Locus of Control, Optimism Levels, and Perseverance during a Frustration Task - Essay Example

Running Head: Locus of Control Locus of Control, Optimism Levels, and Perseverance during a Frustration Task December 3, 2008 Locus of Control is compared with degree of optimism or pessimism using GESS and ICI inventories. Seventeen subjects completed the questionnaires and scores ranged from 64 to 149 for the GESS and 67 to 139 for the ICI. A high correlation between Internal Locus of Control and Optimism was demonstrated. The second part of this study measured perseverance during a Frustration Task in relation to Locus of Control. Two sets of five puzzles were randomly assigned. One set included five solvable puzzles, the Non-Frustration task, and the second set had two solvable and three unsolvable puzzles, the Frustration task. Each subject's perseverance level was rated after the task using a score range from 1 to 5. On average, subjects had a higher perseverance level on the Non-Frustration task than on the Frustration task. In this study, GESS and the ICI cannot be used to predict the degree of perseverance exhibited during a Frustration task. INTRODUCTION The concept of Locus of Control, which was originally developed by Julian B. Rotter in the early 1950's and is considered to be one of the most significant aspects of an individual's personality. It seeks to analyze the perception of an individual regarding the causes behind the happening or non-happening of certain events in his or her life (Rotter, 1966). The concept of Locus of Control is helpful in discerning the level of control that a person feels they possess in life. The study of Locus of Control would offer valuable contributions and theories that would further help in understanding and analyzing academic persistence as well as motivation. According to Strain (1993), the concept of Locus of Control has not yet been applied to the study of college students and their ability to persist at school. Individuals with internal Locus of Control are believed to be mentally more aware, able better equipped for learning, and highly motivated as compared to those with external Locus of Control (Stone and Jackson, 1975). It is hypothesised in this report that a higher degree of optimism will correlate with a greater internal Locus of Control in an individual. And that a higher level of pessimism will correlate with a greater external Locus of Control. An optimist will perceive that many aspects of life are controllable and will therefore make efforts and take risks which will promote this belief, thus turning their Locus of Control internal. Whereas pessimists perceive that they are helpless to affect the events happening around them, so they will avoid taking steps to change things and thereby change their Locus of Control to external. According to Aspinwall and Brunhart (1996), optimists are more likely to be aware of their health risks and more informed about id as opposed to pessimists. This fact is further supported by the studies of Peterson, Seligman, and Vaillant (1988), whereby it was observed that people with pessimistic behaviour were in worse physical health on older age than their more optimistic counterparts. They also suggest a manner in which this "learned helplessness" which is a major cause of depression could be transformed into optimistic behaviour through cognitive therapy (Seligman and Martin, 1991). According to Gibson (2004), a large difference exists in the behaviour of gamblers where it was observed that optimists have high expectations of winning and so are likely to lose more than pessimists who rarely expect to win and bet lesser amounts after each consecutive loss. The concepts of optimism as well as pessimism, when studied in the light of cultural perspectives - in terms of dealing with international patients versus Hindu patients, Desai (1982) observes that reactions of people towards a given situation differs largely owing to their cultural backgrounds. While Armor and Taylor (1998) advocate the theory of "situated optimism" where people behave in an optimistic manner within reasonable, rational boundaries, they are strategically oriented towards meeting specific goals and they are flexible to meet the needs of a given situation. The study of Locus of Control - both internal and external was found to provide valuable evidences on the behaviour and approach of individuals studied in terms of their reactions to marketing approaches where the factor of luck was involved (Tosi, Rizzo, and Mero, 2000). In regards to perseverance, externals were shown to be less persistent at tasks (Ducette and Wolk, 1972). It was found that individuals with internal Locus of Control were more vulnerable to ideas of luck than those