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The usefulness of distinguishing between a defensive and a nondefensive external locus of control
JOURNAL
OF RESEARCH
IN
13, 316-325 (1979)
PERSONALITY
The Usefulness of Distinguishing between a Defensive and a Nondefensive External Locus of Control CAMILLE LLOYD The University
of Texas
Medical
School
at Houston
AND
ALICE F. CHANG Veterans
Administration
Hospital,
Kansas
City,
Missouri
The study’s purpose was to determine whether a distinction can be made between individuals adopting an external locus of control as a defense and those adopting the orientation because it reflects their life experience. It was hypothesized that the two groups differ in the amount of personal responsibility they accept for task outcomes. Internals and externals were identified and then further designated as high or low in action taking. Among externals, a high action-taking score implied defensiveness. Subjects randomly received either success or failure feedback on a presumed task of interpersonal sensitivity. Defensive externals varied their causal attributions as a function of outcome, whereas nondefensive externals did not (p < .05). The distinction between defensive and nondefensive external control was thus supported.
In recent years considerable research has been directed toward the identification and measurement of a personality construct known as the locus of control. Locus of control refers to the extent to which one believes either that reinforcement occurs primarily as a function of one’s own behavior and abilities (internal control) or that reinforcements occur primarily as a function of luck, chance, powerful others, etc. (external control). The construct validity of the scale has been demonstrated in a variety of experimental settings. In a summary of typical findings, Rotter Based on a master’s thesis by the first author for the University of Arizona (1974), and presented at the meeting of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association in Salt Lake City, May 1975. We thank Spencer A. McWilliams and Richard F. Coan for their useful suggestions in the planning of the study. Reprint requests should be sent to Dr. Camille Lloyd, c/o Department of Psychiatry, The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, P.O. Box 20708, Houston, Texas 77025. 316 0092-6566/79/03031610$02.00/0 Copyright @ 1979 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
DEFENSIVE
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EXTERNALITY
(1966) stated that persons who have a strong belief that they can control their own destiny are likely to: (a) be more attentive to those aspects of the environment that might provide them with information useful for future behavior, (b) take steps to improve their environmental condition, (c) place greater value on skill or achievement, and (d) be relatively more resistive to attempts by others to influence their behavior. THE POSSIBLE
DEFENSIVE FUNCTIONS ORIENTATION
OF AN EXTERNAL
Early studies revealed, however, that externals were a more heterogeneous group than internals. Hersch and Scheibe (1967) reported, for example, that while internals and externals differed in their responses to an adjective checklist, externals showed a much greater variability in their self-descriptions. An informal group of studies conducted by Phares and his colleagues at Kansas State University in 1967 and 1968 also indicated that there was a subgroup of externals made up of between 14 and 26% of the externals who behaved more like internals in performance situations (Phares, 1976). Such observations suggested that people might endorse an external orientation for different reasons. Some persons may develop a belief in external control because it is a relatively accurate appraisal of their life situation that is characterized by limited environmental and material opportunities. Socially disadvantaged individuals, such as those coming from a racial minority or low socioeconomic group, for example, have been found to be more external (Battle & Rotter, 1963; Lefcourt & Ladwig, 1965, 1966; Scott & Phelan, 1969). In addition to these true externals, it has been suggested over the years (e.g., Rotter, 1966; Phares, Ritchie, & Davis, 1968; Davis & Davis, 1972) that there is a subgroup of individuals who, while not genuinely ascribing to an external belief system, verbalize an external orientation for its defensive functions. By attributing events to external determinants, an individual may be able to avoid the threat that he or she would otherwise be expected to experience when presented with failure. Evidence that locus of control is related to defensive operations has also been accumulating over the years. Efran (1963) noted that the tendency to forget failure was associated with internality. This suggested that the external had less need to resort to repression as a defense since he or she had already defended himself or herself through the external orientation by disclaiming personal responsibility for the outcome. Lipp, Kolstoe, James, and Randall (1968) found that handicapped externals demonstrated lower thresholds for recognition of pictures of handicapped persons than did handicapped internals. Phares et al. (1968) found that externals recalled more of the negative psychological interpretations of their personalities than did internals. These two studies again suggested
318
LLOYD
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CHANG
that an external orientation serves as a type of ready-made defense, while internals need to resort to other defensive maneuvers in order to cope with experienced threat. Two additional studies also related locus of control to defensive behavior. Phares, Wilson, and Klyver (1971) found that following a task failure in a nondistractive condition, externals were more likely to place the blame on conditions outside of themselves and thus accept less personal responsibility than internals. Davis and Davis (1972) found that while internals and externals accepted a similar amount of responsibility for successes, the externals accepted significantly less responsibility for failures, thus blaming sources outside of themselves. In these two studies, therefore, externals resorted to further blame projection through a verbalization that failures ought to be attributed to external sources rather than to themselves. Such results lent credence to the view that an external orientation could serve a defensive function. Hochreich (1968), in a doctoral dissertation, set out to investigate whether it was indeed possible to identify a