Individual Differences In Locus Research Articles

Affective state and locus of control modulate the neural response to threat

The ability to regulate the emotional response to threat is critical to healthy emotional function. However, the response to threat varies considerably from person-to-person. This variability may be partially explained by differences in emotional processes, such as locus of control and affective state, which vary across individuals. Although the basic neural circuitry that mediates the response to threat has been described, the impact individual differences in affective state and locus of control have on that response is not well characterized. Understanding how these factors influence the neural response to threat would provide new insight into processes that mediate emotional function. Therefore, the present study used a Pavlovian conditioning procedure to investigate the influence individual differences in locus of control, positive affect, and negative affect have on the brain and behavioral responses to predictable and unpredictable threats. Thirty-two healthy volunteers participated in a fear conditioning study in which predictable and unpredictable threats (i.e., unconditioned stimulus) were presented during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Locus of control showed a linear relationship with learning-related ventromedial prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity such that the more external an individual's locus of control, the greater their differential response to predictable versus unpredictable threat. In addition, positive and negative affectivity showed a curvilinear relationship with dorsolateral PFC, dorsomedial PFC, and insula activity, such that those with high or low affectivity showed reduced regional activity compared to those with an intermediate level of affectivity. Further, activity within the PFC, as well as other regions including the amygdala, were linked with the peripheral emotional response as indexed by skin conductance and electromyography. The current findings demonstrate that the neural response to threat within brain regions that mediate the peripheral emotional response is modulated by an individual's affective state as well as their perceptions of an event's causality.

‘Fitting in’ in high school: how adolescent belonging is influenced by locus of control beliefs

Social interactions in the high school context are the source material for more enduring perceptions of fitting in for adolescents. Prior research demonstrates that perceptions of belonging relate to school engagement and academic outcomes. This study extends theories of adolescent belonging in school to highlight how individual differences in locus of control exist across adolescents' with disparate levels of belonging. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 34 adolescents. The methods of interpretive science were used to explore adolescent sense-making around navigating fitting in with peers. This analysis identified that adolescents' locus of control beliefs differed across levels of perceived belonging. Results provide evidence for both the need to account for individual differences in conceptualising adolescent belonging in school and the consideration of teaching practice and task structure when designing school-based interventions.

Experimental Test of Escape Theory: Accessibility to Implicit Suicidal Mind

This study tested the Escape Theory prediction that individuals blaming themselves for failure experience increased accessibility to implicit suicidal mind. One hundred and thirty-eight undergraduate medical students were randomly assigned to three groups: failure-related priming, success-related priming, and control. Following experimental conditions, participants completed a death/suicide Implicit Association Test. Results revealed significant differences between groups in accessibility to implicit suicidal mind. Furthermore, priming manipulation interacted with individual differences in locus of control (LOC). Significant differences in accessibility to implicit suicidal mind were observed in individuals with internal LOC, while effects of priming manipulation were eliminated in individuals with external LOC.

Why Do Patients Derogate Physicians Who Use a Computer-Based Diagnostic Support System?

To better understand 1) why patients have a negative perception of the use of computerized clinical decision support systems (CDSSs) and 2) what contributes to the documented heterogeneity in the evaluations of physicians who use a CDSS. Three vignette-based studies examined whether negative perceptions stemmed directly from the use of a computerized decision aid or the need to seek external advice more broadly (experiment 1) and investigated the contributing role of 2 individual difference measures, attitudes toward statistics (ATS; experiment 2) and the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale (MHLC; experiment 3), to these findings. A physician described as making an unaided diagnosis was rated significantly more positively on a number of attributes than a physician using a computerized decision aid but not a physician who sought the advice of an expert colleague (experiment 1). ATS were unrelated to perceptions of decision aid use (experiment 2); however, greater internal locus of control was associated with more positive feelings about unaided care and more negative feelings about care when a decision aid was used (experiment 3). Negative perceptions of computerized decision aid use may not be a product of the need to seek external advice more generally but may instead be specific to the use of a nonhuman tool and may be associated with individual differences in locus of control. Together, these 3 studies may be used to guide education efforts for patients.