with an external orientation Miyazaki, Anthony, and Sprott, 2001). According to Tosi and colleagues (2000), internal control is often correlated with better and more efficient work control in terms of adjusting to work environment, satisfaction, coping with stress, as well as level of involvement in one's job. While those with an external Locus of Control might exhibit a highly negative approach towards tasks or jobs that require independent action or decision making. A deeper analysis of such negativity or pessimistic behaviour was more deeply examined by Seligman and Martin (1991), these researchers report a strong link between pessimism and depression and suggest that the negative acts or behaviours are most often the results of learned helplessness. In this present study, those with an internal Locus of Control will likely be able to overcome the challenges presented to them. Individuals with an external Locus of Control will be more likely to have a negative outcome during the evaluations. The tasks presented in this experiment have to do with easily solvable "Non-Frustration" puzzles and unsolvable "Frustration" puzzles. It is expected that there will be a greater degree of perseverance for the "Non-Frustration" puzzles than the "Frustration" puzzles. In regards to GESS scores, the hypothesis is that the higher the score the more likely the test subject will be willing to persevere with a Frustration puzzle than those with a lower GESS score. Similarly, with a higher ICI score the hypothesis is that the subject will have greater perseverance with the Frustration puzzle than those with a lower ICI score. In summary, three hypotheses will be tested in this study. Hypothesis 1 is that there exists a relationship between Internal versus External Locus of Control and Optimism and Pessimism as measured by the GESS and ICI. Hypothesis 2 is that the GESS and the ICI, individually or in combination, can be used to predict the degree of perseverance exhibited during a frustration task. Hypothesis 3 is that there is a difference between perseverance levels exhibited during a Frustration task and a Non-Frustration task. METHODS Experiment 1 Participants Participants were selected randomly from the classroom. Of the 17 subjects participating in this study, 6 were male and 11 were female. Ages ranged from 19 to 30 years old. Materials In Experiment, a group of 17 subjects is assessed on two parameters, Internal Control Index (ICI) and Generalized Expectancy for Success Scale (GESS) using standardized questionnaires. Both of these tests are on a Likert scale. The testing was counterbalanced by order, half took the ICI first while the other half took the GESS first. Also some items were reverse scored. The ICI questionnaire is an adaptation of Duttweiler's 28 item inventory (Duttweiler, 2004). It is a measure of a person's belief in how much control they possess in their own life. The two extremes are those who believe they possess complete control in determining what they receive in life (the Internals), and those who believe that they have absolutely no control (the Externals). A high score on the ICI is an indication of an Internal personality and a low score indicates an External personality. The GESS questionnaire is an adaptation of Hale, Fiedler and Cochran's 25 item inventory (Hale, Fiedler & Cochran, 1992). This inventory is a measure of the optimism that an individual possesses concerning the likelihood of achieving goals in life. A person with a high GESS score has a great degree of optimism in their own ability to complete a task, while a person with a low GESS score is considered to be pessimistic about their own ability to reach a desired goal. Procedure For the GESS and ICI inventories, each test subject was seated in a relatively quiet and secluded environment and asked to fill-in the answers on the two separate inventories. The same tests were administered a second time to the same subjects at a later date. The reliability and validity of these two inventories, GESS and ICI, was assessed by correlating the results with each other. Experiment 2 Participants The same participants that were used for Experiment 1 are used for Experiment 2. Of the 17 original subjects only 15 took part in Experiment 2, 5 were male and 10 were female. Ages ranged from 19 to 30 years old. Materials In this experiment, two randomly assigned groups of puzzles were administered to the test subjects. One group received five maze puzzles to solve which were actually solvable, this was the Non-Frustration group. The second group received 3 puzzles which were unsolvable and 2 puzzles that were solvable, and this was the Frustration group. The unsolvable puzzles were meant to induce frustration in these subjects. Both