Locus of Control, Optimism Levels, and Perseverance during a Essay

Locus of Control, Optimism Levels, and Perseverance during a Frustration Task - Essay Example 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 exte rnal. 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). 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 (ibid), 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 repor t 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 thos e 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