Abstract
Perceived control plays an important role in the understanding of people's experiences with unemployment and reemployment. Yet, no scale has been designed specifically to measure people's perceived control in an unemployment situation. In the current study, using two independent samples with 1,009 and 831 unemployed people in France and Luxembourg, respectively, we created and tested a three-dimensional Perceived Control in Unemployment Scale that was based on Levenson's (1973, 1981) theory. An exploratory factor analysis (Study 1) and a confirmatory factor analysis (Study 2) showed that the data were consistent with the theoretically postulated three-factor model. In addition, we established convergent and discriminant validity with several adaptive and non-adaptive dimensions in two independent samples of 141 unemployed people and 384 recently unemployed people in Luxembourg (Studies 3 and 4, respectively). Perceived control did not change over a period of 6 months of unemployment, yet the three types of perceived control measured at the beginning of unemployment predicted employment status 6 months later. Unemployed people with perceptions of internal control or control from powerful others found jobs more quickly, whereas the perception that chance was the controlling factor predicted longer unemployment.
Highlights
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Quantitative Psychology and Measurement, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
In order to validate the structure of the Perceived Control in Unemployment Scale, an item analysis was conducted by applying both classical true score theory and item response theory (Excel tools using the eirt add in; Valois et al, 2011)
These tests showed that the three Locus of Control (LOC) dimensions measured by the scale had acceptable internal consistency indicators that were close to the original scale, varying between 0.67 and 0.77
Summary
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Quantitative Psychology and Measurement, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology. No scale has been designed to measure people’s perceived control in an unemployment situation. In the current study, using two independent samples with 1,009 and 831 unemployed people in France and Luxembourg, respectively, we created and tested a three-dimensional Perceived Control in Unemployment Scale that was based on Levenson’s (1973, 1981) theory. Considered a personality trait that determines the extent to which people believe that the rewards they receive in life can be controlled by their own personal actions or are external to themselves (Rotter, 1966; Lefcourt, 1982), LOC can be defined in a variety of ways.
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