What is it?
Locus of control (LOC) is a theory within personality psychology and it is basically whether the individual believes they can control the events that affect them. The understanding of the concept was developed by Rotter in 1954 and since then become a aspect of personality studies. A persons individual 'Locus' is conceptualised as either internal (belief they can affect there own life) or external (meaning they believe that their decisions and life are controlled by environmental factors which they cannot influence for example fate, luck or chance)
People who have a very high internal LOC believe the events in their life come primarily from their own actions for example if they did not do well on a test they would blame it on themselves for not preparing as much and vice versa. If a person has a high external LOC stuff 'external' from themselves is responsible for example if they did a test and did well they might think the teacher was being lenient or they was lucky.
Those with a high internal LOC exhibit better control over there own behaviour, they also tend to be more politically involved in the current government and are more likely to influence others than those who have a high external LOC seen as they believe if they don't influence and convince people no one else will therefore they are responsible. Internal LOC people also have a increased perception that the likelihood of their efforts being successful and more actively seek information concerning their situation.
There is a high interest in understanding the relationship between LOC beliefs and loads of health attitudes, behaviours and situations. Health Locus Of Control (HLC), examines the degree to which a person believes that their health is controlled by internal or external factors. External beliefs are on the idea that their health outcome is under the control of powerful others e.g. health care professionals or determined by fate, luck and chance. Internal beliefs are that their health is determined directly from their own actions.
How does it relate to health?
A great deal of research has linked internal LOC to positive health beliefs and behaviours. It has been widely accepted that HLC is associated with a variety of health behaviours and outcomes. Internal has been assiocated with knowledge about disease,ability to stop smoking,ability to lose weight,adherence to medical regimen,effective use of birth control and things like wearing seat belts. The importance of the LOC makes its developement a crucial thing to learn as professionals etc can become more aware of the circumstances that might lead to adopting a particular LOC belief,
How do we learn positive HLC beliefs?
Rotter said LOC beliefs and types come from specific experiences and past reinforcement history. Reinforcement theory (Skinner) argues that what controls behaviour are reinforcer. A reinforce is a consequence that immediately follows a response and either removes a negative stimulus or adds a positive one, increases the probability that the good health behaviour will be repeated. Using this theory individuals who have had a history of successful attempts at health control are more likely to be internal than those who have been unsuccessful in the attempts. A possible determinant of these beliefs is practice in taking care of oneself. Practisinf a variety of different health habits as a child is associated with optimistic beliefs in the controllability of health,both for beliefs in the efficiency of self care and of doctors.
Who most influenced the adoption of your present health habits?
internal LOC is associated with nurturing and accepting parents who display consistent discipline. Reinforcement theory easily explains why this should be the case.Nurturing parents are attentive to there childs health and use reinforces to encourage the practise of good health habits and discourage poor ones, not only the parents are responsibile, peers, teachers and mass media are important factors influencing health beliefs.
Socio-economic status is another variable correlates with LOC. This is because there is greater availability of reinforces for middle class children explaining why they or more internally orientated that lower class children. Also visiting health care professionals is a lot less stressful for richer families as they come at a less finical stress compared to working class. People who experience unpredictable sickness of been conditioned to be more aware of this than those who haven't, this would account for feeling of inefficacy towards ones health or belief towards external HLC
So which ones better?
Internals don’t necessarily fare better than their external counterparts. Many externals are very happy people. “Think of highly religious people who believe their existence is in the hands of their gods,” says Williams. “They have turned over control to a spiritual entity and feel much more ease with ‘God as their co-pilot’.” Personally, Williams believes internals fare better in North American society where we tend to reward intrinsically motivated people. “Our countries were founded by people who take control of their destinies,” he says.
Strengths: It has high practical applications because it can be used by professionals etc to predict behaviour performed and learn way to increase medical adherence and health belief, this therefore makes it alot more useful
Limitations: Since 1966, locus of control as measured by the I-E scale has been shown predictive of many different dependent variables in both health and nonhealth situations. In hundreds of articles, expectancies have been reported to mediate perceptual, cognitive, and motivational processes. However, in many other investigations, locus of control has failed to predict the dependent variable being studied. Therefore, it is clear there are limitations to the predictive power of the construct. In recent years published research highlighting these limitations has resulted in a decrease in research about locus of control and the use of the I-E scale. Yet many investigators do not know or perhaps choose to ignore the criticisms published in recent years. Nurses who are interested in locus of control are encouraged to understand the construct and the frequent misapplications of it which occur, to realize the limitations of the I-E scale when considering instrumentation, and to consider multidimensional attribution theory as more appropriate to understanding behaviour than locus of control.
No comments:
Post a Comment