Locus of control

• Rotter described internal vs external locus of control
• Internals believe things that happen to them are largely controlled by themselves (e.g: doing well or badly in an exam depends on how hard you work)
• Externals believe things happen outside their control. If they fail an exam they say it was because they had a bad teacher or bad luck because the questions were hard
• LOC is not just being internal or external - there is a scale from one to the other and people differ in their position on it. High internals at one end and high externals at the other and low internals and externals lie in-between
• People with internal LOC are more likely to resist pressures to conform or obey

  1. If someone takes responsibility for their actions (good or bad) they are more likely to base their decisions on their own beliefs
  2. People with high internal LOC are more confident, more achievement-orientated and have higher intelligence - traits that lead to greater resistance (less need for social approval)
• One strength is evidence to support the role of LOC in resisting obedience. Holland repeated the Milgram study and measured whether participants were internals or externals. 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level (they showed greater resistance). Only 23% of externals did not continue. Therefore resistance partly related to LOC, increasing the validity of this explanation of disobedience
• One limitation is not all research supports the role of LOC in resistance. Twenge et al analysed data from American LOC studies over 40 years, showing that people have become more independent but also more external. This is surprising - if resistance was linked to internal LOC we would expect people to have become more internal. Therefore LOC may not be a valid explanation of resistance to social influence