subgroup of externals who verbalized the external orientation in order to defend themselves against the threat of failure. Using interpersonal trust as a moderator variable, she separated individuals into a “true” and a “defensive” external group. Hochreich argued that subjects who score high in externality and low in trust are demonstrating a characteristic verbal defense. These are persons who characteristically utilize blame projection to account for their failure and can thus be regarded as defensive externals. She hypothesized that defensive externals would behave like internals in achievement situations. She predicted, therefore, that defensive externals would be more responsive to negative feedback concerning task performance than true externals. Results for males confirmed this hypothesis, although the reverse was true for females. Working independently, Davis (1970), in another dissertation project, also hypothesized that defensive externals, while professing an external orientation, would nevertheless behave as internals, operating as if they could control their reinforcements. She, therefore, constructed a measure of willingness to engage in various activities in order to improve study techniques. The measure was similar to one concerning action taking for self-improvement used by Phares et al. (1968) to differentiate between internals and externals. Davis thus categorized those externals who received a high action-taking score as “defensive” and those with a low action-taking score as “congruent.” While the results were not entirely supportive, the major findings supported the validity of the distinction. Following a task in which subjects received failure feedback, both defensive externals and internals engaged in more information-seeking behavior than did congruent externals. Davis also noted that defensive externals placed a high value on academic goals and showed a larger
DEFENSIVE
EXTERNALITY
319
discrepancy between generalized expectancies for the attainment of such goals and their ascribed value. This suggests that they want very much to succeed but lack confidence in their ability to do so. Two more recent studies, appearing since the collection of data herein reported, have also demonstrated the utility of differentiating between true and defensive externals. Hochreich (1974) found that defensive external males attributed less personal responsibility to story characters experiencing failure in achievement situations than did either internals or true externals. However, this relationship did not hold for nonachievement situations. No differences were observed among the groups following a successful outcome. In addition, defensive externals checked fewer favorable adjectives and more unfavorable adjectives than did true externals. Rather than deny personal shortcomings, then, defensive externals seem to acknowledge their existence but without taking personal responsibility for them. In a replication of this study with females, however, Hochreich reported nonsupportive results. Hochreich (1975), in a second investigation, wanted to assess whether these differences in blame projection following failure would occur among groups of male externals in response to actually experienced failure as well as in response to story characters. Following failure on an achievement-related task, defensive externals showed a stronger tendency toward blame projection than did internals or true externals. The groups again did not differ in attribution behavior following task success. The present study was also designed to assess the potential utility of distinguishing between defensive and nondefensive or true externals by examining hypotheses proposed by Davis and Davis (1972). These authors proposed that if it were indeed possible to differentiate these two groups, then future research would confirm that defensive externals tend to vary the nature of their causal attributions as a function of outcome to a greater extent than either internals or true externals. They further hypothesized that both internals and defensive externals would assume more personal responsibility for success than nondefensive externals and that following failure, internals would assume more personal responsibility than either group of externals. METHOD Subjects. Participants in the study were 96 students who were enrolled in undergraduate psychology courses at the University of Arizona during the summer session. Eighty were selected for participation in the experiment on the basis of their scores on the I-E scale and on the Action-Taking Questionnaire. of these, 48 were women and 32 were men. Sixteen subjects were dropped from the study because they could not be matched on the actiontaking measure. Measuring instrumenrs. The measuring instruments included the I-E Locus of Control Scale (Rotter, 1966), the Action-Taking Questionnaire (Davis, 1970), the Feldman-Collier Attribution of Responsibility Questionnaire, and a sheet of percentile norms by which each
320
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subject could compare his or her manipulated score on the social sensitivity test with scores supposedly obtained by other students. The Action-Taking Questionnaire measures a person’s willingness to take action to improve study skills and, hence, measures defensiveness as conceptualized in this study. Individuals who are willing to take action may be expected to believe that they can exert some control over their own outcome; if they profess an inability to exert personal control on the environment, however, then their external orientation may be considered defensive. The measure consists of six statements referring to various ways for improving study techniques. It was scored in the same manner as that originally reported by Davis (1970). The Feldman-Collier Social Sensitivity Test (Shrauger & Rosenberg, 1970), served as a test which permits the presentation of manipulated “success” or “failure” feedback. The respondent’s task is to predict whether a particular person designated a third statement as true, false, or uncertain, given the person’s responses to two other statements. The test, then, is one that allows for manipulated feedback on one’s ability to be sensitive to other people. The Attribution of Responsibility Questionnaire is similar in format to one developed by Feather (1%9) and to that used by Davis and Davis (1972). The questionnaire asks the respondent to indicate on a IO-point scale how much he or she believes the score reflected luck on the task and how much he or she believes the score reflected a measure’of true ability.
