Locus of Control Theory In Psychology: Definition & Examples

Locus of control is a psychological concept that describes how much you believe you have power over the events in your life. If you have an internal locus of control, you tend to think your actions shape your outcomes. If it’s external, you’re more likely to see luck, fate, or other people as in charge. It’s about where you place responsibility: inside yourself or outside in the world.

Internal vs. External Locus of Control

The difference between an internal and external locus of control lies in where people believe the power or influence over their lives comes from.

Psychologist Julian B. Rotter first introduced the concept in the 1950s, defining it as the degree to which individuals perceive that they themselves – or external forces – control the events and outcomes in their lives.

Locus of control (LoC) exists on a continuum, ranging from highly internal to highly external, with most people falling somewhere in between.

It plays a major role in how people interpret success, failure, health, and personal agency.

Internal Locus of Control

Individuals with an internal LoC believe they control their own outcomes and that the results they achieve are the direct result of their efforts.

They take responsibility for what happens to them, and see outcomes as the result of their own actions, decisions, and efforts.

Key traits of internals include:

• Self-responsibility: Internals attribute success or failure to their own behavior. For example, if they fail an exam, they might admit they didn’t study enough and plan to improve next time.

• Perceived control: They feel capable of influencing performance, health, and stress through their choices and behaviors.

• Positive outcomes: Research shows internals tend to perform better academically, achieve more professionally, experience better mental and physical health, and engage more often in proactive coping and healthy habits.

External Locus of Control

Individuals with an external locus of control believe outcomes are determined by factors beyond their control, such as fate, luck, or the actions of others.

Key traits of externals include:

• External forces: Externals attribute results to outside circumstances. If they fail a test, they might blame unfair questions or bad luck rather than lack of preparation.

• Reduced control: They are less likely to feel that effort leads to change, which can discourage persistence and personal growth.

• Health beliefs: Externals often view their health as being controlled by chance or medical professionals rather than by their own behaviors or lifestyle.

A Note on Attributional Style

Locus of control is related to but distinct from attributional style.

Locus of control focuses on people’s expectations about future events (who or what controls outcomes), while attributional style concerns how people explain past successes and failures.

Examples

People with an internal locus of control accept occasions in their day-to-day existence as controllable.

To be more specific, this means that they can recognize instances where destiny is controllable: for instance, an individual is taking a test for a driver’s license.

Academic Performance Example

A person with an internal locus of control will attribute whether they pass or fail the exam due to their own capabilities.

This individual would praise their own abilities if they passed the test and would also recognize the need to improve their own driving if they had instead failed the exam.

An individual with an external locus of control would perceive the same event differently.

This individual would be more likely to blame other factors such as the weather, their current condition, or even the exam itself as an excuse rather than accept that the exam went the way it did because of personal decisions.

Rather than accept that part of the blame rests on them, the event is instead attributed to occur because of uncontrollable forces (destiny/fate/etc.).

Health Beliefs Example

Locus of control also influences how people think about and manage their health.

A person with an internal health locus of control believes that their behaviors and lifestyle choices directly affect their well-being.

They are more likely to exercise, eat healthily, avoid smoking, and seek medical advice when needed, because they believe their actions make a difference.

They might say, “I am responsible for my health,” reflecting a sense of personal agency.

In contrast, someone with an external health locus of control believes that their health is largely a matter of luck, fate, or external factors.

They may think, “If I’m meant to get sick, I’ll get sick no matter what I do,” or “Doctors are the ones who determine whether I stay healthy.”

Because they perceive their health as beyond their control, they may be less motivated to adopt healthy behaviors or make lifestyle changes.

Applications

Locus of control provides a unifying framework for understanding how people perceive and manage influence over their lives.

Whether in therapy, classrooms, workplaces, relationships, or health contexts, beliefs about control affect motivation, coping, and well-being.

1. Therapy and Mental Health

How individuals make causal attributions for their experiences is fundamental to many therapeutic approaches.

Control, Responsibility, and Meaning:

Existential and humanistic therapies emphasize helping clients develop a stronger sense of personal responsibility and agency.

Clients are encouraged to identify what is within their control – what they can change, influence, or reframe – and to accept what lies beyond it.

By doing so, they discover greater meaning and freedom in their lives.

