Internal Locus Of Control Quotes

Whatever circumstances life brings you, you will be more likely to succeed and find happiness if you take responsibility for making your decisions well instead of complaining about things being beyond your control. Psychologists call this having an “internal locus of control,” and studies consistently show that people who have it outperform those who don’t.

Internal locus of control has been linked with academic success, higher self-motivation and social maturity, lower incidences of stress and depression, and longer life span,” a team of psychologists wrote in the journal Problems and Perspectives in Management in 2012.

But there is a critical point about differences between individuals that exerts arguably more influence on worker productivity than any other. The factor is locus of control, a fancy name for how people view their autonomy and agency in the world. People with an internal locus of control believe that they are responsible for (or at least can influence) their own fates and life outcomes. They may or may not feel they are leaders, but they feel that they are essentially in charge of their lives. Those with an external locus of control see themselves as relatively powerless pawns in some game played by others; they believe that other people, environmental forces, the weather, malevolent gods, the alignment of celestial bodies-- basically any and all external events-- exert the most influence on their lives.

This theory suggests how we can help ourselves and others strengthen our internal locus of control. We should reward initiative, congratulate people for self-motivation, celebrate when an infant wants to feed herself. We should applaud a child who shows defiant, self-righteous stubbornness and reward a student who finds a way to get things done by working around the rules.

Mastery is the point at which dopamine bows to H&N. Having done all it can do, dopamine pauses, and allows H&N to have its way with our happiness circuits. Even if it’s only for a short time, dopamine doesn’t fight the feeling of contentment. It approves. The best basking is basking in a job well done. Mastery also creates a feeling of what psychologists call an internal locus of control. This phrase refers to the tendency to view one’s choices and experiences as being under one’s own control as opposed to being determined by fate, luck, or other people.

Orientarea pe locus intern de control lucrează direct cu încrederea intrapersonală a clientului și cu convingerile limitative ale acestuia. În același timp, fiecare sesiune de coaching în sine este, pentru client, un exercițiu de încredere interpersonală, adică un exercițiu de poziționare față de locusul extern de control.

What I expected of my wife was an internal locus of control. I did not for one single second control or want to control one single thing that she did or didn't do. I hoped she would do these things because SHE wanted to do them, because they were the choices that she made in HER life ON HER OWN. I believed with all my heart that she was free, that we were free, to do as we pleased when we pleased to do it. We make our decisions and we roll with the consequences. If she didn't want to be a mother or didn't want to be a wife than I expected her to be honest about it, to say it, so that we could take steps and bring reality into line with our mutual desire.

The researchers discovered that there was a dramatic shift from an internal to an external locus of control in children of all ages, from elementary school to college. To give you an idea of how great a shift it was, young people in 1960 were 80 percent more likely to claim that they had control over their lives than children in 2002, who were more prone to say they lacked such personal control.

The good news is that positive construal can be taught. “We can make ourselves more or less vulnerable by how we think about things,” Bonanno said. In research at Columbia, the neuroscientist Kevin Ochsner has shown that teaching people to think of stimuli in different ways—to reframe them in positive terms when the initial response is negative, or in a less emotional way when the initial response is emotionally “hot”—changes how they experience and react to the stimulus. You can train people to better regulate their emotions, and the training seems to have lasting effects. Training people to change their explanatory styles from internal to external (“Bad events aren’t my fault”), from global to specific (“This is one narrow thing rather than a massive indication that something is wrong with my life”), and from permanent to impermanent (“I can change the situation, rather than assuming it’s fixed”) made them more psychologically successful and less prone to depression. The same goes for locus of control: not only is a more internal locus tied to perceiving less stress and performing better but changing your locus from external to internal leads to positive changes in both psychological well-being and objective work performance. The cognitive skills that underpin resilience, then, seem like they can indeed be learned over time, creating resilience where there was none. Unfortunately, the opposite may also be true. “We can become less resilient, or less likely to be resilient,” Bonanno says. “We can create or exaggerate stressors very easily in our own minds. That’s the danger of the human condition.” Human beings are capable of worry and rumination: we can take a minor thing, blow it up in our heads, run through it over and over, and drive ourselves crazy until we feel like that minor thing is the biggest thing that ever happened. In a sense, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Frame adversity as a challenge, and you become more flexible and able to deal with it, move on, learn from it, and grow. Focus on it, frame it as a threat, and a potentially traumatic event becomes an enduring problem; you become more inflexible, and more likely to be negatively affected.

