Locus of Control Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Locus of Control - Essay Example Each subject's perseverance level was rated after the task using a score range from 1 to 5. On average, subjects had a higher perseverance level on the Non-Frustration task than on the Frustration task. In this study, GESS and the ICI cannot be used to predict the degree of perseverance exhibited during a Frustration task. The concept of Locus of Control, which was originally developed by Julian B. Rotter in the early 1950's and is considered to be one of the most significant aspects of an individual's personality. It seeks to analyze the perception of an individual regarding the causes behind the happening or non-happening of certain events in his or her life (Rotter, 1966). The concept of Locus of Control is helpful in discerning the level of control that a person feels they possess in life. The study of Locus of Control would offer valuable contributions and theories that would further help in understanding and analyzing academic persistence as well as motivation. According to Strain (1993), the concept of Locus of Control has not yet been applied to the study of college students and their ability to persist at school. Individuals with internal Locus of Control are believed to be mentally more aware, able better equipped for learning, and highly motivated as compared to those with external Locus of Control (Stone and Jackson, 1975). ... And that a higher level of pessimism will correlate with a greater external Locus of Control. An optimist will perceive that many aspects of life are controllable and will therefore make efforts and take risks which will promote this belief, thus turning their Locus of Control internal. Whereas pessimists perceive that they are helpless to affect the events happening around them, so they will avoid taking steps to change things and thereby change their Locus of Control to external. According to Aspinwall and Brunhart (1996), optimists are more likely to be aware of their health risks and more informed about id as opposed to pessimists. This fact is further supported by the studies of Peterson, Seligman, and Vaillant (1988), whereby it was observed that people with pessimistic behaviour were in worse physical health on older age than their more optimistic counterparts. They also suggest a manner in which this "learned helplessness" which is a major cause of depression could be transformed into optimistic behaviour through cognitive therapy (Seligman and Martin, 1991). According to Gibson (2004), a large difference exists in the behaviour of gamblers where it was observed that optimists have high expectations of winning and so are likely to lose more than pessimists who rarely expect to win and bet lesser amounts after each consecutive loss. The concepts of optimism as well as pessimism, when studied in the light of cultural perspectives - in terms of dealing wit h international patients versus Hindu patients, Desai (1982) observes that reactions of people towards a given situation differs largely owing to their cultural backgrounds. While Armor and Taylor (1998) advocate the theory of "situated optimism" where people behave in an optimistic