A possible role of central dopamine metabolism associated with individual differences in locus of control

This study investigates the relationship between dopamine metabolism and a personality trait, the locus of control. For 29 primary breast cancer patients who are otherwise normally functioning, plasma concentrations of homovanillic acid (pHVA) levels and locus of control on the Rotter internal–external scale were determined. The results indicate that pHVA is significantly associated with locus of control, with pHVA levels increasing for more externally oriented individuals. This relationship held true when age and four different stress-related measures were partialled out. These findings are discussed with respect to individual differences in higher cognitive functions requiring sustained prefrontal cortical activity, and a neural model of central dopamine regulation.

Individual differences in locus of control and the reporting of lucid dreaming

Lucid dreaming occurs when a sleeping subject becomes aware of being in a dream, and, without waking up, maintains this awareness. This can then result in the conscious control of events or content of the dream. The present study found that high frequency lucid dreamers were significantly more internal on Rotter's Locus of Control scale than were subjects who frequently recalled ordinary but non-lucid, dreams. There were no significant mean group differences in creativity or in performance on an embedded-figures test of field-independence.

Some comments on the “Cognates of personal control”

Since the appearance of the monograph on internal versus external of reinforcement (Rotter, 1966), which detailed the theory of of control and numerous empirical studies going back to 1957, a wide interest in this variable has been expressed in the social sciences. As is often the case, the concept has spawned a series of overlapping, more specific, and related terms. The monograph reviewed the history of this concept and introduced a definition that could be easily operationalized. The concept was applied to learning theory (chance vs. skill learning situation), and, perhaps of greater significance to many, data reported in the monograph strongly suggested that relatively stable individual differences in locus of could be measured and used predictively. Previous literature, much of it sociological, had focused primarily on situational or group differences. In the literally thousands of studies using this measure of individual differences, misinterpretations of the concept and the measure were common. The most common misinterpretation involved the issue of generality-specificity. In social learning theory, all broad personality characteristics develop at least partially as a result of a process of generalization; but there is a gradient of generalization encompassing specificity as well as generality. Just as there may be a broad need for achievement, there is also specificity, in that the need for academic achievement for a person will differ in strength from the need for athletic achievement. I have attempted to clarify these and other issues in regard to locus of (Rotter, 1975). As a generalized expectancy that reinforcements occur as a result of one's own behavior or characteristics, locus of operates most strongly in situations that are relatively novel or ambiguous. Situations in which skill is dearly recognized by the culture as the major determinant and in which the individual has had considerable

Individual differences in locus of control during the second half of the life span for identical and fraternal twins reared apart and reared together.

The relative influences of genetic and environmental factors for components of locus of control (LOC) were examined in the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging. The sample consisted of 84 pairs of monozygotic twins separated at an early age and reared apart, 173 pairs of dizygotic twins reared apart, 129 monozygotic pairs reared together, and 168 dizygotic pairs reared together. At the time of data collection, 72% were over 50 years of age. Three LOC components were measured in a mailed questionnaire: sense of personal control or lack of control over the direction of one's own life (Life Direction), beliefs about how responsible people are for misfortunes in their lives (Responsibility), and beliefs concerning the role of luck in determining people's outcomes (Luck). Model-fitting results indicated that genetic influences were of importance for Life Direction and Responsibility, accounting for somewhat over 30% of the variance in each component, while environmental influences explained twin similarity for Luck.

Psychological and physiological reactions to visual representations of war

This paper explores the immediate psychological and physiological effects of aversive visual stimuli, represented as pictures of war, in a balanced mixed design (n=24). The moderating effects of individual differences in locus of control and sex were examined, along with those of a requirement to report on the stimuli presented. The results indicated a fractionation of the autonomic response with electrodermal measures (EDA) and salivary function showing a sympathetic type response to war slides whilst measures of cardiac activity (heart rate and heart rate variability) tended to show increased parasympathetic activity over the response to neutral slides. Psychological measures showed an increase in self-reported stress, higher disturbance ratings and unprompted reports of various coping strategies (postexperimental interviews) in response to war slides. Additionally, self reported arousal and EDA's proved sensitive to the report requirement and cardiac activity appeared to be tied to individual differences in terms of locus of control. Although the physiological results could be taken as congruent with Hare's (1972) suggestion that ‘morbid curiosity’ accompanies the viewing of aversive stimuli, psychological measures tended to disconfirm this interpretation. The situational determinants of the cardiac response are discussed as a solution to the paradoxical cardiac response elicited with aversive visual stimuli, along with individual styles of coping with aversive situations which may be reflected in individual's locus of control.

Excuses: Masquerades in Search of Grace.

