Locus of Control, Part 2

How thankful are you for something today? No matter how bad it’s been, can you find one thing to be thankful for?  Today, I’m thankful of rite coincidences, the small signs, that bring hope and peace to my life. :-) 

Yesterday, I introduced two types of control behavior theories: internal and external locus of control (ILOC and ELOC). Hopefully, you identified with one or the other of the two loci of control. I wanted to further discuss these viewpoints, because our tendency may be to say that we are one or the other. While we may tend to be one of the other, we all find ourselves using internal or external locus of control depending on the situation. Another clarification should be directed at internal locus of control. While the description seems more positive in cultural terms, there are drawbacks to being more internal. People with ILOC will be hard on themselves and overanalyze what they’ve done wrong in certain situations. ILOC can also make us hard on others because we have been driven to succeed and expect others to take responsibility to succeed too.  Conversely, ELOC seems more negative in regards to personal responsibility, but ELOC is sometimes an appropriate response to situations. Some situation do actually consist of elements that ARE beyond our control, such as death, or someone else’s actions.

So the locus of control, or our perception of how much control/power we have in a situation will depend on how well we analyze the factors that contributed to our situation. 

This may lead a person with a strong ILOC to actually create situations that limit contact without uncontrollable factors, such as collaborative activities. When the person is choosing mostly individual activities, there is no one to blame for mistakes but the person who chose the activity. Thus, the ILOC person maintains control of his/her environment.  

ELOC can help us deal with job layoffs, breakups, or mortality, all of which have factors that are beyond our control. Knowing there are things we can’t control leads us to acceptance of the situation if we can recognize the factors beyond our control without assigning blame.

Most importantly, understanding both approaches can help us process our environment and how we can either control or release control of that which affects our lives. The understanding helps us understand others’ actions toward us as well as our own actions and thoughts toward other people. 

So go give a smile to someone tomorrow - give it freely. Depending on your stronger locus of control, whether a person smiles back at you may depend on whether you feel you can control that other person’s response or not. Notice how you react to the person’s response to your smile. :-)