groups received a complex maze puzzle. Procedure For the Frustration versus Non-Frustration tasks, individuals were scored with a perseverance rating after completing the assigned puzzle maze. Perseverance scores ranged from 1 to 5, with a rating of 1 meaning the individual was very unlikely to continue with the task and a rating of 5 meaning the individual was very likely to continue with the task. RESULTS Experiment 1 The results for the first administration and second administration of the GESS (GESS 1 and GESS 2, respectively) are shown in Figure 1. The GESS 1 scores range from 86 to 144 and GESS 2 scores range from 64 to 149. A scatter plot comparing the GESS 1 and GESS 2 data is shown in Figure 2. The Mean for the GESS 1 data is 122 and the Standard Deviation is 16.88. The Mean for the GESS 2 data is 118.59 and the Standard Deviation is 22.64. The Slope of the best-fit line for GESS 1 is 0.94. The Slope of the best-fit line for GESS 2 is 0.66. SPSS analysis was used to generate the Cronbach's Alpha score for GESS 1 and GESS 2 as a measurement for reliability (Cronbach, 1951). The Cronbach's Alpha score for the comparison of GESS 1 and GESS 2 is 0.84. The results for the first administration and second administration of the ICI (ICI 1 and ICI 2, respectively) are shown in Figure 1. The ICI 1 scores range from 67 to 136 and ICI 2 scores range from 68 to 139. The possible range for ICI scores is 28 to 140. A scatter plot comparing the ICI 1 and ICI 2 data is shown in Figure 3. The Mean for the ICI 1 data is 108.94 and the Standard Deviation is 15.12. The Mean for the ICI 2 data is 108.29 and the Standard Deviation is 16.54. The Slope of the best-fit line for ICI 1 is 0.94. The Slope of the best-fit line for ICI 2 is 0.86. SPSS analysis was used to generate the Cronbach's Alpha score for ICI 1 and ICI 2. The Cronbach's Alpha score for the comparison of ICI 1 and ICI 2 is 0.89. Experiment 2 The mean Perseverance rating for the Frustration group was 3, and the standard deviation was 1.92. The mean Perseverance rating for the Non-Frustration group was 3.875, and the standard deviation was 1.81. T-test analysis for these numbers overall is: t (13) = 0.910, p=0.379. The values for GESS - Frustration group are r= 0.091, p=0.847 and for GESS - Non-Frustration they are r= - 0.127, p=0.764. The values for ICI - Frustration group are r= 0.486, p=0.269and for ICI - Non-Frustration they are r= 0.244, p=0.560. DISCUSSION This report is meant to study three hypotheses concerning Locus of Control, degree of optimism or pessimism, and perseverance. Hypothesis 1 is that there exists a relationship between Internal versus External Locus of Control and Optimism and Pessimism as measured by the GESS and ICI. This relationship was examined in Experiment 1. The results demonstrate that there is indeed a high correlation between Internal Locus of Control and optimism. The correlation coefficient was 0.94 which shows a direct relationship between the two measures. A high score for the ICI test demonstrates that a person is confident that they can reach their goals, and a low score indicates a great deal of self-doubt. Hypothesis 2 is that the GESS and the ICI, individually or in combination, can be used to predict the degree of perseverance exhibited during a Frustration task. A score of 1 during the Frustration task indicated pessimism and a score of 5 indicated optimism. The t-test analysis shows there is no significant correlation between Locus of Control and perseverance. For the GESS - Frustration task group, the value of p=0.847 shows that the differences in perseverance ratings are not significant. This is also true for the GESS - Non-Frustration group (p=0.764), ICI - Frustration group (p=0.269), and ICI - Non-Frustration group (p=0.560). Therefore, Hypothesis 2 was not proven by this experiment. Hypothesis 3 is that there is a difference between perseverance levels exhibited during a Frustration task and a Non-Frustration task. Because the mean value for perseverance level exhibited in the Frustration task was 3 and the mean value for perseverance level exhibited during the Non-Frustration task was 3.875, this hypothesis is shown to be true. On average, subjects had a higher perseverance level on the Non-Frustration task than on the Frustration task. There are many limitations to this study and the results cannot be considered conclusive. Sample size error could be a significant contributing factor in the current experiment since only 15 subjects were observed with the Frustration tasks. Another possible limitation is the scoring system used during these tasks. Perhaps it would be helpful to construct different sets of Frustration tasks in future experiments or even change the criteria for scoring subjects. For