Locus of Control: Internal vs External

What Is Locus of Control?

Locus of control is the degree to which people believe the outcomes in their lives depend on their own actions (an internal locus) or on forces outside them, such as luck, fate, or powerful other people (an external locus). Psychologist Julian Rotter introduced the concept in 1966. It is a continuum, not two types.

Quick Glance

Introduced by: Julian B. Rotter, in a 1966 monograph on "generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement."
Internal locus: "What happens to me mostly depends on what I do."
External locus: "What happens to me mostly depends on luck, circumstances, or other people."
Measured by: Rotter's Internal-External (I-E) Scale, a forced-choice questionnaire, plus later multidimensional scales.
Theoretical home: Rotter's social learning theory of personality.
Related ideas: learned helplessness, self-efficacy, attribution theory.

Origins: Rotter's Social Learning Theory

Julian Rotter was an American clinical psychologist who, in the 1950s, developed a social learning theory of personality (a different theory from Albert Bandura's later social learning theory, although both emphasize learning in a social context). Rotter argued that whether a person behaves a certain way depends on two things: how much they value the reward, and how strongly they expect the behavior to lead to it.

Those expectancies are learned. In a specific situation, people learn from experience whether effort pays off. Rotter proposed that, over time, people also form generalized expectancies that carry across situations. The most influential of these was the expectancy that reinforcement is under one's own control versus outside it. His 1966 paper in Psychological Monographs laid out the concept and the scale to measure it, and became one of the most cited papers in psychology.

Rotter was partly motivated by a puzzle in learning experiments: people learned differently when they believed a task was a matter of skill rather than chance. If outcomes seem random, a success says little about what to do next, so people update their expectations less. Locus of control described the same difference as a stable tendency in people.

Internal vs External Locus of Control

Internal locus of control

People toward the internal end tend to see a link between their behavior and its results. They are more likely to:

Take responsibility for both successes and failures.
Seek information that could help them influence an outcome.
Put effort into goals, since effort seems to matter.
Resist social pressure when they disagree.

External locus of control

People toward the external end tend to see outcomes as driven by luck, fate, timing, or powerful others. They are more likely to:

Attribute results to circumstances ("the test was unfair," "I got lucky").
Put less effort into situations they see as fixed.
Feel that planning is pointless when events seem unpredictable.
Defer to people with authority over them.

Neither end is simply "good" or "bad." Rotter himself warned against treating locus of control as a typology with heroes and villains. Many situations really are outside an individual's control, and a realistic person should see them that way. The healthiest pattern is usually an accurate one: seeing control where it exists and accepting its absence where it does not.

Examples in Everyday Life

Exam results. After a poor grade, a student with an internal locus thinks, "I need to start revising earlier." A student with an external locus thinks, "The teacher doesn't like me" or "Those questions were impossible."
Job hunting. An internal job seeker tailors applications and follows up. An external job seeker may conclude that hiring is all about connections and send fewer applications.
Health. One person with high blood pressure changes diet and exercise, believing it will help. Another feels it runs in the family and nothing they do will matter.
Relationships. After an argument, one partner asks what they could have done differently. The other sees the conflict as caused entirely by the partner's mood.
Money. Someone with an internal financial locus budgets and saves. Someone with a strongly external one may see financial success as down to luck, which can make lottery tickets look like a reasonable plan.
Sport. A losing team can blame the referee and the weather, or review the footage. Both explanations may contain some truth; the second gives the team something to work on.

Most people are not consistently internal or external. A person might feel in control at work and powerless about their health, which is one reason later researchers developed domain-specific measures.

How Locus of Control Is Measured

Rotter's I-E Scale presents pairs of statements and asks respondents to choose the one they agree with more. A typical pair contrasts a statement that outcomes depend on effort with one that they depend on luck or on people in power. The score is the number of external choices, so higher scores indicate a more external orientation. Some items are fillers, included to disguise the scale's purpose.

