Abstract
Locus of control is one of the most widely studied concepts in the history of personality psychology. In spite of its popularity and its associations with numerous relevant outcomes, the ability of locus of control to predict future behaviors involving parenting effectiveness has been under researched. The few parent locus of control children's outcome studies are characterized by cross-sectional methodologies that focus on mothers. The present study uses a prospective methodology to compare data on mothers' and fathers' locus of control with their child's behavior outcomes from a large scale research project, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Based on Rotter's Social Learning Theory published in 1954 and past empirical research, it was predicted and found that parent internality was associated with more positive child outcomes than parent externality. More specifically, when both parents were internal, their children had more positive outcomes in sleeping, eating, and tantrum behavior as compared to any other parent locus of control combination. However external parents had a less restrictive attitude which appeared to have a more beneficial effect on picky eating. Results confirmed how important parent locus of control is in the lives of children. Based on the findings, researchers are urged to develop interventions to change advice to parents and promote more internal locus of control among parents.
Highlights
Fifty years ago Rotter (1966) published a study that has been cited in thousands of publications
A comparison of externally and internally oriented mothers shows that those who were externally controlled were less likely to know the date of their last menstrual period (LMP), less likely to attend parenting classes, less likely to breast feed and less likely to ensure their child was fully immunized by 6 months of age
Parental locus of control has much to do with how parents interact with their children
Summary
Fifty years ago Rotter (1966) published a study that has been cited in thousands of publications In it, he introduced the concept of locus of control and provided a scale to measure it. “Internal vs external control refers to the degree to which persons expect that a reinforcement or an outcome of their behavior is contingent on their own behavior or personal characteristics vs the degree to which persons expect that the reinforcement or outcome is a function of chance, luck, or fate, is under the control of powerful others, or is unpredictable Such expectancies may generalize along a gradient based on the degree of semantic similarity of the situational cues.” (Rotter, 1966)
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