Chapter 6 Flashcards
What is perceived control?
What we think we can control, now and in the future.
Perceived Control Information Card
- If we think that a goal is within reach we usually surge into action - we often feel a sense of control or personal mastery over our lives.
- When we doubt that a goal is attainable, we are less likely to undertake the actions necessary to achieve it, and thus, we feel that our lives are largely shaped by sources outside our own sphere of influence.
What is Personal Control?
The influence we actually have over our lives, such as our choices related to eating habits, music, preferences, and clothing style.
Source 1 of Perceived Control - Internal Locus of Control
The individual believes he or she has control over life events.
Source 2 of Perceived Control - External Locus of Control
The individual believes that something outside of the self—such as other individuals, fate, or various external situations—controls life events
Internal Locus Control Information Card
Beneficial Individual Outcomes:
- Higher grades
- Better performance at work
- More effective coping with adversity, bereavement, and trauma
- Greater adherence to physical fitness routines - Healthier aging
- Internalized control is a western notion.
External Locus Control Information Card
Individuals are:
- Prone to more negative outcomes e.g. psychological disorders related to eating, anxiety, and depression
- This type of control is more commonplace with eastern or collectivist cultures.
What is Primary Control?
Refers to actions directed at attempting to change the world to fit one’s needs and desires.
Primary Control Information Card
- Western cultures prefer and have more experience with primary control.
What is Secondary Control?
The individual utilizing processes directed at making him- or herself fit into the world better.
Secondary Control Information Card
- Eastern cultures prefer and have more experience with secondary control.
- Older individuals are more likely to use secondary control strategies.
What is Optimal Adjustment?
Achieved when the amount of actual control matches the desired need for control.
The Benefits of Perceived Control
- Are likely to seek knowledge and information about the events that affect their lives.
- Make use of the resources available to them.
- Likely attribute responsibility to themselves and their abilities and efforts rather than luck or the environment.
- Resistant to social influence.
- More likely to take part in social action that helps others.
- Strongly achievement-oriented.
- Appear to work harder at intellectual and performance tasks.
- Better grades
- More persistent when completing tasks.
Psychological Adjustment - High in Perceived Control
- Less anxious
- Better adjusted
- Less likely to be classified with psychiatric labels
- Use more effective strategies for coping with stress, e.g., making a plan of action and sticking to it, taking one step at a time, or getting professional help and doing what is recommended.
Psychological Adjustment - Low in Perceived Control
- More apt to use maladaptive strategies
- Blaming themselves
- Seeking relief through overreacting, drinking, or abusing drugs.
Perceived Control and Physical Well-being - High in Perceived Control
- More likely to take steps that will maximize their health and well-being and minimize the risk of illness.
- Apt to seek information about health maintenance,
- Engage in preventive health practices,
- Adopt more positive attitudes about physical exercise, and participate in physical exercise more regularly
- Likely to refrain from or give up the habit of smoking,
- Successfully complete weight-reduction programs,
- Cooperate with prescribed treatment for medical problems.
What is Learned Helplessness?
A maladaptive passivity that frequently follows an individual’s experience with uncontrollable events.