Attributional Style and Depression:

Locus of control plays a key role in understanding Major Depressive Disorder (MDD).

A pessimistic attributional style – where people interpret negative events as internal (“my fault”), stable (“it will always be this way”), and global (“it affects everything”) – increases vulnerability to depression and learned helplessness.

Conversely, a more balanced or internal locus of control supports resilience and motivation.

Self-Regulation and Health Interventions:

Therapeutic methods such as biofeedback, relaxation training, and mindfulness foster autonomic self-regulation, helping clients regain a sense of control over stress, anxiety, and physiological states.

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2. Education and Learning

Beliefs about control and ability profoundly affect student motivation, learning strategies, and achievement.

Academic Performance:

Students with an internal locus of control tend to take responsibility for their outcomes—viewing poor grades as something they can improve through effort.

In contrast, external students may attribute failure to luck or unfair tests, which can reduce motivation.

Growth Mindset and Teacher Expectations:

Encouraging a growth mindset – the belief that intelligence and ability can develop through effort – aligns closely with an internal, controllable attribution style.

Similarly, teacher expectations (the Pygmalion effect) can powerfully shape student performance, demonstrating how external perceptions of control influence real outcomes.

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3. Work and Organizational Psychology

In the workplace, control beliefs underpin job satisfaction, motivation, and stress management.

Job Strain and Autonomy:

The Demand–Control Model of job stress links high job demands and low decision-making autonomy to high job strain, which is associated with poorer health outcomes and burnout.

Workers who feel in control of their tasks experience lower stress and greater engagement.

Management and Leadership:

Control beliefs also influence leadership and management style.

Theory X managers view employees as inherently unmotivated and needing control (external orientation), while Theory Y managers assume workers are self-directed and seek intrinsic satisfaction (internal orientation).

Leadership models such as Contingency Theory similarly emphasize that effective leadership depends on the leader’s control and influence within a given context.

Personal Resources:

Traits like self-efficacy, optimism, and an internal locus of control act as buffers against workplace stress, improving well-being and performance.

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4. Relationships and Social Context

Attribution theory shapes how people interpret others’ behavior and navigate interpersonal dynamics.

Relational Attributions:

Individuals with a more internal locus of control tend to assume responsibility for their role in conflicts and are more proactive in resolving them, whereas those with a more external orientation may blame partners or external circumstances.

Family and Systems Therapy:

In systemic and couples therapy, problems are viewed not as one partner’s “fault” but as emerging from interactional patterns within the relationship.

This challenges external attributions (“it’s their problem”) and encourages shared responsibility and adaptive change.

Cultural Context:

Control beliefs also vary culturally.

Collectivist cultures often view the self as interdependent and embedded within social context, emphasizing relational control rather than purely individual autonomy.

Therapists must therefore consider cultural and intersectional factors in understanding a client’s sense of control.

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5. Health Psychology

The concept of health locus of control has become one of the most widely applied forms of LoC in research and clinical practice.

Health Locus of Control Scales:

The Health Locus of Control (HLC) and Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC) scales (Wallston & Wallston, 2004) measure whether individuals attribute their health outcomes to:

• Internal factors (self-care, lifestyle, effort)

• Powerful others (doctors, family, authority figures)

• Chance or fate (luck, destiny)

Health Outcomes and Behavior:

Research generally links an internal health locus of control to greater adherence to treatment, more active coping, and better physical outcomes (e.g., in diabetes management or rehabilitation after stroke).

However, meta-analyses (e.g., Norman & Bennett, 1997) show mixed evidence, with some studies finding inconsistent or even contradictory relationships between locus of control and behaviors like exercise, alcohol use, or weight control.

Domain-Specific Scales:

Numerous domain-specific measures—such as the Weight Locus of Control Scale, Dieting Beliefs Scale, Mental Health Locus of Control Scale, and Cancer Locus of Control Scale—have been developed to explore how perceptions of control shape behavior and adjustment in specific health contexts.

Conceptual Summary:

Ultimately, in health psychology, locus of control highlights a central tension:

While believing in one’s ability to influence outcomes can promote healthy behavior and recovery, excessive internality may lead to self-blame when outcomes are uncontrollable, and excessive externality may discourage responsibility altogether.

Origins

The first recorded trace of the term locus of control is from Julian B. Rotter’s work (1954) based on the social learning theory of personality.