PROCEDURE Session I. The experimenter solicited volunteers from student classrooms for a psychological experiment. Volunteers were asked to fill out the I-E scale and the Action-Taking Questionnaire. Subjecr selecfion procedure. Subjects receiving scores in the upper one-half of the distribution on the I-E scale were designated as externals; the scores for the group ranged from 11 to 21. Subjects who scored in the lower one-half of the distribution were designated as internals; the scores ranged from 2 to 10. The second step was to match internal and external subjects as closely as possible by their scores on the Action-Taking Questionnaire. Matching was used since the measure of locus of control and of action taking may not be totally independent. Matching ensured that any differences that occurred on the dependent measure between the internal and external groups could not be attributed to their differences on the action-taking variable, but to the unique combination of the locus of control variable with the action-taking variable. The procedure allowed for the formation of 40 pairs of subjects in which each pair was matched within two points. Sixteen subjects for whom a close match could not be found were not included in the experimental manipulation. The 40 pairs were then split at the median on the basis of their Action-Taking scores into a high and a low action group. In this manner, four groups of 20 subjects each were formed-high action internals, low action internals, high action (defensive) externals, and low action (nondefensive) externals. Half of the high action pairs were then randomly assigned to a success condition and half to a failure condition. The same procedure was then followed for the low action pairs. Session 2. Subjects participated in the second session in groups of 6 to 10 persons, with the groups being composed of both internal and external individuals. The experimenter, who had no knowledge of I-E or Action-Taking scores, then offered the following verbal information: The test you will now be taking is designed to measure your sensitivity in judging other people. Given the information of how a person responded to two statements, your task will be to predict this person’s response to a third statement. As you might guess, people who do well on this test, who show that they have a high
DEFENSIVE
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EXTERNALITY
degree of accuracy in predicting other individuals’ attitudes, are those who have a greater potential for forming meaningful relationships. The social sensitivity test was then administered to all subjects. Following the completion of the test, each subject brought his or her own test to the experimenter’s table, where she pretended to score it and then wrote the appropriate score on the answer sheet. Subjects in the “success” condition were told that they had gotten 13 items correct and were near the 84th percentile. In the “failure” condition, subjects were told that they had gotten 5 items correct and that this was near the 22nd percentile. The scored test was then returned to each subject along with the sheet of percentile norms and the Attribution of Responsibility Questionnaire. Each subject was asked to again sit down and compare the score received with that of other students, following which he or she was to fill out the brief questionnaire about his or her own test performance. After all subjects in the small groups had completed the Attribution of Responsibility Questionnaire, they were informed about the actual purpose of the study and asked not to discuss the experiment until all subjects had participated in the study.
RESULTS
Table 1 shows the mean attribution scores for the four experimental groups in both the success and the failure conditions. The higher the indicated score, the more personal responsibility accepted by the person for his or her performance. Results of an analysis of variance indicated a significant main effect for the locus of control variable (F = 5.02; df = 1, 72; p < .05), with internal subjects assuming more personal responsibility across conditions than external subjects. The mean attribution score for internals in both conditions was 7.08, compared to a mean score of 6.18 for externals. There was also a main effect for outcome, with subjects assuming more personal responsibility in the success condition than in the failure condition (F = 27.31; d’ = 1, 72; p < .Ol). A final significant main effect was found for the action-taking variable (F = 6.19; df = 1, 72; p < .05). The mean score for high action subjects was 6.13, compared to a mean of 7.13 for low action subjects. There was also a significant interaction between locus of control and action taking (F = 4.47; df = 1, 72; p < .05). The remaining interactions were not significant. Neuman-Keuls post hoc comparisons provided additional information about differences among the group means. All eight means were comTABLE MEAN
ATTRIBUTION
1 SCORES
Internal
Success Failure
External
High action
Low action
High action
Low action
8.2 5.8
8.5 5.8
6.5 4.0
7.5 6.7
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pared simultaneously, and comparisons of specific interest were (1) the group means in the success condition, (2) the group means in the failure condition, and (3) comparison of each of four groups’ mean attribution scores in the success condition with their respective mean attribution scores in the failure condition. These comparisons revealed no significant differences between any of the four group means in the success condition. In the failure condition, both groups of internals and the nondefensive externals assumed significantly more personal responsibility than did the defensive externals (p < .05). Comparisons made across outcome revealed that both internal groups accepted significantly more personal responsibility for success than for failure (p < .05). Defensive externals similarly assumed significantly more personal responsibility for success than for failure (p < .05). However, nondefensive externals, as expected, did not assume more personal responsibility for success than for failure. That is, they did not vary the nature of their causal attributions as a function of outcome. DISCUSSION
Despite a few unexpected findings, it is evident that several results support the contention that it is indeed useful to distinguish between defensive and nondefensive externals. Also as expected, it appears that there is no reason to make a similar distinction among internals. We shall first review the results indicating that the two external groups can be differentiated. The unexpected findings will then be discussed. In comparing the attribution of responsibility among the groups across the success-failure dimension, it is quite clear that defensive and nondefensive externals behaved differently. Defensive externals varied the nature of their causal attribution as a function of outcome, while nondefensive or true externals did not. Defensive externals assumed more personal responsibility for success than for failure. This is consistent with the conceptualization of defensiveness. Defensive individuals are threatened by failure and hence are more likely to change their causal attributions depending upon whether they succeed or fail at a task. Analysis of group means in the failure condition also indicated that the defensive externals accepted significantly less personal responsibility following failure than did any of the other three groups. In summary, then, different correlates for the two external groups were established using a combined sample of men and women, although women comprised a majority (60%) of the sample. Previous studies either have used only male subjects (Davis, 1970; Hochreich, 1975) or have been able to demonstrate a positive relationship only in male subjects (Hochreich, 1%8, 1974). Perhaps the use of a “social sensitivity” test induced greater involvement among women than have the academic-related tasks previously studied. It is also important to note that this study substantiates the defensiveness
