Locus of Control and Word-Spirit Orientation: A Reflection
Theodore Tin-Yee Hsieh
JudsonCollege
More than forty years ago, I was introduced to the concept of “internal versus external locus of control of reinforcement” in my first semester of graduate school at Northern Illinois University. My professor was Erwin J. Lotsof. He received his training in psychology at Ohio State University under Julian B. Rotter, the originator of Rotter Internal Versus External Locus of Control Scale (Rotter, 1966). The concept of locus of control is seen as an extension to the social learning theory developed by Rotter (1954). According to Rotter, a person’s history of reinforcement can determine the extent to which the individual feels that his or her own action determines what happens to them or what happens to them is determined by fate, luck, chance, or powerful forces outside their control (Rotter, Seeman, and Liverant, 1962). It was a fascinating concept for a student who grew up in Hong Kong with its traditional Chinese culture focusing on the influence of fate, luck, chance, and the powerful figures of parents, teachers and politicians.
Internal-External Locus of Control Scale
Immediately a decision was made to translate the relatively new Rotter scale into Chinese. The principal of my former high school in Hong Kong offered his help by administering the Chinese I-E scale to 343 upper-grade pupils for me. In Illinois, 239 Anglo-American students from DeKalb High School and 80 Chinese-American high school students in Chicago area took the Rotter scale in English. Hong Kong Chinese scored highest in externality (12.07), followed by the Chinese-American (9.79), and finally by Anglo-American high school students (8.58) on the I-E scale (Hsieh, Shybut, and Lotsof, 1969). The individual-centered culture in the United States emphasizes the independence, self-reliance and uniqueness of each individual. The culture places a high premium on the self and the status achieved through personal effort. In contrast, the situation-centered Chinese culture places its importance on the group. An individual is not defined apart from one’s group with its tradition, values, role expectations and harmony within the group and with the immediate environment. The middle score by the Chinese-American students reflects the influence of acculturation.
Through the years, the cross-cultural theme of locus of control has been studied rather extensively (Furnham and Henry, 1980; Hui, 1982; Chia, Allred, Hall, & Smith, 2003). The I-E scale itself “has become one of the most thoroughly investigated topics in psychology as well as in other social sciences, having sparked several thousand publications since its inception” (Feist and Feist, 2006). In discussion of locus of control, two factors of importance are generally identified. “Control ideology” is the first factor which is related to a continuum of general belief about the role of external forces in determining success and failure in the larger society. Belkin (1988) observed that this factor represents a cultural belief in the Protestant ethic (Weber, 1930/2001). Success is the result of hard work, effort, skill, and ability. “Personal control” is the second factor, reflecting a person’s belief as to his or her own sense of personal efficacy or competence. The first factor is an ideological belief while the second factor is more related to a sense of actual control. Rotter (1990) reported his interesting observation that many people did not increase their feelings of personal control after experiencing success and others did not lower their expectancies after repeated failure. That is to say that some people tended to explain away successful outcomes as being due to luck or chance, whereas others retained a strong sense of personal control even after several un-reinforced behaviors.
Despite its popularity, Rotter’s concepts of internal and external control are not clearly understood. He made several attempts (Rotter, 1975, 1990, 1992) to clarify the common misconceptions found in the I-E literature. Two of the clarifications are relevant to the present study. First, the scale does not divide people into two distinct types, internals and externals. The scale merely identifies a gradient of the generalized expectancies, reflecting the degree to which people generally believe that they are in control of their lives. In fact, a person with a generally high feeling of internal control may believe that the outcome of his or her behavior is due mostly to fate, chance, luck, or powerful others.
The second clarification that Rotter (1975) made was that high internal scores do not mean social desirability and a high external score does not indicate a socially undesirable characteristic. But cultural influences can be seen in internal or external locus of control. A linkage was first made between internal expectancies and the individual-centered American culture, and external expectancies and the situation-centered Chinese culture based on findings among high-school students (Hsieh, Shybut, and Lotsof, 1969). Later, Parsons and Schneider (1974) compared locus of control and university students from Eastern and Western societies and reported the following findings in a descending order of external scores: Japan (13.97), France (11.04), Canada (10.89), West Germany (10.89), Italy (10.53), Israel (10.33), United States (10.17), and India (9.60). In their by-country analysis, only Japan and India were significantly different from other countries while these two Eastern societies differed from one another in opposite directions. Parsons and Schneider suggested that both the generally external belief among the Japanese students and the strong internal belief among the Indian students were consistent with the cultural traditions of these two countries. The India’s cultural striving was to gain control over the self and the environment while the Japan’s cultural ideal stressed the harmonious adjustment of the individual to the established order of things. This interpretation is consistent with the classic observation by Max Weber of Confucianism (an integral part of Japanese culture) as a “this-worldly” religion which is quite different from the instrumental individualism that Weber postulated as the foundation of modern capitalism of the West (Weber, 1930/2001, 1951).
While locus of control researchers in general do not consider either internal or external as being socially desirable characteristic, their writings do suggest that scores somewhere in between these extremes with moderate tilt in the direction of internal control would probably be most healthy or desirable (Feist and Feist, 2006). But, beginning with reports on college students in general, the trend has been a gradual increase in externality. For example, Schneider (1971) reported the move from a score of 7.42 in 1966 to 10.38 in 1970 among the college students’ belief in personal control. Phares (1976) reported the following changes among mostly freshmen classes at Kansas State University: 6.80 (1964), 7.80 (1966), 8.50 (1967), 9.20 (1970), 9.50 (1971), and 10.50 (1973).
