It is Friday, and we have reached the end of another week in the chaos of 2020. I won't go through the list of chaotic events, as you are probably all too familiar with them. And I don't want to condition you to feel a sense of doom as you click on my blog posts!
So, let's just get right to today's topic: locus of control, and how it can help or hinder our anxiety during the year that won't end.
I will give you a little background for the concept of locus of control. Locus is a fancy word for location, really. And when psychologists discuss locus of control, we are talking about whether one's locus is internal or external. There is more to this, thanks to some interesting work from Dr. Martin Seligman, and I will get to that later. Each of us tend to have a preference for either internal or external locus of control, although each of us activates both of these individually at different times, in different contexts. Internal locus of control means you focus on your ability to control an event, such as your own planning or hard work. External locus of control means you focus on external sources of control for an events, like the world, luck, fate, or other people. Again, each of us tends to favor one or the other. Research suggests having a healthy blend of each, while also indicating that a stronger dose of internal locus of control is better for our own outcomes and well-being.
I will give some examples of each to help you visualize them. I talk to my students about these concepts quite a bit, especially at the beginning of the semester. So, if you have a strong internal locus of control, you are likely to recognize that you play a big role in your own success, so studying for tests, organizing your study space and your day(s), and prioritizing your schoolwork over your social life are internal processes that will help you increase the likelihood of succeeding in school. For a person with a strong internal locus of control who does well on a test, they are likely to attribute their good performance to their own effort and their discipline in focusing on studying.
That is good! But, if that person performs poorly on that same test, they are also likely to attribute their performance to their efforts and discipline, or lack thereof, even if that isn't accurate.
What if they did study hard, are were disciplined, and the test was really hard, had questions that were poorly written, or covered material that was not supposed to be on the test?
Those would be EXTERNAL sources that contributed to their performance, and it would be a more realistic perspective to recognize those factors.
I hope you see that focusing TOO much on internal control can sometimes backfire. Maybe that poor performance WAS due to lack of preparation, in which case, the internal locus of control would motivate you to study harder or better next time. But, if that poor performance was due to external factors, and you incorrectly attribute it to internal ones, you might think you are a bad student, which impacts your self-esteem, your motivation, your stress, your mood, and maybe even your career choice(s).
If you tend to prefer an external locus of control, you are in for some bad news here. While, as you can see from the previous example, there are moments when being realistic about those external factors is helpful, a person who defaults to external factors runs the risk of discounting their own ability to impact their own outcomes. You are essentially surrendering control of your life to these external sources. If you place too much emphasis on luck, fate, destiny, or other people, why would you waste your time putting forth any effort yourself? Why study for an exam, if you think you are unlucky at tests, the teacher/professor writes terrible exams you are destined to fail anyway, or your study partner is terrible, so you are just doomed to fail because of them? See how this can backfire on you? Or, maybe even worse, be a self-fulfilling prophecy that you repeat over and over? I know someone who's life mantra is: "If I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have any at all." Isn't that sad?
I hope you recognize that it is also incredibly, falsely, tilted toward an external locus of control. And I really hope you don't pin too much of your life's goals or dreams on luck. Science doesn't support the existence of 'luck', so let's invest in our own ability to make decisions and take actions that result in progress toward goals and dreams.
So, where am I headed with all this information about internal/external loci of control, you ask? Well, we are smack dab in the middle of a pandemic, which feels like we have NO CONTROL. We are being told to stay home, distance from others, go back to school, don't go back to school, go to work, don't go to work, mask up, maybe masks aren't enough, cancel travel plans, forget about vacation, protest while practicing pandemic protocols, don't protest, the list goes on and on.....
Scientists tell us one thing, politicians tell us the exact opposite... feels like a vortex that someone threw us into without our consent.
Of course it is stressful! Of course there is a lot happening that we cannot control! And the more out of control we feel, the more we WANT control. Over everything. Or nothing. Because we are exhausted. It is a natural human response.
So, what can we do, you ask? Don't give up. And don't freak out because you want to control everything or everyone in your path. That won't work well, trust me. Take a breath. Practice some of the strategies I have already shared with you, and use a little cognitive reframing (fancy term for an attitude adjustment) to get your internal and external loci of control in a better state of balance:
Acknowledge that there are a lot of things outside of our control right now. That is true.
Recognize that you can control how you respond to these things that are out of your control. This is activating your internal locus of control.
Your responses are going to better contribute to your well-being if you think them through. Don't react, respond. That means take some time to think about what you are feeling, what the situation is, and how to respond respectfully, and in a way that will further your goals.
Remember, you may not be able to control how someone behaves (or what they say), but you may be able to control whether you submit yourself to it. If possible, spend less time in that person's presence. If this is someone, say, in the news... limit your exposure to the news, then. If it is a family member, choose your dose of exposure carefully. Limit interactions.
As much as you can, focus on how or what you can control, while making sure you are not trying to control TOO much. If a loved one or roommate tells you that you are over controlling, maybe that is a good indicator you need to back off a bit, breathe, and rethink the situation.
Given all this healthy advice from the research, keep in mind that there are times when the events of the day, or the people in our lives, are wreaking enough havoc that we must activate our internal locus of control and say "ENOUGH". The late and great John Lewis would call that "good trouble".
In order to avoid information overload, I am going to put off further discussion of Dr. Martin Seligman's research on learned optimism, until Monday. Today's topic is a primer for it, so keep it in mind when we reconvene on Monday. Monday's topic will be how to move from learned helplessness to learned optimism! Stay tuned!
Take care. Stay safe. Be well.
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