Nature Of Control And Its Effects On The Way Individuals Perceive And Interpret Events

5. Radel and colleagues (2011) conducted a study of how feeling overly controlled makes you desire—even unconsciously—more freedom. In their study, 52 Canadian undergraduates played a video game in a laboratory and were randomly assigned to either:

For this unit’s learning journal, I picked an article from the BBC called “Psychology: The Truth About the Paranormal” by David Robson. In his article, Robson tries to analyze why so many people believe in the paranormal from a psychological point of view. According to the article, “believers may have weaker cognitive ‘inhibition’, compared to skeptics” (Robson, 2004, par. 11). Robson also explores the possibility that belief in the supernatural may be a self-defense mechanism created by the brain, “belief in the paranormal can be a kind of shield from the even harsher truths of the world.” (Robson, 2004, par. 7)

Jean Twenge and San Diego State University analyzed the questionnaires made by Julian Rotter in the late 1950s. This set of questions was to figure out how much control the student had based on the Internal-External Locus of Control Scale. The “internal locus of control” was the idea that a person is responsible for their own success, as “external locus of control” is the belief that an external force or good fortune determines a person’s future. For example, a question might be “(a) Whatever

Being a naturally confident person I felt that I would be able to exert influence on people to achieve what I wanted by allowing my "behavior [to be] controlled by my internal personality (Bateman and Crate, 1993). As tasks began, I found it difficult to "let go" when tasks were divided and I tried to micro-manage. This lack of trust in other peoples work meant that I put additional pressure and workload on myself. In order to improve my actions (and stress levels) I have to better understand my 'locus of control' (Rotter 1966); whether the event is within(internal) or beyond(external) my personal control. I have come to learn that winning is not everything and too great a focus on it can block learning.

Social control crime is one of the three sociological viewpoints of contemporary criminology. Sociologists believe that an abiding social rule is generated and maintained by relationships with people and institutions - family members, friends, schools and work. In short, crime and bad behavior can occur when personal and social relationships are flimsy or easy to break. As social security increases, the cost of individual’s crime also rises a lot. In the book of The New Jim Crow mentions that poor black people is easier to get to be violence, drugs and criminal because they are usually living in the gutters (Alexander, Michelle. 2012).

Superstition, as defined by the Oxford dictionary is, “excessively credulous belief in and reverence for the supernatural.” In no other time was

“locus of control” study defines people who believe that the power over their lives is located.

Locus of Control, originally conceptualized by Julian Rotter (1966), has been found to be critical to numerous studies. Within psychology, it is considered to be a generalized expectancy regarding the forces that determine reinforcement. Individuals with internal orientation perceive rewards as contingent based on personal behavior, whereas those with external orientation attribute reinforcement received to external factors such as chance and powerful others (Levenson 1981). This essay examines the nature and significance of this psychological construct, especially in academic achievement and health domains. Additionally, it has been argued that high internality is positively associated with leadership while high scores of powerful others

Locus of control, when feelings are at normal levels, are just a way for people to determine which category they fall into. In a self-test that I participated online, individuals are able to determine whether they tend to perceive their lives under an internal locus of control or external locus of control (Psychology Today, 2015). This concept is also very prevalent in my own life as well as my fellow college peers. In college, especially in the first year, many students experience their first time living away from home. While this may make many individuals feel as though they are now in complete control of their lives, excess amount of this feeling can leave individuals feeling extremely guilty for any wrong doings or blame themselves for failure. I have seen this in my suitemates as she feels that no matter what she does that she is in complete control of what happens to her, almost a feeling of invincibility, when in reality, though she is in control of her actions, she cannot prevent bad events from happening to her. She has a strong internal locus of control, but her locus of control does not transcend onto others, therefore she cannot control the actions of others done unto her. On the other end of the spectrum, living away from home for the first time may cause individuals to feel like they have no control of their lives because no matter what they do bad things continue to happen and they blame outside forces for these unfortunate events. I have also seen this in myself very much so this year. This is due to being a part of an organization where my schedule down to almost every minute of my day is dictated or outlined by my coaches and advisors. While they have my best interest in mind, this feeling that my daily life is out of my own control

When making irrational decisions, there are various factors that assists an individual in making those decisions (Schacter et al. 2014). First is the Frequencies and Probabilities factor (Schacter et al. 2014). For people, choosing an opinion based upon the number of times a situation has been repeated, frequency, is proved to be much easier than when they are asked to base their opinion on the number of times a situation might occur, probability (Schacter et al. 2014). Next is Availability bias where, a stored memory forces a person to believe that the situation has occurred more frequently, making the decision

I scored a 76 on my locus of control test and the description said that I am more of an internal locus of control and that I believe for the most part I have power to affect the things that happen in my life. It went on to say that I still have some belief that thing could happen because I happen to be in the right place at the right time and that could be a little lucky.

An internal control conviction occurs when an individual perceives a positive or negative event as a consequence of one's own behavior, while an external control conviction exists when this event is perceived as independent by one's own behavior. Therefore, as their own control. Perception plays an important role. Within this theory and idea, it is irrelevant whether an event is actually subject to its own control or not, but only whether the individual

This lead to a lot of frustration within her, when her trainees did not perform as well as expected. This was because their failure undermined her own performance. This phenomenon is explored in the 1975 paper by Julian B Rotter titled Some Problems and Misconceptions Related to the Construct of Internal Versus External Control of Reinforcement which aims to challenge the notion that having a strong internal locus of control is always the better option of the two. The article states that the context of the events and subsequent outcomes that the locus of control is being applied to determines wether or not it is most beneficial to have an internal or external locus of control(Rotter, 1975). In the case of events where the person has limited control over the outcome of a situation due to many fluctuating external variables such as a doctor trying to treat mutating virus or a manger being held accountable for the actions of a noncompliant subordinate, it is imperative for a person to exercise a locus of control geared closer towards that of an external locus of control. This prevents them from over burdening themselves with factors they cannot

For centuries, the concept of free will has been a debatable philosophical question and whether or not we possess it. Only recently, however, have psychologists applied empirical methods to the debate of free will. Rather than trying to determine the existence of free will, psychologists and experimental philosophers have undertaken more pragmatic issues such as determining the impact of believing in free will

Researchers of this particular study argue the gambler’s fallacy is due to at least two particular errors in reasoning: (1) the perception of discrete events as being interrelated or part of a pattern and (2) the belief events will equalize in the short term (for example, expecting heads to appear 50% of the time in a trial of ten coin flips). As previous studies and examinations of the fallacy focused primarily on the second error in thinking, this study focused primarily on the former.