someone is, or is not. Most people who are nurses have internal locus of control. This means that most nurses believe they can change their future. They can make a difference in their lives. Nurses are very driven people. They are also very goal oriented, so this helps them achieve their goals. Patients do not always have an internal locus of control. Some believe everything happens to them, and there is nothing they can do about it.

After researching my theory I recognized we all come in contact with this idea on a day to day basis. We as humans do not like to take responsibility for our actions when something goes wrong. It is much easier to blame the consequences on anything but ourselves. For example, using internal attribution someone who trips and falls knows it is because they are clumsy. But using external attribution, he/she would blame their fall on an inanimate object rather than themselves, even know they know the fall was due to lack of paying attention to where they were going. Just like many other people, I am guilty of applying this theory in my life. Looking back, I notice there have been times where I blamed MY actions on an external force, such as my roommate distracting me and keeping me up late while I was trying to do homework. This is human