DEFENSIVE
EXTERNALITY
323
concept using a nonacademic task, while previous studies have demonstrated its usefulness only in academic-related tasks. It is also important to note that there were no differences between high and low action internals in either the success or the failure conditions. This indicates that the action-taking measure has no implication for defensiveness among internals. The results are thus entirely consistent with our prediction that a three-category construct of locus of control would eventually emerge. In contrast to these supported hypotheses, two somewhat unexpected findings emerged. First, both internal groups varied the nature of their causal attributions as a function of outcome. This finding is at variance with earlier results of Davis and Davis (1972), whose internals did not accept more responsibility for successes than for failures. However, other research with children using the Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire has demonstrated the utility of obtaining different responsibility scores for success and for failure (Crandall, Katkovsky, & Crandall, 1965). It is also possible that the discrepancy between our study and that of Davis and Davis (1972) may reflect a difference in the subject populations of the two studies. Internals in our study were those scoring in the lower 50% of the I-E distribution, while Davis and Davis (1972) included only those persons in the lower 14%. This raises the possibility that it is only the highly internal subject who does not vary attributions as a function of outcome. This interpretation is possible since we compared the attribution scores in the failure condition of those internals in the lowest 15% of the distribution with the scores of the remaining internals (those falling within the 16th through 50th percentiles) and found a trend for the highly internal subjects to accept more personal responsibility for the failure (t = 1.45; df = 18; p < .lO). There is a second difference in the subjects studied. In Davis & Davis’ study, subjects were drawn from introductory psychology classes; in our study subjects were drawn both from introductory classes and from classes in abnormal psychology. Students enrolled in the abnormal psychology classes were most likely either psychology majors or persons with special interests in psychology. These students might be particularly threatened when told they possess below-average interpersonal skills, and hence might be likely to vary their attributions as a function of outcome. In either case, it is apparent that future research is needed using different subject populations and different tasks to identify the precise conditions determining whether internals do or do not vary their attributions as a function of outcome. A second somewhat unexpected finding emerged. Nondefensive externals assumed a relatively large amount of personal responsibility for both success and failure, whereas Davis and Davis (1972) had predicted that
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they would accept little personal responsibility for either outcome. Theoretically, one might expect that the individual professing on the I-E scale the belief that one has little control over his or her reinforcements would also accept little personal responsibility for a specific experimental task outcome, whether it be success or failure. It is apparent, however, that Davis and Davis misconstrued how this nondefensive external group would respond. Our findings, however, are not inconsistent with results reported by Hochreich (1975). In that study, true externals did not differ from internals in accepting personal responsibility for either successes or failures. Similarly, the true externals did not differ significantly from internal groups in the amount to which they projected blame for failure by rating the test employed in that study as inadequate. In fact, they actually used the least blame projection. Our findings, therefore, are similar to those of Hochreich in that both internals and true externals accepted a similar amount of personal responsibility for success, and both groups accepted more personal responsibility for failure than did defensive externals. For whatever reason then, the nondefensive externals, while generally placing importance on external determinants, acknowledged this particular test as a valid indication of personal ability or inability. Perhaps they do not need to embrace an external orientation in all settings, but only in those settings which they believe to be realistically related to their social disadvantage. Or perhaps they place less value on social skills, like academic skills, and hence are less threatened by failure. In summary, it is concluded that future research should examine the behavioral correlates of a three-category locus of control construct rather than the more traditional two-category construct. Our results may help explain why previous researchers (Hersch & Scheibe, 1967) found greater variability among externals than among internals. More precise statements concerning the specific relationships to be expected between these three experimental groups should probably not be made until further research identifies the relevant parameters of such settings. Specific directions for future study include the need to establish (a) other and perhaps better ways of differentiating between defensive and nondefensive externals, (b) behavioral correlates of the two groups of externals, and (c) the relevant variables determining whether internals will or will not vary the nature of their causal attributions as a function of outcome. REFERENCES Battle, E., & Rotter, J. B. Children’s feelings of personal control as related to social class and ethnic group. Journal of Personality, 1963, 31, 482-490. Crandall, V. C., Katkovsky, W., & Crandall, V. J. Children’s beliefs in their own control of reinforcement in intellectual-academic situations. Child Development, 1965,36,91-109. Davis, D. E. R. Internal-external conrrol and defensiveness. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Kansas State University, 1970.
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Davis, W. L., & Davis, D. E. Internal-external control and attribution of responsibility for success and failure. Journal of Personality, 1972, 40, 123-126. Efran, J. S. Some personality determinants of memory for success and failure. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 1%3. Feather, N. T. Attribution of responsibility and valence of success and failure in relation to initial confidence task performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1%9, 13, 129-144. Hersch, P. D., & Scheibe, K. E. Reliability and validity of internal-external control as a personality dimension. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 1%7, 31, 609-613. Hochreich, D. J. Refined analysis of internal-external control and behavior in a laboratory situation. Doctoral dissertation, University of Connecticut, 1%8. Hochreich, D. J. Defensive externality and attribution of responsibility. Journal of Personality,
1974, 42, 543-557.
