Locus of Control - Applications

Applications

Locus of control's best known application may have been in the area of health psychology, largely due to the work of Kenneth Wallston. Scales to measure locus of control in the health domain were reviewed by Furnham and Steele in 1993. The best-known are the Health Locus of Control Scale and the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale, or MHLC. The latter scale is based on the idea (echoing Levenson's earlier work) that health may be attributed to three sources: internal factors (such as self-determination of a healthy lifestyle), powerful others (such as one's doctor) or luck (which is very dangerous as lifestyle advice will be ignored - these people are very difficult to help).

Some of the scales reviewed by Furnham and Steele (1993) relate to health in more specific domains, such as obesity (for example, Saltzer's (1982) Weight Locus of Control Scale or Stotland and Zuroff's (1990) Dieting Beliefs Scale), mental health (such as Wood and Letak's (1982) Mental Health Locus of Control Scale or the Depression Locus of Control Scale of Whiteman, Desmond and Price, 1987) and cancer (the Cancer Locus of Control Scale of Pruyn et al., 1988). In discussing applications of the concept to health psychology Furnham and Steele refer to Claire Bradley's work, linking locus of control to the management of diabetes mellitus. Empirical data on health locus of control in a number of fields was reviewed by Norman and Bennett in 1995; they note that data on whether certain health-related behaviors are related to internal health locus of control have been ambiguous. They note that some studies found that internal health locus of control is linked with increased exercise, but cite other studies which found a weak (or no) relationship between exercise behaviors (such as jogging) and internal health locus of control. A similar ambiguity is noted for data on the relationship between internal health locus of control and other health-related behaviors (such as breast self-examination, weight control and preventative-health behavior). Of particular interest are the data cited on the relationship between internal health locus of control and alcohol consumption.

Norman and Bennett note that some studies that compared alcoholics with non-alcoholics suggest alcoholism is linked to increased externality for health locus of control; however, other studies have linked alcoholism with increased internality. Similar ambiguity has been found in studies of alcohol consumption in the general, non-alcoholic population. They are more optimistic in reviewing the literature on the relationship between internal health locus of control and smoking cessation, although they also point out that there are grounds for supposing that powerful-others and internal-health loci of control may be linked with this behavior.

They argue that a stronger relationship is found when health locus of control is assessed for specific domains than when general measures are taken. Overall, studies using behavior-specific health locus scales have tended to produce more positive results. These scales have been found to be more predictive of general behavior than more general scales, such as the MHLC scale. Norman and Bennett cite several studies that used health-related locus-of-control scales in specific domains (including smoking cessation), diabetes, tablet-treated diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, cancer, and heart and lung disease.

They also argue that health locus of control is better at predicting health-related behavior if studied in conjunction with health value (the value people attach to their health), suggesting that health value is an important moderator variable in the health locus of control relationship. For example, Weiss and Larsen (1990) found an increased relationship between internal health locus of control and health when health value was assessed. Despite the importance Norman and Bennett attach to specific measures of locus of control, there are general textbooks on personality which cite studies linking internal locus of control with improved physical health, mental health and quality of life in people with diverse conditions: HIV, migraines, diabetes, kidney disease and epilepsy.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Whyte correlated locus of control with the academic success of students enrolled in higher-education courses. Students who were more internally controlled believed that hard work and focus would result in successful academic progress, and they performed better academically. Those students who were identified as more externally controlled (believing that their future depended upon luck or fate) tended to have lower academic-performance levels. Cassandra B. Whyte researched how control tendency influenced behavioral outcomes in the academic realm by examining the effects of various modes of counseling on grade improvements and the locus of control of high-risk college students.