HEALTH LOCUS OF CONTROL

Health Locus of Control

Abstract

The condition in which people have the ability to influence or know what is happening to themselves, or what will occur to them, those people will be considered to be “in control.” Control is actually core psychological construct, and the scenario of being in the condition of control is a universally accepted and desired condition of persistence for myriad among us. This study focuses on investigating the affect of Health Value on Health Locus of Control. The study focuses on the analysis of different secondary research material from published literature.

Table of Contents

Introduction4

Health Locus of Control4

Types of Control Beliefs5

Mastery, Perceived Competence and Self-Efficacy8

Learned Helplessness9

Altering Control9

Desire for Control11

Problems Defining Locus of Control11

Locus of Control and Development12

Conclusion13

Reference14

Health Locus of Control

Introduction

Locus of control is a concept in psychology that characterizes the property of the individual to attribute their successes or failures to internal or external factors. Tendency to attribute performance to external factors is called an "external locus of control (externality). Tendency to the external attribution increases the helplessness of man. The Tendency to attribute the results of internal factors is called an "internal locus of control (internality). Internal factors here are the personality traits of the individual: their efforts, their own positive and negative qualities, the presence or absence of the required knowledge, skills, etc. People who consider themselves responsible for the state of their affairs (internal attribution), are able to do more successful acts but it is also more prone to experience feelings of guilt for events that are happening to them (Sue & Sue, 2003).

Health Locus of Control

The condition in which people have the ability to influence or know what is happening to themselves, or what will occur to them, those people will be considered to be “in control.” Control is actually core psychological construct, and the scenario of being in the condition of control is a universally accepted and desired condition of persistence for myriad among us. If we take the example of health care sector, the subject of control has been always linked to outcomes of positive health. Control can be either a real phenomenon or illusion of mind (Taylor & Brown, 1988). In case of illusion, it is the perception of control that matters because the quantity of real control that we can have over our condition of health is restricted. Whether or not an individual can actually affect health outcomes and behaviour, the thinking that one has control is most of the times sufficient to get its benefits.

Many of the literature which is related to control and health has involved control beliefs rather than belief s that are related to actual control. In the context of health, the beliefs about control relates to the cognitions a person has regarding the power to effect the behaviour of health, health care or status.

Types of Control Beliefs

Locus of Control

The term “locus of control” was coined by Rotter (1966) to refer to beliefs of an individual as to whether control of different ...