It is a great example of a generalized expectancy related to problem-solving, a strategy that applies to a wide variety of situations.

In 1966 Rotter distributed an article in Psychological Monographs that summed up around a decade of extensive research (by Rotter and his understudies), with most of this work actually never being published beforehand.

1. The Proponent and Initial Publication

The concept of locus of control was formally proposed by Julian Rotter in 1966.

• Rotter’s seminal work defining the theory was titled “Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcements” and was published in Psychological Monographs in 1966.
• Rotter’s 1966 article explained that a person’s tendency to view events from an internal versus an external control orientation is an important part of their personality. He aimed to develop a test to reliably measure the extent to which individuals possess either an internal or external locus of control orientation toward life.
• Rotter’s theory has since been widely incorporated, with hundreds, and potentially thousands, of studies relying on his locus of control theory since his 1966 article appeared.

2. Conceptual Context and Theoretical Roots

Rotter proposed the LoC concept as a cognitive factor that affects learning and personality development.

• The theory emerged as part of the exploration of generalized beliefs regarding the power individuals possess over their lives.
• Rotter’s theory originated from the idea that people expect greater reinforcements (rewarding outcomes) when they attribute responsibility for events internally rather than externally. This trait-like expectation influences whether personal actions are viewed as effective in mastering the environment.
• Rotter was influenced by the behaviorist tradition (specifically learning theory) but incorporated internal, cognitive factors. His formulation of LoC concerns whether individuals believe a causal relationship exists between their behavioral choices and the consequences thereof.

3. Relation to Attribution Theory

While Rotter established the LoC concept in 1966, it later became integrated as a fundamental dimension within Attribution Theory, which concerns how people explain the causes of results.

• Attribution Theory, in general, addresses the belief about the cause of a result. One model of attribution proposes three main dimensions for explaining success and failure: locus of control (internal versus external), stability (stable versus unstable), and controllability (controllable versus uncontrollable).
• Specifically, Weiner (1984) noted that locus of control, developed from an idea by Rotter, is one of the three main factors affecting motivation based on how success and failure are attributed to a task.

Measurement

The measurement of Locus of Control is fundamentally achieved through self-report questionnaires, originally conceived by Rotter.

These instruments evolved into multidimensional scales, such as the MHLC, to capture the nuanced beliefs individuals hold about who or what controls the outcomes in specific life domains, especially health.

1. Rotter’s Internal–External (I-E) Scale

The foundational instrument for measuring generalized locus of control was developed by Julian Rotter and presented in his seminal 1966 article, “Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcements”.

• Purpose: The I-E Scale was designed to measure the extent to which a person possesses the personality characteristic of an internal or external locus of control.
• Structure: This test comprises items that clearly reflect either an internal or external orientation.
• Interpretation: A person is categorized based on whether they interpret their own choices and personality as responsible for behavioral consequences (internal LoC) or attribute consequences to external forces (external LoC).

2. Specialized Health Locus of Control Scales (MHLC)

Due to the general nature of Rotter’s original scale, researchers developed more specific instruments, particularly within the field of Health Psychology, where perceived control is vital.

The Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC) Scale was developed by Kenneth Wallston and colleagues in 1978.

This scale looks specifically at individuals’ beliefs about the factors that determine their health outcomes.

The MHLC refined the measurement by identifying three statistically independent dimensions of health control, moving beyond a simple internal/external dichotomy:

1. Internal Health Locus of Control: This measures the extent to which individuals feel able to be responsible for their own health and stress levels. For example, a person may state, “My own lifestyle choices are what will affect my stress levels”.
2. Powerful Others’ Control over Health: This refers to the belief that other, important people, such as doctors, family, and friends, play an important role in determining health outcomes or experience of stress. For instance, a person might hold the view, “Whenever I feel stressed, I should consult a trained professional”.
3. External/Chance Health Locus of Control: This dimension reflects the belief that one’s health state is determined by external factors such as fate, luck, or chance. An example statement is: “No matter what I do, if I am going to get sick I will get sick”.

3. Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank (RISB)

While the RISB is a projective test, not a traditional quantitative questionnaire like the I-E Scale, it is directly linked to the originator of Locus of Control theory, Julian Rotter.