Hochreich, D. J. Defensive externality and blame projection following failure. Journal Personality
Lefcourt,
and
Social
Psychology,
G. W. The American Negro: A problem in expectancies. Psychology, 1965, 1, 377-380. Lefcourt, H. M., & Ladwig, G. W. The effect of reference group upon Negroes’ task persistence in a biracial competitive game. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1%6, 68, 153-157. Lipp, L., Kolstoe, R., James, W., & Randall, H. Denial of disability and internal control of reinforcement: A study using a perceptual defense paradigm. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1%8, 32, 72-75. Phares, E. J. Locus of control in personality. Morristown, New Jersey: General Learning Press, 1976. Phares, E. J., Ritchie, D. E., & Davis, W. L. Internal-external control and reaction to threat. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1968, 10, 402-405. Phares, E. J., Wilson, K. G., & Klyver, N. W. Internal-external control and the attribution of blame under neutral and distractive conditions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1971, 18, 285-288. Rotter, J. B. Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs, 1966, 80, No. 1 (609). Scott, J. D., & Phelan, J. G. Expectancies of unemployable males regarding source of control and reinforcement. Psychological Reports, 1969, 25, 911-913. Shrauger, J. S., & Rosenberg, S. E. Self-esteem and the effects of success and failure feedback on performance. Journal of Personality, 1970,38,404-417. Journal
H. M., & Ladwig,
of
1975, 32, W-546.
of Personality
and Social
OF RESEARCH
IN
13, 316-325 (1979)
PERSONALITY
The Usefulness of Distinguishing between a Defensive and a Nondefensive External Locus of Control CAMILLE LLOYD The University
of Texas
Medical
School
at Houston
AND
ALICE F. CHANG Veterans
Administration
Hospital,
Kansas
City,
Missouri
The study’s purpose was to determine whether a distinction can be made between individuals adopting an external locus of control as a defense and those adopting the orientation because it reflects their life experience. It was hypothesized that the two groups differ in the amount of personal responsibility they accept for task outcomes. Internals and externals were identified and then further designated as high or low in action taking. Among externals, a high action-taking score implied defensiveness. Subjects randomly received either success or failure feedback on a presumed task of interpersonal sensitivity. Defensive externals varied their causal attributions as a function of outcome, whereas nondefensive externals did not (p < .05). The distinction between defensive and nondefensive external control was thus supported.
In recent years considerable research has been directed toward the identification and measurement of a personality construct known as the locus of control. Locus of control refers to the extent to which one believes either that reinforcement occurs primarily as a function of one’s own behavior and abilities (internal control) or that reinforcements occur primarily as a function of luck, chance, powerful others, etc. (external control). The construct validity of the scale has been demonstrated in a variety of experimental settings. In a summary of typical findings, Rotter Based on a master’s thesis by the first author for the University of Arizona (1974), and presented at the meeting of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association in Salt Lake City, May 1975. We thank Spencer A. McWilliams and Richard F. Coan for their useful suggestions in the planning of the study. Reprint requests should be sent to Dr. Camille Lloyd, c/o Department of Psychiatry, The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, P.O. Box 20708, Houston, Texas 77025. 316 0092-6566/79/03031610$02.00/0 Copyright @ 1979 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
DEFENSIVE
317
EXTERNALITY
(1966) stated that persons who have a strong belief that they can control their own destiny are likely to: (a) be more attentive to those aspects of the environment that might provide them with information useful for future behavior, (b) take steps to improve their environmental condition, (c) place greater value on skill or achievement, and (d) be relatively more resistive to attempts by others to influence their behavior. THE POSSIBLE
DEFENSIVE FUNCTIONS ORIENTATION
OF AN EXTERNAL
Early studies revealed, however, that externals were a more heterogeneous group than internals. Hersch and Scheibe (1967) reported, for example, that while internals and externals differed in their responses to an adjective checklist, externals showed a much greater variability in their self-descriptions. An informal group of studies conducted by Phares and his colleagues at Kansas State University in 1967 and 1968 also indicated that there was a subgroup of externals made up of between 14 and 26% of the externals who behaved more like internals in performance situations (Phares, 1976). Such observations suggested that people might endorse an external orientation for different reasons. Some persons may develop a belief in external control because it is a relatively accurate appraisal of their life situation that is characterized by limited environmental and material opportunities. Socially disadvantaged individuals, such as those coming from a racial minority or low socioeconomic group, for example, have been found to be more external (Battle & Rotter, 1963; Lefcourt & Ladwig, 1965, 1966; Scott & Phelan, 1969). In addition to these true externals, it has been suggested over the years (e.g., Rotter, 1966; Phares, Ritchie, & Davis, 1968; Davis & Davis, 1972) that there is a subgroup of individuals who, while not genuinely ascribing to an external belief system, verbalize an external orientation for its defensive functions. By attributing events to external determinants, an individual may be able to avoid the threat that he or she would otherwise be expected to experience when presented with failure. Evidence that locus of control is related to defensive operations has also been accumulating over the years. Efran (1963) noted that the tendency to forget failure was associated with internality. This suggested that the external had less need to resort to repression as a defense since he or she had already defended himself or herself through the external orientation by disclaiming personal responsibility for the outcome. Lipp, Kolstoe, James, and Randall (1968) found that handicapped externals demonstrated lower thresholds for recognition of pictures of handicapped persons than did handicapped internals. Phares et al. (1968) found that externals recalled more of the negative psychological interpretations of their personalities than did internals. These two studies again suggested
318
LLOYD
AND
CHANG
