The Relationship of God Control and Internal Locus of Control to Intrinsic Religious Motivation, Coping and Purpose in Life

Abstract

Prior studies examining the relationship among the variables of God control, personal control, religious involvement, and coping, have all used white samples. The purpose of the present study was to examine the validity of these relationships in a black Baptist sample (N = 98). Unlike most studies among white subjects, the measure of high God control correlated with high internal locus of control on Rotter's measure. Also, using stepwise regression analyses and removing the variance due to demographic and religious participation variables, internal locus of control but God control predicted measures of coping skills and purpose in life. Both locus of control and God control predicted intrinsic religious motivation. A common secular perspective on religion assumes that believing God is an active agent in one's life requires relinquishing a sense of personal or internal control. This perspective equates believing that God is active in the world with personal passivity and with a failure to address the problems of self and the world with sufficient seriousness. These charges of the destructive impact of believing in divine providence have also been directed at the religiousness of blacks. Frequently, religion has been accused of fostering passivity and acceptance of the status quo among blacks (Marx, 1967). Some psychologists (e.g., Lefcourt & Ladwig, 1965) have advanced the secular version of this theme by suggesting that a black person, through discrimination, has a low expectancy that he can control his own reinforcements (i.e., has learned an external locus of control) and therefore does not really put his shoulder to the wheel (Rose, 1956). Psychologists interested in the study of religion have approached this issue of belief in God, in personal control and successful coping in the world in three ways. First, some researchers have differentiated the external control end of Rotter's I-E scale into chance and powerful other people (Levenson, 1974) and into God control (Kopplin, 1976), and then have examined the interrelationship of these variables. Thus, the belief in God's