External Locus of Control: We can’t be held wholly responsible for our decisions and actions, nor for the consequences of these decisions and actions, for we are the recipients (benefactors) or victims (at least in part) of fate. This external fateful force may be identified as the vicissitudes of life or as God’s will. It can be identified, instead, (through use of social-psychological terms) as a powerful stimulus in our environment, a powerful societal force, or an all-determining shift in the economic, political or cultural reality of life. Freud or his sometime colleague, Carl Jung, would remind us that we are influenced or controlled by the physiologically based (Freud) or collective (Jung) thoughts, feelings and images that seem to operate like aliens, occupying forces within our personal psyches.
Internal Locus of Control: we will use a rather simplistic (and perhaps nautically naïve) metaphor to distinguish an internal locus from an external locus. When an internal locus is assumed, we declare that we are captains of our ship. Furthermore, we declare that we are often (if not always) the motor that propels our ship through the water. We are not sailboats that depend on the fickle influence of the wind, nor are we whitewater kayaks that must cooperate with the powerful forces of turbulent water. As captains and ship’s motors we power ahead, oblivious to our environment. We expect external forces to capitulate to our will (captain of the ship) and energy (motor of the ship). This compelling, forceful and ultimately optimistic orientation is uniquely American. It rests firmly on the ideology of pragmatism and activism: “All right! What can we do about it! Let’s roll up our sleeves and get started!” It also resides firmly on the democratic (and individualist) assumption of free will and personal freedom. Emphasis is always being placed on the right of all citizens to exert an influence over (even determine) the course of their personal lives and the path being taken by their society.
We find that the assumption of internal locus of control resides in many different ideological camps. At one extreme, we find entrepreneurial capitalists who proclaim an internal locus through their emphasis on free markets, dog-eat-dog competition and individual achievement. Several studies [including those cited by Marshall Goldsmith, during a presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Professional Coaching and Mentors Association, Long Beach, California, March 2002] suggest that corporate executives who are highly successful will usually hold an internal focus: they attribute much greater importance to their own role in achieving success than seems warranted. This bias is widely evident in books written by highly visible corporate tycoons who identify “the ten reasons,” “five keys” or “seven secrets” that have enabled them to make their company successful—usually ignoring fortuitous marketing conditions, favorable governmental rulings, or independent efforts made by their subordinates and predecessors.
At the other extreme, we find humanists and existentialists. They also are inclined toward an internal locus of control and focus on the isolated and courageous human beings who must acknowledge and live with the consequences of their individual actions and free will. An internal locus for these philosophers, novelists and psychologists translates into something much more profound than that offered by corporate tycoons. Humanists and existentialists honor the dignity and responsibility that accompany free will and relate this engagement of free will to the fundamental processes of thought. Rollo May (1996, pp. 204, 230), for instance, indicates that:
“I have had the conviction for a number of years . . . that something more complex and significant is going on in human experience in the realm of will and decision that we have yet taken into our studies. . . . . Cognition, or knowing and conation, or willing . . . go together. We could not have one without the other. . . . If I do not will something, I could never know it; and if I do not know something, I would never have any content for my willing. In this sense, it can be said directly that man makes his own meaning.”
Humanists, such as Rollo May, see human beings as constructivists, who create their own meaning and purpose in life. In parallel fashion, they identify an internal locus of control as an opportunity (and challenge) to act in an ethical manner. We are architects of our own fate and soul. We can’t assign blame to anyone else in the world—past or present. We stand convicted of our own actions and the consequences of our actions.
There are many critics of the internal locus of control, both within and outside American society. An all-consuming arrogance is often associated with the internal locus. It is evident not only in the indifference of many corporate executives to those who work for and with them, but also in disdain for the environment that is evident among many Americans (and non-Americans). An internal locus of control requires that we have access to information from inside ourselves, especially about personal values and life purposes.