that an external orientation serves as a type of ready-made defense, while internals need to resort to other defensive maneuvers in order to cope with experienced threat. Two additional studies also related locus of control to defensive behavior. Phares, Wilson, and Klyver (1971) found that following a task failure in a nondistractive condition, externals were more likely to place the blame on conditions outside of themselves and thus accept less personal responsibility than internals. Davis and Davis (1972) found that while internals and externals accepted a similar amount of responsibility for successes, the externals accepted significantly less responsibility for failures, thus blaming sources outside of themselves. In these two studies, therefore, externals resorted to further blame projection through a verbalization that failures ought to be attributed to external sources rather than to themselves. Such results lent credence to the view that an external orientation could serve a defensive function. Hochreich (1968), in a doctoral dissertation, set out to investigate whether it was indeed possible to identify a subgroup of externals who verbalized the external orientation in order to defend themselves against the threat of failure. Using interpersonal trust as a moderator variable, she separated individuals into a “true” and a “defensive” external group. Hochreich argued that subjects who score high in externality and low in trust are demonstrating a characteristic verbal defense. These are persons who characteristically utilize blame projection to account for their failure and can thus be regarded as defensive externals. She hypothesized that defensive externals would behave like internals in achievement situations. She predicted, therefore, that defensive externals would be more responsive to negative feedback concerning task performance than true externals. Results for males confirmed this hypothesis, although the reverse was true for females. Working independently, Davis (1970), in another dissertation project, also hypothesized that defensive externals, while professing an external orientation, would nevertheless behave as internals, operating as if they could control their reinforcements. She, therefore, constructed a measure of willingness to engage in various activities in order to improve study techniques. The measure was similar to one concerning action taking for self-improvement used by Phares et al. (1968) to differentiate between internals and externals. Davis thus categorized those externals who received a high action-taking score as “defensive” and those with a low action-taking score as “congruent.” While the results were not entirely supportive, the major findings supported the validity of the distinction. Following a task in which subjects received failure feedback, both defensive externals and internals engaged in more information-seeking behavior than did congruent externals. Davis also noted that defensive externals placed a high value on academic goals and showed a larger
DEFENSIVE
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discrepancy between generalized expectancies for the attainment of such goals and their ascribed value. This suggests that they want very much to succeed but lack confidence in their ability to do so. Two more recent studies, appearing since the collection of data herein reported, have also demonstrated the utility of differentiating between true and defensive externals. Hochreich (1974) found that defensive external males attributed less personal responsibility to story characters experiencing failure in achievement situations than did either internals or true externals. However, this relationship did not hold for nonachievement situations. No differences were observed among the groups following a successful outcome. In addition, defensive externals checked fewer favorable adjectives and more unfavorable adjectives than did true externals. Rather than deny personal shortcomings, then, defensive externals seem to acknowledge their existence but without taking personal responsibility for them. In a replication of this study with females, however, Hochreich reported nonsupportive results. Hochreich (1975), in a second investigation, wanted to assess whether these differences in blame projection following failure would occur among groups of male externals in response to actually experienced failure as well as in response to story characters. Following failure on an achievement-related task, defensive externals showed a stronger tendency toward blame projection than did internals or true externals. The groups again did not differ in attribution behavior following task success. The present study was also designed to assess the potential utility of distinguishing between defensive and nondefensive or true externals by examining hypotheses proposed by Davis and Davis (1972). These authors proposed that if it were indeed possible to differentiate these two groups, then future research would confirm that defensive externals tend to vary the nature of their causal attributions as a function of outcome to a greater extent than either internals or true externals. They further hypothesized that both internals and defensive externals would assume more personal responsibility for success than nondefensive externals and that following failure, internals would assume more personal responsibility than either group of externals. METHOD Subjects. Participants in the study were 96 students who were enrolled in undergraduate psychology courses at the University of Arizona during the summer session. Eighty were selected for participation in the experiment on the basis of their scores on the I-E scale and on the Action-Taking Questionnaire. of these, 48 were women and 32 were men. Sixteen subjects were dropped from the study because they could not be matched on the actiontaking measure. Measuring instrumenrs. The measuring instruments included the I-E Locus of Control Scale (Rotter, 1966), the Action-Taking Questionnaire (Davis, 1970), the Feldman-Collier Attribution of Responsibility Questionnaire, and a sheet of percentile norms by which each
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subject could compare his or her manipulated score on the social sensitivity test with scores supposedly obtained by other students. The Action-Taking Questionnaire measures a person’s willingness to take action to improve study skills and, hence, measures defensiveness as conceptualized in this study. Individuals who are willing to take action may be expected to believe that they can exert some control over their own outcome; if they profess an inability to exert personal control on the environment, however, then their external orientation may be considered defensive. The measure consists of six statements referring to various ways for improving study techniques. It was scored in the same manner as that originally reported by Davis (1970). The Feldman-Collier Social Sensitivity Test (Shrauger & Rosenberg, 1970), served as a test which permits the presentation of manipulated “success” or “failure” feedback. The respondent’s task is to predict whether a particular person designated a third statement as true, false, or uncertain, given the person’s responses to two other statements. The test, then, is one that allows for manipulated feedback on one’s ability to be sensitive to other people. The Attribution of Responsibility Questionnaire is similar in format to one developed by Feather (1%9) and to that used by Davis and Davis (1972). The questionnaire asks the respondent to indicate on a IO-point scale how much he or she believes the score reflected luck on the task and how much he or she believes the score reflected a measure’of true ability.
