The Employment of LOC

Rotter (1966: 2) hypothesises that “a generalised attitude, belief, or expectancy regarding the nature of the casual relationship between one’s own behaviour and its consequences might affect a variety of behavioural choices in a broad band of life situations”. It is perhaps for this reason that one finds so many sub-concepts and sub-scales of locus of control being employed in literature. The LOC construct has been used to describe individual differences as varied as post-stress outcomes (Frazier et al, 2011), unemployment history and earning capacity (Semykina & Linz, 2007; Osborne Groves, 2005b; Cobb-Clark & Schurer, 2011;), coping mechanisms with death (Specht, Egloff & Schmukle, 2011), planned organisational

64 Fournier and Jeanrie (1999) suggest the use of a five-level LOC scale that includes the following belief types:

defeatist, dependence, prescriptive, self-responsibility, and proactive.

44 change (Kormanik & Rocco, 2009), fluctuations in the measurement of cerebral activity (Konareva, 2012) and academic achievement according to socioeconomic classes (Bartel, 1971).

Individuals who have a need (or high motivation) for achievement are often thought to have some belief in their ability or skill to determine the outcome of their efforts - an aspect that Rotter (1966: 3) considered to bear some relationship to the belief in internal-external control of reinforcements. Even so, Rotter (1966) realised that this relationship was most likely not a linear one and while an Internaliser could display a high motivation for achievement, another Internaliser could just as easily have a low need for achievement. In light of this, academics have found that an improvement in self-efficacy (in terms of internalised control) can positively affect academic achievement amongst students (Ghonsooly & Elahi, 2010).

Academic achievement (education) has also been linked to an Economic LOC insofar as human capital investment is concerned. Coleman and DeLeire (2003: 3) found indications that LOC influenced education decisions among teenagers to the extent that it operated on their expectation of “returns to human capital investments”.

In their study of the intra-individual variability of control beliefs and cognitive performance in older adults⁶⁵, Neupert and Allaire (2012: 1) discovered that control beliefs fluctuated within people across time. This suggested that LOC and competence could not be measured solely as “stable trait-like constructs, but as state-like characteristics susceptible to the context and domain-specific influences” (Neupert & Allaire, 2012: 5). It is for this reason that many academics have often appreciated various dimension-specific control measures;

identifying scales as being either Health-related, Work-related, Economic-related, Vocation-related or General locus of control measures.

In an attempt at understanding inter-individual variability of perceived control Infurna et al (2011: 569) discovered that perceptions of control were embedded in various systems of influence, each operating as long-term antecedents of control beliefs. In predicting internalised control⁶⁶, they maintain that individuals who have a more favourable appraisal of their health actively participate within social networks, and express higher levels of life

65 Neupert and Allaire (2012: 2) recruited participants between the ages of 61 to 87 years from local senior centres.

66 Infurna et al (2011: 559 - 575) conceptualise internalised control as “more perceived control”.

45 satisfaction tend to have more perceived control than others (Bandura, 1997; Lin, 2001;

Lyubomirsky, King & Diener, 2005; Lachman, Rosnick & Röcke, 2009). They also found that “younger age, more education, income⁶⁷, and being a male⁶⁸” (Infurna et al, 2011: 570) were each predictive of a more internalised LOC⁶⁹. With the above in mind, it is reasonable to expect that the more perceived control a person exercises over their life, the happier they will be. One could similarly argue that if a person feels that they are in good health, they are less likely to identify external constraints in addition to feeling more motivated to maintain their good health through positive health behaviour.

The incidence of the latter relates directly to a scale described as a Health LOC (Wallston, 1992) which evaluates the extent to which the individual believes he is able to influence his health by modifying behaviour⁷⁰. Among the list of health-related behaviours that are influenced by Health LOC are diet and obesity (Saltzer, 1982; Stotland & Zuroff, 1990), smoking (Georgiou & Bradley, 1992), physical activity (Blaxter, 1990; Whitehead, 1992), and alcohol consumption (Donovan & O’Leary, 1978; Worrell & Timility, 1981). These are all considered personal factors however, and Lindström (2011: 4) advises that one look at the social dynamics⁷¹ that similarly influence health-related behaviour⁷².

67 Franklin (1963) also discovered a significant relationship between internality and higher socioeconomic class.

68 It is interesting to note here that Strickland and Haley (1980: 937) found that males and females answer substantial numbers of items on the Rotter scale differently from each other, suggesting that factors on Rotter’s internal-external scale may have different meanings according to the respondent’s gender.