Later researchers argued that "external" lumps together quite different beliefs. Hanna Levenson's scales separate three dimensions: internality, powerful others, and chance. Believing your boss controls your career is different from believing life is random. Kenneth Wallston and colleagues developed the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control scales, which ask specifically about health. Children's versions exist as well, such as the Nowicki-Strickland scale.

These are self-report questionnaires, so they measure what people say they believe. They are not clinical diagnostic tools, and online "locus of control tests" vary widely in quality.

Locus of Control and Learned Helplessness

A close relative of external locus of control is learned helplessness, described by Martin Seligman and Steven Maier from animal experiments in the late 1960s. Dogs exposed to shocks they could not escape later failed to escape shocks that they could avoid. They seemed to have learned that their actions made no difference.

The two ideas developed separately but point at the same thing: a belief that outcomes are independent of behavior reduces the motivation to act. In 1978 Abramson, Seligman, and Teasdale reformulated learned helplessness for humans in terms of attributions. People were thought to be most at risk of helplessness and depression when they explained bad events as internal ("it's me"), stable ("it will always be like this"), and global ("it affects everything"). This later became the idea of explanatory style.

Note a subtle point. The attributional model links depression to internal explanations for bad events, while external locus of control is also associated with depressive symptoms. They are measuring different things: one is blame for specific bad events, the other is a general belief about whether your actions can change outcomes. A person can blame themselves for a failure and believe there is nothing they can do about it, which is a particularly painful combination.

In 2016 Maier and Seligman revisited the original research in light of neuroscience and argued that passivity in response to prolonged bad events is the brain's default; what is learned is the expectation of control, which protects against that default. That framing fits well with locus of control as a learned expectancy.

Health, School, and Work

Locus of control has been studied across hundreds of settings. Most findings are correlational, and effects are typically modest, but some patterns are consistent.

Health

A more internal health locus of control is generally associated with health-promoting behavior such as exercise, seeking health information, and following treatment plans, although findings vary by condition and population. A strong belief in "powerful others" can help in situations where following medical advice is the right move, and can hinder self-management in long-term conditions. An external locus has been associated with higher levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms. See health psychology for the broader field.

A well-known study by Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin (1976) gave older nursing-home residents more choice and responsibility, including caring for a houseplant. They reported that these residents became more active and happier than a comparison group, and a follow-up reported lower mortality. The study was small and has been debated, but it is widely cited as an illustration of how perceived control matters.

School

Students with a more internal locus tend to show more persistence and somewhat better academic achievement. Part of the reason is probably practical: if you believe study changes your grade, you study more. Locus of control also overlaps with academic self-efficacy and with a growth mindset, so it is hard to isolate its effect.

Work

In workplace research, an internal locus is generally associated with greater job satisfaction and motivation, and with seeing effort as connected to rewards. People with an external locus may report more stress in environments where outcomes feel arbitrary. These associations depend heavily on whether the workplace actually rewards effort fairly.

Trends over time

A meta-analysis by Jean Twenge and colleagues (2004) reported that average scores among young Americans moved toward the external end over the decades from the 1960s to the early 2000s. The causes are debated, and cross-generational comparisons of questionnaire data have well-known limitations.

When an Internal Locus Backfires

Popular writing often presents an internal locus as the goal. The research is more nuanced.

Self-blame in uncontrollable situations. When an outcome really is outside a person's control, such as a layoff during a recession, a chronic illness, or being the victim of a crime, a strongly internal person may blame themselves inappropriately and suffer more.
Ignoring real barriers. Discrimination, poverty, and unequal access shape outcomes. Telling someone facing these to "just take control" can be both unhelpful and unfair, and a more external view can be the accurate one.
Illusion of control. People often overestimate their influence on chance events, such as choosing lottery numbers. An internal locus can feed this.
Cultural fit. In cultures that emphasize interdependence, attributing outcomes partly to group, family, or circumstance can be a realistic and socially adaptive view, not a deficit.