PROCEDURE Session I. The experimenter solicited volunteers from student classrooms for a psychological experiment. Volunteers were asked to fill out the I-E scale and the Action-Taking Questionnaire. Subjecr selecfion procedure. Subjects receiving scores in the upper one-half of the distribution on the I-E scale were designated as externals; the scores for the group ranged from 11 to 21. Subjects who scored in the lower one-half of the distribution were designated as internals; the scores ranged from 2 to 10. The second step was to match internal and external subjects as closely as possible by their scores on the Action-Taking Questionnaire. Matching was used since the measure of locus of control and of action taking may not be totally independent. Matching ensured that any differences that occurred on the dependent measure between the internal and external groups could not be attributed to their differences on the action-taking variable, but to the unique combination of the locus of control variable with the action-taking variable. The procedure allowed for the formation of 40 pairs of subjects in which each pair was matched within two points. Sixteen subjects for whom a close match could not be found were not included in the experimental manipulation. The 40 pairs were then split at the median on the basis of their Action-Taking scores into a high and a low action group. In this manner, four groups of 20 subjects each were formed-high action internals, low action internals, high action (defensive) externals, and low action (nondefensive) externals. Half of the high action pairs were then randomly assigned to a success condition and half to a failure condition. The same procedure was then followed for the low action pairs. Session 2. Subjects participated in the second session in groups of 6 to 10 persons, with the groups being composed of both internal and external individuals. The experimenter, who had no knowledge of I-E or Action-Taking scores, then offered the following verbal information: The test you will now be taking is designed to measure your sensitivity in judging other people. Given the information of how a person responded to two statements, your task will be to predict this person’s response to a third statement. As you might guess, people who do well on this test, who show that they have a high
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degree of accuracy in predicting other individuals’ attitudes, are those who have a greater potential for forming meaningful relationships. The social sensitivity test was then administered to all subjects. Following the completion of the test, each subject brought his or her own test to the experimenter’s table, where she pretended to score it and then wrote the appropriate score on the answer sheet. Subjects in the “success” condition were told that they had gotten 13 items correct and were near the 84th percentile. In the “failure” condition, subjects were told that they had gotten 5 items correct and that this was near the 22nd percentile. The scored test was then returned to each subject along with the sheet of percentile norms and the Attribution of Responsibility Questionnaire. Each subject was asked to again sit down and compare the score received with that of other students, following which he or she was to fill out the brief questionnaire about his or her own test performance. After all subjects in the small groups had completed the Attribution of Responsibility Questionnaire, they were informed about the actual purpose of the study and asked not to discuss the experiment until all subjects had participated in the study.
RESULTS
Table 1 shows the mean attribution scores for the four experimental groups in both the success and the failure conditions. The higher the indicated score, the more personal responsibility accepted by the person for his or her performance. Results of an analysis of variance indicated a significant main effect for the locus of control variable (F = 5.02; df = 1, 72; p < .05), with internal subjects assuming more personal responsibility across conditions than external subjects. The mean attribution score for internals in both conditions was 7.08, compared to a mean score of 6.18 for externals. There was also a main effect for outcome, with subjects assuming more personal responsibility in the success condition than in the failure condition (F = 27.31; d’ = 1, 72; p < .Ol). A final significant main effect was found for the action-taking variable (F = 6.19; df = 1, 72; p < .05). The mean score for high action subjects was 6.13, compared to a mean of 7.13 for low action subjects. There was also a significant interaction between locus of control and action taking (F = 4.47; df = 1, 72; p < .05). The remaining interactions were not significant. Neuman-Keuls post hoc comparisons provided additional information about differences among the group means. All eight means were comTABLE MEAN
ATTRIBUTION
1 SCORES
Internal
Success Failure
External
High action
Low action
High action
Low action
8.2 5.8
8.5 5.8
6.5 4.0
7.5 6.7
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pared simultaneously, and comparisons of specific interest were (1) the group means in the success condition, (2) the group means in the failure condition, and (3) comparison of each of four groups’ mean attribution scores in the success condition with their respective mean attribution scores in the failure condition. These comparisons revealed no significant differences between any of the four group means in the success condition. In the failure condition, both groups of internals and the nondefensive externals assumed significantly more personal responsibility than did the defensive externals (p < .05). Comparisons made across outcome revealed that both internal groups accepted significantly more personal responsibility for success than for failure (p < .05). Defensive externals similarly assumed significantly more personal responsibility for success than for failure (p < .05). However, nondefensive externals, as expected, did not assume more personal responsibility for success than for failure. That is, they did not vary the nature of their causal attributions as a function of outcome. DISCUSSION
Despite a few unexpected findings, it is evident that several results support the contention that it is indeed useful to distinguish between defensive and nondefensive externals. Also as expected, it appears that there is no reason to make a similar distinction among internals. We shall first review the results indicating that the two external groups can be differentiated. The unexpected findings will then be discussed. In comparing the attribution of responsibility among the groups across the success-failure dimension, it is quite clear that defensive and nondefensive externals behaved differently. Defensive externals varied the nature of their causal attribution as a function of outcome, while nondefensive or true externals did not. Defensive externals assumed more personal responsibility for success than for failure. This is consistent with the conceptualization of defensiveness. Defensive individuals are threatened by failure and hence are more likely to change their causal attributions depending upon whether they succeed or fail at a task. Analysis of group means in the failure condition also indicated that the defensive externals accepted significantly less personal responsibility following failure than did any of the other three groups. In summary, then, different correlates for the two external groups were established using a combined sample of men and women, although women comprised a majority (60%) of the sample. Previous studies either have used only male subjects (Davis, 1970; Hochreich, 1975) or have been able to demonstrate a positive relationship only in male subjects (Hochreich, 1%8, 1974). Perhaps the use of a “social sensitivity” test induced greater involvement among women than have the academic-related tasks previously studied. It is also important to note that this study substantiates the defensiveness
