Julian Rotter introduced the concept in 1966 within his social learning theory. The idea is simple: people differ systematically in how much influence they attribute to their own actions on life outcomes.
Two poles (not strict categories):
- Internal locus — "what happens to me depends mostly on what I do." Tends to go with sense of agency, self-efficacy and personal responsibility.
- External locus — "what happens to me depends mostly on environment, others, luck." May lead to passivity or victimhood, but also to serene acceptance of the uncontrollable.
What is known:
- Internal locus correlates with better mental health, higher academic achievement, greater job satisfaction, health behaviors (Lefcourt, 1991).
- Extreme external locus associates with depression and learned helplessness (Seligman, 1975).
- But extreme internal locus is no ideal either: leads to excessive guilt over uncontrollable circumstances and to burnout trying to control the uncontrollable.
Important distinction:
Locus of control is NOT the same as self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977). Self-efficacy is belief in your capacity for a specific task; locus is a generalized belief about causation.
Nor the same as dispositional optimism (Scheier & Carver, 1985). Optimism is positive expectation about the future; locus is attribution about the cause.
Changes with experience:
Locus shifts with sustained successes and failures. Adolescents and young adults lean external; with age and accumulated experiences where one’s action produced results, it tends to shift internal (Lefcourt, 1991). Long-term unemployment, trauma or chronic illness can push it external.
In AI contexts:
People with high external locus may fall into over-reliance: "let the AI tell me what to do". People with extreme internal locus may underrate AI contribution and miss delegation opportunities.
In your Afini profile, locus of control is not measured directly with a dedicated instrument, but the PCP protocol infers it from C (conscientiousness), N (vulnerability) and conversational patterns. It appears as one of the 25 cross-layer axes.