Locus Of Control

Locus of Control is a theory developed in 1954 by researcher Julian B, Rotter. The theory refers to individual perceptions of "causality" or "how and why" things happen in a person's life. These perceptions are generally referred to as either: a) intrinsic, in which a person believes that they exert control on their environment actions; or b) extrinsic, which refers to a belief system where a person feels controlled by outside forces and events and believes that they have little or no control over their own circumstances and environment.

For example, if you had an Internal Locus of Control and you got a perfect score on your Statistics exam, you would tend to attribute your success to how much time and effort you spent studying for the test. If you had an External Locus of Control, you would probably say that it was because the teacher made the test easy, or it was just your lucky day.