On Judson College campus, the I-E Scale has been administered to select groups of undergraduate students at least once a year since 1969. In different semesters, students in Introduction to Psychology, Personality, Psychological Tests and Measurement, or Psychology of Religion classes were given the scale. They were then scored and the class means were discussed within the context of reinforcement history, personality constructs, belief systems or cultural conditioning. A trend of increased externality is observed as indicated by the following scores in five-year intervals: 8.77 (1970), 9.21(1975), 9.98 (1980), 10.42 (1985), 11.12 (1990), 11.17 (1995), 11.50 (2000), and 11.81 (2005).
Word-Spirit Orientation Scale
Hsieh (1981) constructed the Word-Spirit Orientation Scale (W-SOS) to measure the degree to which a Christian individual tends to emphasize the objective-rational (“Word” orientation) or the subjective-experiential (“Spirit” orientation) aspects of his or her faith tradition. Spirit-Oriented subjects were found, among other things, to be higher in social interest than the Word-Oriented subjects in Crandall’s Social Interest Scale (Hsieh, 1987). The full Word-Spirit Orientation Scale and a review may be found in Burris (1999).
Individually tested with the Rod and Frame Apparatus, the Spirit-Oriented subjects were found to be Field-Dependent whereas the Word-Oriented subjects to be Field-Independent (Hsieh, 1981). The perception of the external world, as in the rod and frame test, seems to signify something about the inner structure of individuals and their sense of identity. In their pioneering work in psychological differentiation in cross-cultural perspective, Witkin and Berry (1975) suggested that a self not segregated from the field (field-dependent) is characteristic of people who are fused with their surroundings. Perceptual independence from the field, however, is characteristic of a relatively well-developed conception of the self, which sets it apart from the surroundings. Field independent or dependent and, by extension, “word” or “spirit” orientation, is consistent in cutting across an individual’s perceptual, intellectual, emotional, and interpersonal modes of operation (Wiggins, Renner, Clore, & Rose, 1976). W-SOS has been administered to small groups of church members in various denominations and faith traditions. In general, there is an increase of scores in word-oriented direction moving, in order, from Pentecostals, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox.
On Judson College campus, W-SOS has been administered since 1981 to the same groups of undergraduates taking the I-E Scale. A trend of increased spirit-orientation can be observed in the following five-year intervals: 5.41 (1981), 4.94 (1985), 4.91 (1990), 4.88 (1995), 4.80 (2000), and 4.51 (2005).
Discussion
Are there implications for further study based on an initial reading of scores from these two constructs? Except for a few years in between, there has been a consistent increase in external locus of control scores since 1969. Does this trend reflect the external movement of the American society in general, increased diversity of the college student body, presence of more international students on campus, or some other factors? Certainly, it would be interesting to examine some large scale cross-cultural studies such as Hofstede’s rankings of national cultures along the continuum of individualism versus collectivism to see if there is movement towards one or another direction. In Hofstede (2001) study of fifty nations, he found United States ranked number one in individualism and Hong Kong ranked number 37. Since the individualistic culture is closely related to internality (Hsieh, Shybut, and Lotsof, 1969), does the increased externality over the last thirty-seven years reflect a decrease in individualism in the United States?
A recent newspaper cartoon had a perplexed Uncle Sam lying on the proverbial Freudian couch saying, “I dunno, doc…it just feels like I can’t control anyone anymore. The North Koreans, the Iranians…HEY COME BACK, I’m not done talking!” (Another Perspective, 2006). Are Americans feeling less control over what happens to them now than before? Has the intense criticism of American individualism/independence in the last thirty years succeeded in moving our society toward a collectivistic/interdependent mind-set? For example, one psychologist has long lamented that “our contemporary psychological ideal is the person who fights against interdependent collective activity” (Sampson, 1977, p. 778). The prominent cultural historian Christopher Lasch attributes a growing narcissism and privatism in America to the “bourgeois individualism” in our culture (Lasch, 1978, p. xvi). Has Americans become more collectivistic?
There has also been a consistent increase in spirit-orientation scores since 1981 with the same groups of students. In sheer numbers, the Pentecostal churches (high in Spirit-Orientation on W-SOS) enjoy the biggest worldwide increases in membership as a denomination in the last fifty years. Its style of worship and songs has also become a part of the church youth culture. Is a change in behavioral and relating style observable among the students in addition to their worship style? Is there a change in cognitive (doctrinal) style as well?
Finally, does the movement toward external locus of control parallel the increased influence of political and religious dogmas in recent years? Does the increased belief in “absolute truth claims,” suggested by Kimball (2002) coincide with the stronger control over youth by some charismatic leaders of our time? A test of relationship between I-E and W-S scores among fifty-five students taking the I-E and W-SOS tests in 2005 produced a significant result (r=.331, p< .05), indicating those who are attracted to the more subjective and experiential aspects of their faith are more likely to believe in the forces other than themselves impacting what happen to their life. Obviously these longitudinal scores fall short in reliability and other research criteria. These tests were not administered in a uniformed circumstance and the subjects were not randomly selected although they were all given in classrooms to students taking the psychology courses at the time. In spite of these reservations, this collection of data certainly offers an interesting initial look at these two psychological constructs. Further study with better control and research design could be fruitful.
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