Late to work?

Missed a deadline?

Passed over for a promotion?

Believe it or not, how you view the circumstances surrounding these outcomes has everything to do with culture.

Are your choices, actions, and performance responsible for the results? Or do fate or environmental factors come into play?

Your locus of control will tell us everything we need to know.

Locus of Control

Developed by psychologist Julian B. Rotter in 1954, the locus of control is the degree to which a person believes they’re in control of their life. Rotter developed four dimensions of fundamental self-evaluation in his personality study, the other three dimensions of which include neuroticism, self-efficacy, and self-esteem.

Setting those three aside for now, the locus (Latin for “place”) is either internal or external.

One with an internal locus of control tends toward feeling in control of the events in his life; one with an external locus tends toward ascribing his life’s path to destiny, fate, or chance.

A person with an external locus believes environmental factors determine the outcome, and nothing he does can change that.

Internal vs. External

“You can walk around softly everywhere by putting on a pair of shoes, or you can demand that the whole Earth become covered by soft leather.”

This Indian proverb illustrates perfectly the locus of control.

Those with an internal locus put on a pair of shoes to make their walk comfortable; those with an external locus believe the environment must change in order to make them more comfortable.

Internal Locus

“I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.” – William Ernest Henley

It may come as no surprise that optimism and ambition are characteristic of those with an internal locus of control.

Being that individuals with an internal locus believe they affect change in their own lives, they have a sense of purpose, because they determine the outcome.

This gives those with an internal locus a sense of responsibility for their successes/failures, happiness/unhappiness, etc.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” is their battle cry. The internal locus believes it can alter its course. In that sense, those with an internal locus hold themselves and others accountable for their actions and the outcomes these actions produce.

External Locus

On the other hand, the battle cry for those with an external locus might be, “Life is what happens to you.”

The external locus drives realistic and fatalistic views of life events.

Life is predestined, written in the stars, for individuals with an external locus, resulting in a sense of limitation when it comes to personal control over one’s future.

This acceptance of limitation suggests that any outcome is at least partly based on one’s own good fortune or luck.

We’ll talk about how all of this comes to a head cross-culturally, both socially and in the workplace, next week.