Look at the picture. Isn’t Superman a prime example of internal locus of control? You don’t see Superman throwing his hands in the air and sighing ‘I sure wish I could save the world, but hey, it’s a pretty complex task’.
A colleague who works with criminals as a therapist, had a difficult week last week. One of his clients murdered someone. And this, understandably, upset him very badly. He felt he should have seen it coming.
In the last conversation he had with this client, who appeared to be a very meek person, he had sensed that something was wrong. But he could not put his finger on it…. For more than a week our colleague could not sleep and he generally felt tense and depressed.
Then somebody asked him: “You are thinking about all the things that you could have done. But if you had actually done any of those things, could you have prevented what happened?” Our colleague had to admit that — within in his professional limitations — nothing he could have done would have actually prevented this murder. Probably. And this thought gave him some peace.
This started me thinking once more about the Thinking Style ‘Internal Locus of Control’. When you have an internal locus of control in a given situation, you believe that you have power over your circumstances. You can influence the world.
When you have the opposite, an external locus of control, you believe that the situation has power over you. You have to accept things as they are, there is nothing you can do. You throw your hands in the air; often literally.
So, naturally, somebody who has an internal locus of control, tends to take responsibility. They are thinking: ‘I can change this’, and therefore they are responsible. Often, this is a good thing. People like people to take responsibility. And having an internal locus of control also goes together with a focus on goals, with trusting in your own values and with looking at the bright side of things. So it is not surprising that this Thinking Style has a good reputation.
There is, however, a dark site to internal locus of control too.
People with a strong internal locus of control will often feel responsible for things that are actually outside of their control. My colleague might be an example. He couldn’t sleep because he felt responsible. For something that he could not have prevented…. There’s a connection between a strong internal locus of control and being stressed out.
Bottom line? It all depends on how you handle ‘failure’. If you are responsible and bad things happen, how do you respond? What does that mean to you?
If it means (to you) that you are doing everything wrong as a person, you are in trouble (everything = thinking style general and you as a person = thinking style people). It would be better to understand that this is just this one thing that did not turn out right, which had a lot to do with the world we live in today (just this one thing = thinking style specific and the world we live in today as a cause = thinking style external locus of control).
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This article reminds me of Stephen Covey´s Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern, a great and simple way of distinguishing between the stuff you CAN influence (where you can make use of your internal locus of control) and the stuff you CANNOT (where you´d better not try to use it, unless you first reach a new level of influence, i.e. get promoted.or something). Check out http://www.breakoutofthebox.com/circle.htm or one of many other internet sources.
De vraag is of mensen consequent met hertzelfde metaprogramma reageren. Met name wanneer de context hetzelfde is maar de effecten anders zijn.
Wanneer je optimistisch ingestelde personen vergelijkt met pessimistisch ingestelde demonstreert dat het inconsequente gebruik van de metaprogramma’s interne en externe controle. Een optimist schrijft successen aan zichzelf toe en tegenvallers aan externe factoren. Een pessimist schrijft successen toe aan toeval en tegenvallers aan interne factoren. Wordt hiermee in de test rekening gehouden?
Iedere context heeft sub-contexten (contexten binnen contexten) en die hebben ook weer sub-contexten, enzovoort. Het is een soort Russisch poppetje. Je stelling over optimisten en pessimisten klopt helemaal. Als een optimist wint met kaarten denkt hij dat hij goed speelt, als hij verliest denkt hij dat hij slechte kaarten heeft. En de pessimist andersom: als hij goed speelt denkt hij dat hij goede kaarten heeft getrokken en als hij verliest denkt hij dat hij slecht speelt. In dit voorbeeld zijn winnen en verliezen verschillende sub-contexten van de hoofdcontext ‘kaarten’. Zo gezien reageren mensen dus weer wel consistent in een gegeven context. Theoretisch is dat mooi, alleen ontstaat dan in de praktijk het probleem dat je twee profielen zou moeten maken voor de context van ´kaarten´ een voor winnen en een voor verliezen. En als je zo doorredeneert, dan moet je misschien wel 100 profielen maken voor allerlei steeds verder gespecificeerde sub-contexten: ‘winnen met kaarten op een goede dag’, ‘winnen met kaarten op een slechte dag’ enzovoort. Dat is in de praktijk onwerkbaar. Dus kies je voor MindSonar de meest specifieke context die je kunt bedenken die toch nog het gebied dekt dat je wilt meten. Je maakt de context zo specifiek mogelijk maar niet specifieker. En dan ga je er van uit dat je een combinatie meet van verschillende momenten. In de score wordt ook zelden 100% gescoord. Het is bijna altijd een combinatie, bijvoorbeeld 7,3 interne controle en 3,7 externe controle, of 5,3 proactief en 4,7 reactief, etc. P.S. Wil je de volgende keer s.v.p. in het Engels posten?
It would also be interesting to look at what differs in each person to make certain scenarios give certain people the feeling of control while in others there might be a feeling of lack of control. This would be difficult to test, I’m sure, considering the differences in the people and also the differences in the situation. But it’s very curious when you can put two people in the same situation and some come out fine and others don’t deal with it as well.
Hi Kim, Yes, this is exactly what is done with MindSonar a lot: finding out why someone does well in certain situation and someone else doesn’t .
Good read Jaap, it’s interesting to see how life changing events such as a murder can affect thinking.
While reading this article, I could only stop and think about how these set of circumstances could apply to sports. When you’re playing sports, you can only only think about what you should have done to make the team win, while there’s about 10 other guys on the team that need to back you up to justify the results. In all, I feel that the only way you could leave a game with a loss and feel justified about it is if you know that you truly left it all out on the field, and that the game just worked in favor of the other team. Anyways, great read as always and I look forward to more!
Good comment. I think this applies anywhere where you want to achieve anything. How do you handle when you do not achieve what you wanted? Is it you or is it the world? As usual, wisdom is in the middle.
Nice article, Interesting the point of view… I think that everything related to the mind experience is subjective, don’t you?
I do!
Absolutely!
Internal locus control or external locus control is something that determines a lot of how people process information about experiences, how much is on your hands and how much is not in your hands and it is not for you to control, I can see this related to anxiety issues I have seen in patients.
Not good, not bad, depends on the situation and over all what makes more sense in terms of responsibility, not carrying guilt or excess responsibility over situations that cannot be changed by the person, on the other side not blaming everything around and not taking any responsibility over things.
I’m really anxious to assess the different between my employees. Cheer to success and cheers to Mindsonar!!!
I was thinking the exact same thing. Sports teams could definitely learn a lesson here.