Introduction to the Percheron Press Edition 1. Browsing Through the Excuses Costume Shop 2. The Philosophical Backdrop to the Excuse Masquerade 3. Theory of Excuses: Positive Images for Adults and Others 4. Retrospective Excuses: Masquerades for the Past 5. Anticipatory Excuses: Masquerades for the Future 6. The Excuse-Making Actors: Individual Differences in Locus of Control 7. The Development of Excuse-Making 8. Excuses Gone Awry 9. Interventions for Excuses 10. The Value of Excuse-Making References Author Index Subject Index

Job Satisfaction and Locus of Control in Two Job Types

Data from 10 organizations indicate that more variance in job satisfaction is explained by individual differences in locus of control and by organizational differences than by job design.

Locus of control, motivation, and expectancy: Predicting hypnotic susceptibility from personality variables

Subjects were divided into high and low halves on three locus-of-control measures. Susceptibility to hypnotic suggestion was measured following a description of hypnosis as either situationally determined or personally determined. A control group received no description. The results suggest that individual differences in locus of control interacted with the perceived hypnotic situation to produce increased or decreased levels of hypnotic susceptibility. The results are interpreted in support of Endler and Magnusson's person × situation interactional approach to personality research. In addition, prehypnotic measures of expectancy of susceptibility and motivation to be hypnotized suggest that the person × situation interaction is mediated by these two variables. No relation between subject's attitude toward hypnosis and susceptibility was found.

Locus of Control and Sex Differences in Skill and Chance Risk-Taking Conditions

Summary Forty male and 40 female American university students, assessed for individual differences in locus of control (LC) beliefs, selected and performed either skill or chance-determined tasks that varied in probability of success. Behavioral risk indexes revealed several sex differences, among them riskier preferences by men than women under chance conditions. Person-situation LC combination interactions were found for probability preference variability and outcome-contingent preference shifts. Attribution and task informativeness ratings indicated evidence of greater concern over outcomes in chance situations by persons with external control beliefs.

Individual difference in anticipatory physiological responses to signaled stress: role of locus of control and autonomic balance.

Anticipatory cardiac activity to a signaled stressful event was hypothesized to be related to individual differences in locus of control and to autonomic balance. Subjects experienced 5 trials of a 105-db burst of white noise that was signaled by a milder tone. Significant increases in electrodermal as well as heart-rate responses occurred after the stress tone. While anticipating stress, the 10 subjects designated as having high levels of coherence between heart-rate and respiratory activity (high parasympathetic balance) showed reduced heart-rate and respiratory activity (high parasympathetic balance) showed reduced heart-rate variability over the 10 subjects with low coherence. Locus of control was not related to anticipatory activity. Anticipatory cardiac activity is discussed in light of two current psychophysiological models of attention.

Effects of Perceived Freedom on the Relationship of Locus of Control Beliefs to Typical Shifts in Expectancy

Rotter's hypothesis that internals show more typical shifts in expectancies (increase in expectancies following success or decrease in expectancies following failure) was tested after some refinements in his formulation of the locus of control construct were made. 100 subjects were administered Internal-External, Perceived Competence, and Origin-Pawn scales. Then, 50 subjects were given the choice to take an anagrams task (free condition), and 50 subjects were required to participate (forced condition). Using a multiple regression procedure, the findings were that internal subjects tended to show more typical changes in expectancy than external ones in the free condition, but the results did not achieve statistical significance. Contrary to Rotter's hypothesis, in the forced condition external subjects showed more typical shifts in expectancy than internal subjects. The findings, in general, did not support Rotter's theory concerning the relationship of individual differences in locus of control beliefs to typical shifts in expectancies.

Locus of Control and Perceived Ability Level as Determinants of Partner and Opponent Choice

Summary The effects of individual differences in locus of control orientation and perceived ability level on the selection of partners or opponents with superior, equal, or inferior abilities for cooperative or competitive task efforts were examined. The results indicated that internals were willing to relinquish much of their personal control over their outcomes by selecting superior partners for cooperative ventures, but only after they had become thoroughly convinced of their own lack of ability on the task. Where they perceived themselves as having good ability, in contrast, internals tended to select partners of equal ability for the anticipated cooperative activities, even though selection of superior-ability partners would have enhanced their teams' chances for success. Surprisingly, some externals tended to select inferior-ability partners under the same conditions, thus virtually ensuring defeat for their teams.