69 The understanding behind this is that: a) older adults have more experiences related to control (declining health and the loss or death of friends and family members for instance) that only increase with age, “creating and amplifying the impression of constraints and powerlessness” (Infurna et al, 2011: 570), b) a higher level of education and income allow an individual greater access to, and availability of, resources – which Ross and Mirowsky (2002) and Infurna et al (2011) believe promote experiences of personal control, and c) the historical disadvantages of females in terms of access to education and work affected the observed gender gap in

perceived control, although it is posited that this gap will be minimised over time as more females attain higher education and the landscape of employees changes.

70 In this case sociodemographic and psychosocial factors (like memory and depressive symptoms) are reported to play an important role in control-health relations (Infurna, Gerstorf & Zarit, 2011: 9).

71 The social environment can also influence an individual’s general locus of control. Lefcourt (1982), for example, asserts that a negative and uncontrollable social environment acts as fertile ground for externality.

72 Twenge, Zhang and Im (2004: 309) assert that because the larger social environment influences control beliefs; trends that influence LOC will be large and consistent over time. Moreover, Twenge (2000) discovered that birth cohorts often accounted for more variance than was explained by family environment.

46 Social capital (which entails high civic engagement⁷³, trust between citizens and of institutions, norms of reciprocity and social participation) is believed to reinforce health through a “decrease in psychological and psychosocial stress, more benevolent norms concerning health-related behaviours, increased access to health care, and a decrease in crime rates” (Lindström, 2011: 4). Conversely Kawachi, Kennedy and Glass (1999: 1190) found that individuals who are socially isolated tend to be at an increased risk for poor health outcomes due to their limited access to resources like emotional support⁷⁴ and instrumental aid, a premise that is supported by House, Landis and Umberson (1988) and Marmot (1998).

Moreover, it is argued that there are some important caveats in the influence and conceptualisation of social capital, particularly in relation to self-reported health: there are forms of social capital that could stifle individual choice and others that may not be available to all members of a community (Kawachi, Kennedy & Glass, 1999: 1191).

Aside from predictors of internalised control, Infurna et al (2011: 569) found that those who attend church or religious events more frequently often associate with more externalised control – a correlation they suggest is due to religious views relating to stronger beliefs in powerful others, and consequently less perceived control. Collins (1974: 381) asserts that an individual may exhibit externality on the LOC scale because he simply believes that; a) the world is difficult, b) the world is unjust, c) the world is governed by luck, or d) the world is politically unresponsive. Another predictor for more externalised control is a low socioeconomic level. Battle and Rotter (1963) found that the perception of limited material opportunities (as seen in low socioeconomic groups) and of powerful others were variables that made for external attitudes. In the same vein, Lefcourt (1982: 146 – 147) affirms that lower socioeconomic status (and the less opportune milieu that accompanies it) and membership in denigrated minority groups generates a climate of fatalism and helplessness that is reflected in highly externalised LOC. This notion may ratify the indication that Externalisers possess negative or a low degree of faith in government (Renshon, 1975: 116).

73 It is interesting to note here that Kawachi, Kennedy and Glass (1999: 1191) found that membership in civic organisations (as an indicator of social capital) was the most weakly associated with self-rated health.

74 Emotional (or social) support is seen by House, Umberson and Landis (1998: 293) as one of three social processes through which the social relationships structures of integration and network may have their effects.

The other two processes they identify are social regulation and the conflictive aspects of social relationships.

47 In her analysis of academic achievement amongst lower- and middle-class children, Bartel (1971: 1106) found that school did not have a levelling effect on lower- and middle-class children’s perceptions of control. In fact, differences in LOC are not present when a child first enters school but instead becomes more evident as the child progresses through school,signifying that the school situation itself appears to have differential effects for the development of internal control according to the social class of a child. This phenomenon acts as a noteworthy counterpart to the inferences of Kohn (1969: 198) in Class and Conformity where he states that:

“The essence of higher class position is the belief that one’s decisions and actions can be consequential; the essence of lower class position is the belief that one is at the mercy of forces and peoples beyond one’s control, often beyond one’s understanding”.

Analysing the association between an individual’s socioeconomic class and their LOC may provide much needed insight into the antecedents of social mobility and labour market development in a country⁷⁵. Furnham’s (1986) Economic locus of control (a 40-item, Likert scale questionnaire that measures economic and work-related beliefs) provides perhaps the best possible LOC scale pertaining to the singular dimension of economics (Van Dalen, Van Niekerk & Pottas, 1987; Heaven, 1990). Instead of simply referring to either internalised or externalised control, the Economic locus of control (see Table 2) displayed four factors: 1) internal, 2) external, 3) chance, and 4) powerful others. Furnham (1993: 467) found that it was the chance LOC that differentiated between the various demographic groups the most.

While for the purposes of this study only the generalised Internal-External scale will be used, it is nonetheless beneficial to have an alternative scale to refer back to when analysing socioeconomic associations with LOC in South Africa.

2.4.4 Understanding the Dimensionality and Nature of the Internal-External