Many psychologists distinguish between trying to change the situation (primary control) and adjusting yourself to fit it, for example by changing goals or finding meaning (secondary control). Both are ways of exercising control.

How to Shift Your Locus of Control

Because Rotter saw locus of control as a learned expectancy, it can be relearned. The goal is not to believe you control everything, but to notice where you have influence and act on it.

Separate what you control from what you don't. Write down a problem and split it into parts you can influence and parts you can't. Put your effort into the first list.
Watch your explanations. When something goes wrong, notice whether your explanation is "luck," "them," or "me." Then ask what specifically, if anything, you could do differently next time.
Run small experiments. Pick a modest goal where effort should matter, such as walking every day for two weeks, and track the result. Seeing a link between action and outcome is how the expectancy gets updated.
Make choices visible. Even in constrained situations there are usually choices, such as how to prepare or whom to ask for help. Naming them builds a sense of agency.
Build skills. Control depends on capability. Learning a skill, whether budgeting, studying, or negotiating, extends the range of outcomes you can actually influence. This links directly to self-efficacy.
Accept what you cannot change without blaming yourself. Recognizing real limits is part of an accurate locus of control, not a failure of it.

Cognitive behavioral approaches often work on these same beliefs. If feelings of powerlessness are part of persistent low mood or hopelessness, talking to a professional can help; see CBT, and if you are in distress now, our crisis resources.

Criticisms and Related Concepts

Criticisms

Too broad. The original single dimension mixes different beliefs, which is why multidimensional and domain-specific scales were developed.
Correlational evidence. Internal locus might lead to better outcomes, but good outcomes might also make people more internal. Much of the research cannot tell these apart.
Accuracy is ignored. The scale measures belief, not whether the belief is correct for a person's actual situation.
Misuse as a label. Treating people as "internals" or "externals" ignores Rotter's own emphasis on situations and continuums.

Related concepts

Self-efficacy: belief that you can perform an action. Locus of control is belief that actions affect outcomes.
Attribution theory: how people explain specific events. Bernard Weiner separated locus (internal or external) from stability and controllability. See also the fundamental attribution error.
Learned helplessness: passivity after experiencing uncontrollable events.
Self-determination theory: autonomy, the feeling that your actions are self-chosen, overlaps with a sense of control.
Personality psychology: locus of control is often studied alongside traits such as neuroticism and conscientiousness.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is locus of control in simple terms?

Locus of control is how much you believe your life outcomes are controlled by your own actions versus outside forces like luck, fate, or other people. Julian Rotter introduced the concept in 1966. People range along a continuum from internal to external.

What is an example of internal and external locus of control?

After failing an exam, a student with an internal locus of control might say they did not study enough and plan to start earlier next time. A student with an external locus of control might say the test was unfair or the teacher grades harshly.

Is it better to have an internal locus of control?

An internal locus is generally associated with more effort, persistence, and health-promoting behavior, but it is not always better. In situations that really are outside your control, a strongly internal view can lead to unfair self-blame. An accurate sense of where you do and do not have influence is the most useful.

How is locus of control related to learned helplessness?

Both describe a belief that your actions do not change outcomes. Learned helplessness, described by Seligman and Maier, is the passivity that follows repeated uncontrollable bad events. An external locus of control is a more general belief that outcomes depend on outside forces. Both are associated with lower motivation and depressive symptoms.

Can you change your locus of control?

Yes. Rotter viewed it as a learned expectancy, so it can be relearned. Separating what you can and cannot control, noticing how you explain events, setting small goals where effort clearly matters, and building skills can all shift you toward a more internal and accurate view.

What is the difference between locus of control and self-efficacy?

Locus of control is about whether outcomes depend on actions at all. Self-efficacy, from Albert Bandura, is about whether you believe you can carry out those actions. You can believe grades depend on studying and still doubt you can make yourself study.

Locus of Control: Internal vs External, With Examples