The Importance of Language on a Rainy Day “One of the biggest mistakes that I observed in the first year of Jack’s life was parents who have unproductive language around weather being good or bad. Whenever it was raining, you’d hear moms, babysitters, dads say, ‘It’s bad weather. We can’t go out,’ or if it wasn’t, ‘It’s good weather. We can go out.’ That means that, somehow, we’re externally reliant on conditions being perfect in order to be able to go out and have a good time. So, Jack and I never missed a single storm, rain or snow, to go outside and romp in it. Maybe we missed one when he was sick. We’ve developed this language around how beautiful it is. Now, whenever it’s a rainy day, Jack says, ‘Look, Dada, it’s such a beautiful rainy day,’ and we go out and we play in it. I wanted him to have this internal locus of control—to not be reliant on external conditions being just so.

The choices that are most powerful in generating motivation, in other words, are decisions that do two things: They convince us we’re in control and they endow our actions with larger meaning. Choosing to climb a mountain can become an articulation of love for a daughter. Deciding to stage a nursing home insurrection can become proof that you’re still alive. An internal locus of control emerges when we develop a mental habit of transforming chores into meaningful choices, when we assert that we have authority over our lives.

An internal locus of control emerges when we develop a mental habit of transforming chores into meaningful choices, when we assert that we have authority over our lives.

Researchers have found that people with an internal locus of control tend to praise or blame themselves for success or failure, rather than assigning responsibility to things outside their influence. A student with a strong internal locus of control, for instance, will attribute good grades to hard work, rather than natural smarts.

Play helps children develop many essential life skills. Resilience, coping and negotiation skills, and self-control are just a few of the valuable lessons learned in unstructured play—as well as stress management, which lowers children’s chances of struggling with anxiety as adults. Play helps develop an internal locus of control, giving kids confidence in their own capabilities, which powerfully lays the groundwork for happiness. Authenticity helps children develop a strong internal compass because they learn to trust their emotions. Teaching honesty to ourselves and to our children fosters a strong character value. And remember that all emotions are OK. Furthermore, different types of praise affect children differently in terms of how they come to see themselves in the world. Giving empty praise or focusing too much on being smart can set kids up for feeling insecure and risk-averse. By engaging in process praise, we foster a growth mind-set rather than a

Internal locus of control has been linked with academic success, higher self-motivation and social maturity, lower incidences of stress and depression, and longer life span,

A secure attachment combined with the cultivation of competency builds an internal locus of control, the key factor in healthy coping throughout life.7 Securely attached children learn what makes them feel good; they discover what makes them (and others) feel bad, and they acquire a sense of agency: that their actions can change how they feel and how others respond. Securely attached kids learn the difference between situations they can control and situations where they need help.

Another image was for a very different audience: the “Extroverted and Disagreeable” swing voter. This slide depicted a woman. “The ‘Extroverted and Disagreeable’ voter needs a message that is all about her ability to assert her rights,” I said. “This type of voter likes to be heard. On any topic,” I said. “She knows what’s best for her. She has a strong internal locus of control and hates to be told what to do, especially by the government.” The woman on the slide was wielding a handgun, a fierce expression on her face. The text below read, “Don’t Question My Right to Own a Gun, and I Won’t Question Your Stupidity Not To.

A secure attachment combined with the cultivation of competency builds an internal locus of control, the key factor in healthy coping throughout life.7 Securely

A secure attachment combined with the cultivation of competency builds an internal locus of control, the key factor in healthy coping throughout life.

An individual with an external locus of control sees life as happening to him; he believes his fate is determined by circumstances and outside forces. He sees himself as a helpless victim, and is often plagued by stress, anxiety, and depression as a result.  An individual with an internal locus of control believes he can shape his life through his actions and decisions and that he himself is responsible for his destiny. He is more confident, more likely to seek growth and be a leader, more disciplined, and better able to deal with stress and challenges. What we might call the “Invictus Individual” (“I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul”), does of course face forces that are not, in fact, within his personal control, but he navigates them by working on what is: his own reactions and actions. Instead of asking, “Why is this happening to me?” he asks, “What can I do to make this situation better?” The mature man acts; the immature man is acted upon.

A student with a strong internal locus of control, for instance, will attribute good grades to hard work, rather than natural smarts. A salesman with an internal locus of control will blame a lost sale on his own lack of hustle, rather than bad fortune.

Internal locus of control is a learned skill,” Carol Dweck, the Stanford psychologist who helped conduct that study, told me. “Most of us learn it early in life. But some people’s sense of self-determination gets suppressed by how they grow up, or experiences they’ve had, and they forget how much influence they can have on their own lives. “That’s when training is helpful, because if you put people in situations where they can practice feeling in control, where that internal locus of control is reawakened, then people can start building habits that make them feel like they’re in charge of their own lives—and the more they feel that way, the more they really are in control of themselves.