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concept using a nonacademic task, while previous studies have demonstrated its usefulness only in academic-related tasks. It is also important to note that there were no differences between high and low action internals in either the success or the failure conditions. This indicates that the action-taking measure has no implication for defensiveness among internals. The results are thus entirely consistent with our prediction that a three-category construct of locus of control would eventually emerge. In contrast to these supported hypotheses, two somewhat unexpected findings emerged. First, both internal groups varied the nature of their causal attributions as a function of outcome. This finding is at variance with earlier results of Davis and Davis (1972), whose internals did not accept more responsibility for successes than for failures. However, other research with children using the Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire has demonstrated the utility of obtaining different responsibility scores for success and for failure (Crandall, Katkovsky, & Crandall, 1965). It is also possible that the discrepancy between our study and that of Davis and Davis (1972) may reflect a difference in the subject populations of the two studies. Internals in our study were those scoring in the lower 50% of the I-E distribution, while Davis and Davis (1972) included only those persons in the lower 14%. This raises the possibility that it is only the highly internal subject who does not vary attributions as a function of outcome. This interpretation is possible since we compared the attribution scores in the failure condition of those internals in the lowest 15% of the distribution with the scores of the remaining internals (those falling within the 16th through 50th percentiles) and found a trend for the highly internal subjects to accept more personal responsibility for the failure (t = 1.45; df = 18; p < .lO). There is a second difference in the subjects studied. In Davis & Davis’ study, subjects were drawn from introductory psychology classes; in our study subjects were drawn both from introductory classes and from classes in abnormal psychology. Students enrolled in the abnormal psychology classes were most likely either psychology majors or persons with special interests in psychology. These students might be particularly threatened when told they possess below-average interpersonal skills, and hence might be likely to vary their attributions as a function of outcome. In either case, it is apparent that future research is needed using different subject populations and different tasks to identify the precise conditions determining whether internals do or do not vary their attributions as a function of outcome. A second somewhat unexpected finding emerged. Nondefensive externals assumed a relatively large amount of personal responsibility for both success and failure, whereas Davis and Davis (1972) had predicted that
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they would accept little personal responsibility for either outcome. Theoretically, one might expect that the individual professing on the I-E scale the belief that one has little control over his or her reinforcements would also accept little personal responsibility for a specific experimental task outcome, whether it be success or failure. It is apparent, however, that Davis and Davis misconstrued how this nondefensive external group would respond. Our findings, however, are not inconsistent with results reported by Hochreich (1975). In that study, true externals did not differ from internals in accepting personal responsibility for either successes or failures. Similarly, the true externals did not differ significantly from internal groups in the amount to which they projected blame for failure by rating the test employed in that study as inadequate. In fact, they actually used the least blame projection. Our findings, therefore, are similar to those of Hochreich in that both internals and true externals accepted a similar amount of personal responsibility for success, and both groups accepted more personal responsibility for failure than did defensive externals. For whatever reason then, the nondefensive externals, while generally placing importance on external determinants, acknowledged this particular test as a valid indication of personal ability or inability. Perhaps they do not need to embrace an external orientation in all settings, but only in those settings which they believe to be realistically related to their social disadvantage. Or perhaps they place less value on social skills, like academic skills, and hence are less threatened by failure. In summary, it is concluded that future research should examine the behavioral correlates of a three-category locus of control construct rather than the more traditional two-category construct. Our results may help explain why previous researchers (Hersch & Scheibe, 1967) found greater variability among externals than among internals. More precise statements concerning the specific relationships to be expected between these three experimental groups should probably not be made until further research identifies the relevant parameters of such settings. Specific directions for future study include the need to establish (a) other and perhaps better ways of differentiating between defensive and nondefensive externals, (b) behavioral correlates of the two groups of externals, and (c) the relevant variables determining whether internals will or will not vary the nature of their causal attributions as a function of outcome. REFERENCES Battle, E., & Rotter, J. B. Children’s feelings of personal control as related to social class and ethnic group. Journal of Personality, 1963, 31, 482-490. Crandall, V. C., Katkovsky, W., & Crandall, V. J. Children’s beliefs in their own control of reinforcement in intellectual-academic situations. Child Development, 1965,36,91-109. Davis, D. E. R. Internal-external conrrol and defensiveness. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Kansas State University, 1970.
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Davis, W. L., & Davis, D. E. Internal-external control and attribution of responsibility for success and failure. Journal of Personality, 1972, 40, 123-126. Efran, J. S. Some personality determinants of memory for success and failure. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 1%3. Feather, N. T. Attribution of responsibility and valence of success and failure in relation to initial confidence task performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1%9, 13, 129-144. Hersch, P. D., & Scheibe, K. E. Reliability and validity of internal-external control as a personality dimension. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 1%7, 31, 609-613. Hochreich, D. J. Refined analysis of internal-external control and behavior in a laboratory situation. Doctoral dissertation, University of Connecticut, 1%8. Hochreich, D. J. Defensive externality and attribution of responsibility. Journal of Personality,
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