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Internal-External Locus of Control Scale

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Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

Definition

The Internal-External Locus of Control Scale (Rotter 1966), which is a 29-item forced-choice test including six filler items intended to make the purpose of the test somewhat more ambiguous, is the most widely used and cited measurement of Locus of Control (LOC). LOC is a personality concept originally proposed by Rotter (1966), defined as a generalized enduring expectancy or belief about how responsive and controllable the environment is. According to this concept, people can be categorized into two types: internal control and external control. People with an internal locus of control believe that the environment is responsive to their own relatively permanent characteristics and that rewards are contingent on personal actions, whereas for those with an external locus of control the environment and external rewards are seen as uncontrollable.

Introduction

In accordance with social learning theory, Rotter notes that an expectancy for a behavior-reinforcement sequence is...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Lei Wang & Meizhen Lv

Authors
  1. Lei Wang
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  2. Meizhen Lv
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Correspondence to Lei Wang .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, 9 Arts Link, 117570, Singapore, Singapore

    Xiang Ling Ong

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Wang, L., Lv, M. (2017). Internal-External Locus of Control Scale. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_41-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_41-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

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