A secure attachment combined with the cultivation of competency builds an internal locus of control, the key factor in healthy coping throughout life.7 Securely attached children learn what makes them feel good; they discover what makes them (and others) feel bad, and they acquire a sense of agency: that their actions can change how they

The killer was bitter and revenge-motivated. He could not control his aggression. He felt that he had been a victim in life and had no internal locus of control. He would probably assault his wife and would not tolerate any resistance. The killer was cold-hearted and had absolutely no respect for human life.

Studies show that someone’s locus of control can be influenced through training and feedback. One experiment conducted in 1998, for example, presented 128 fifth graders with a series of difficult puzzles. Afterward, each student was told they had scored very well. Half of them were also told, “You must have worked hard at these problems.” Telling fifth graders they have worked hard has been shown to activate their internal locus of control, because hard work is something we decide to do. Complimenting students for hard work reinforces their belief that they have control over themselves and their surroundings.

That’s when training is helpful, because if you put people in situations where they can practice feeling in control, where that internal locus of control is reawakened, then people can start building habits that make them feel like they’re in charge of their own lives—and the more they feel that way, the more they really are in control of themselves.

When we discovered that a low sense of control is enormously stressful and that autonomy is key to developing motivation,1 we thought we were onto something important. This impression was confirmed when we started to probe deeper and found that a healthy sense of control is related to virtually everything we want for our children, including physical and mental health, academic success, and happiness. From 1960 until 2002, high school and college students have steadily reported lower and lower levels of internal locus of control (the belief that they can control their own destiny) and higher levels of external locus of control (the belief that their destiny is determined by external forces). This change has been associated with an increased vulnerability to anxiety and depression. In fact, adolescents and young adults today are five to eight times more likely to experience the symptoms of an anxiety disorder than young people were at earlier times, including during the Great Depression, World War II, and the cold war.

research by the U.S. Marine Corps revealed “the most successful Marines were those with a strong internal locus of control – a belief they could influence their destiny through the choices they made.

Adolescence is an inside job. In the 1990s, Suniya S. Luthar, Ph.D., studied adolescents and found that ninth-graders with an internal locus of control - those who felt they had some command over the forces shaping their lives - handled stress better than kids with an external orientation - those who felt others had control over forces shaping their lives...Locus of control is not an all-or-nothing concept. None of us are entirely reliant on one or the other...But more and more often, the teenagers I observe aren't even partially internally motivated. They persistently turn outward toward coaches, teachers, and parents...A startlingly large number of these teens are behaving like younger children. They're stuck performing the chief psychosocial tasks of childhood - being good and doing things right to please adults - instead of taking on the developmental work of separation and independence that is appropriate for their age. When faced with teenage-sized problems, they often have nothing more than the skills of a child.

internal locus of control, the key factor in healthy coping throughout life.7 Securely attached children learn what makes them feel good; they discover what makes them (and others) feel bad, and they acquire a sense of agency: that their actions can change how they feel and how others respond. Securely attached kids learn the difference between situations they can control and situations where they need help. They learn that they can play an active role when faced with difficult situations. In contrast, children with histories of abuse and neglect learn that their terror, pleading, and crying do not register with their caregiver. Nothing they can do or say stops the beating or brings attention and help. In effect they’re being conditioned to give up when they face challenges later in life.

I began thinking about the key insight from chapter one and the ideas that Gen. Charles Krulak used to redesign Marine Corps boot camp by strengthening recruits’ internal locus of control: • Motivation becomes easier when we transform a chore into a choice. Doing so gives us a sense of control.

Locus of control” is the term psychologists use to refer to a person’s sense of agency. If you have an internal locus of control, you believe you have ability to improve your circumstances. If you have an external locus of control, you do not. Instead, you tend to attribute events to things outside of your control, like other people or bum luck. The rising generation has moved toward an external locus of control, Twenge said. The generation standing at the very beginning of life’s journey also believes it can’t do anything to improve its lot.

The early stages of a person’s life are critical in shaping their sense of self-worth and belief in their own abilities. Childhood experiences, parental guidance, education, and societal norms all play a major part in building self-confidence or, conversely, instilling feelings of powerlessness. For instance, a child raised in an environment that rewards effort, provides resilient role models, and fosters personal growth through supportive societal structures is more likely to develop a strong belief in their ability to influence their own circumstances. This is often referred to as having an internal locus of control—the understanding that one’s actions can significantly shape their future. On the other hand, a child growing up in an environment burdened by unstable government policies, economic hardships, or societal systems that limit access to opportunities might come to believe that success hinges solely on forces beyond their control.