• Nature: The RISB was developed by Julian Rotter in 1950 (before the LoC theory was formally published in 1966). It is a projective test that presents an ambiguous stimulus (40 incomplete sentences) from which the administrator infers information about the test-taker’s underlying psychological states, fears, and struggles.
• Forms: The RISB has three forms for different age groups: school, college, and adult.
• Relationship to LoC: The test is relevant because it emerged from the work of Rotter, the same figure who proposed the Locus of Control theory.

4. General Characteristics of Locus of Control Questionnaires

Questionnaires in psychology, including those measuring LoC, generally aim to collect data from a large number of people by asking participants to answer a series of questions.

• Format: Locus of Control scales often employ Likert-type scales. These scales present statements or questions to which participants respond using a limited range of options (e.g., from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”), indicating their strength of agreement or feeling.
• Scoring: LoC questionnaires are scored to place the individual on the continuum. For example, a high score on one version of a Locus of Control questionnaire may indicate an external locus of control, while a low score indicates an internal locus of control.
• Purpose of Results: The results of LoC questionnaires are often correlated with outcomes. For instance, studies have found that individuals with a higher internal focus generally take more responsibility for their own health, engage in healthier behaviors, and are generally less depressed.
  
  Conversely, college students over recent decades have shown a tendency to score more toward the external end of the locus-of-control scale.

FAQs

References

Bennett, P., Norman, P., Murphy, S., Moore, L., & Tudor-Smith, C. (1998). Beliefs about alcohol, health locus of control, value for health and reported consumption in a representative population sample. Health Education Research, 13 (1), 25-32.

Bialer, I. (1961). Conceptualization of success and failure in mentally retarded and normal children. Journal of personality.

CRANDALL, V. C., KATKOVSKY, W., & CRANDALL, V. J. (1965) Children’s beliefs in their own control of reinforcements in intellectual-academic achievement situations. Child Development, 36, 91-109.

Duttweiler, P. C. (1984). The internal control index: A newly developed measure of locus of control. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 44 (2), 209-221.

Furnham, A., & Steele, H. (1993). Measuring locus of control: A critique of general, children’s, health‐and work‐related locus of control questionnaires. British Journal of Psychology, 84 (4), 443-479.

Nowicki, S., & Strickland, B. R. (1973). A locus of control scale for children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 40 (1), 148.

Norman, P., Bennett, P., Smith, C., & Murphy, S. (1997). Health locus of control and leisure-time exercise. Personality and Individual Differences, 23 (5), 769-774.

Norman, P., Bennett, P., Smith, C., & Murphy, S. (1998). Health locus of control and health behavior. Journal of Health Psychology, 3 (2), 171-180.

Rotter, J. B. (1954). Social learning and clinical psychology.

Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological monographs: General and applied, 80 (1), 1.

Rotter, J. B. (1975). Some problems and misconceptions related to the construct of internal versus external control of reinforcement. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 43 (1), 56.

Saltzer, E. B. (1982). The weight locus of control (WLOC) scale: a specific measure for obesity research. Journal of Personality Assessment, 46 (6), 620-628.

Stotland, S., & Zuroff, D. C. (1990). A new measure of weight locus of control: The Dieting Beliefs Scale. Journal of personality assessment, 54 (1-2), 191-203.

Wallston, K. A., Strudler Wallston, B., & DeVellis, R. (1978). Development of the multidimensional health locus of control (MHLC) scales. Health education monographs, 6 (1), 160-170.

Wallston, K. A., & Wallston, B. S. (2004). Multidimensional health locus of control scale. Encyclopedia of health psychology, 171, 172.

Watson, M., Greer, S., Pruyn, J., & Van Den Borne, B. (1990). Locus of control and adjustment to cancer.
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(1), 39-48.

Wood, W. D., & Letak, J. K. (1982). A mental-health locus of control scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 3 (1), 84-87.

Keep Learning

• Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological monographs: General and applied, 80(1), 1.
• Rotter, J. B. (1990). Internal versus external control of reinforcement: A case history of a variable. American psychologist, 45(4), 489.
• Stotland, S., & Zuroff, D. C. (1990). A new measure of weight locus of control: The Dieting Beliefs Scale. Journal of personality assessment, 54(1-2), 191-203.
• Perceived behavioral control, self-efficacy, locus of control, and the theory of planned behavior