example, instead of using a puzzle for the Frustration task it might be more effective to develop some sort of video game program because paper puzzles may be outdated. Using a computer would help to get a more accurate assessment of perseverance. A program could be developed that timed the subject's attempts at solving a computer game problem down to the last millisecond. A computer could count each subjects attempt at winning the game even if this is not apparent to an outside observer. The significance of this study is to understand why some people can achieve significant accomplishments in life and reach their own goals both in personal as well as academic areas of life while other people cannot. The concept of Locus of Control is relevant in this study because it is a measure of how much control an individual believes that he or she possesses over the elements of life. There is something different between a person who believes that he or she has the power to reach a goal, an internal, and a person who believes this power is out of their control, an external. Perhaps the thing that is different is that an internal will persevere at a task even when it is difficult and an external will simply give up when things get tough. The Frustration group in Experiment 2 was meant to simulate a difficult situation in life. Unsolvable puzzles are like a type of adversity which a person must face. Presumably, the internal test subjects would be more likely to spend more time and effort at attempting to solve these unsolvable puzzles than the external subjects because they believe that reaching the goal is within their power. This is indeed what previous research has demonstrated (Ducette and Wolk, 1972). REFERENCES Armor, DA, Taylor, SE (1998). Situated Optimism: Specific Outcome Expectancies and Self- Regulation. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. New York: Academic Press, 30:309-379. Aspinwall, LG, Brunhart, SM (1996). Distinguishing Optimism from Denial: Optimistic Beliefs Predict Attention to Health Threats. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 993-1003. Cronbach, L. J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrika, 16(3), 297-334. Desai, P (1982). Learning Psychotherapy: A Cultural Perspective. Journal of Operational Psychiatry, 13, 82-87. Ducette, J., & Wolk, S. (1972). Locus of control and extreme behavior. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 39, 253-258. Duttweiler, P.C. (1984). The Internal Control Index: A Newly Developed Measure of Locus of Control. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 44, 209-221 Gibson, B, Sanbonmatsu (2004). Optimism, Pessimism, and Gambling: The Downside of Optimism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 149-160. Hale, W. D., Fiedler, L. R., & Cochran, C. D. (1992). The revised Generalized Expectancy for Success Scale: A validity and reliability study. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 48, 517-521. Miyazaki, AD, Brumbaugh AM, Sprott, DE (2001). Promoting and Countering Consumer Misconceptions of Random Events: The Case of Perceived Control and State-Sponsored Lotteries. Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 20, 254. Peterson, C, Seligman, MEP, and Vaillant, GE (1988). Pessimistic Explanatory Style is a Risk Factor for Physical Illness: A thirty-five year longitudinal study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55:23-27. Rotter, JB (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control for Reinforcement. Psychology Monographs, 80:1-28. Seligman, Martin (1991). Learned Optimism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Stone, G and Jackson, T (1975). Internal-external control as a determinant of effectiveness of modelling and instructions. Journal of Counselling Psychology, 22: 294-298. Strain, B (1993). Locus of Control, Achievement Motivation and Selected Variables as Predictors of Persistence for Low-Achieving Students. University of Texas, Austin. Tosi, HL, Rizzo, JR, and Mero, N (2000). Managing Organizational Behavior. New York: Blackwell Publishing, Pg.28. Figure 1: First and Second Administration of GESS and ICI scores for 17 subjects. ID # Sex Age GESS 1st GESS 2nd ICI 1st ICI 2nd 1 4325494 F 29 111 101 104 88 2 4717406 M 27 120 120 122 113 3 4829166 F 25 134 114 106 111 4 5092310 F 22 139 149 110 115 5 5446406 F 25 91 98 93 89 6 5673081 F 27 127 130 123 123 7 5731348 F 27 118 123 100 119 8 6115594 F 19 86 64 67 68 9 6147892 M 20 114 133 101 105 10 6156568 F 21 121 116 113 115 11 9126422 M 21 121 122 105 108 12 9194193 M 30 138 140 121 128 13 9349898 F 19 140 144 107 111 14 9366717 F 20 135 90 119 104 15 9395156 F 19 131 122 107 109 16 9395482 M 20 104 101 118 96 17 9404732 F 23 144 149 136 139 Read More