Journal o] Personality and Social Psychology

1976, Vol. 33, No. 2, 199-208

Multidimensional Locus of Control in Sociopolitical Activists

of Conservative and Liberal Ideologies
Hanna Levenson and Jim Miller
Texas A&M University
Three studies were conducted to examine the relationship between a multidimensional measure of locus of control and sociopolitical activism, controlling
for the effects of political ideology. In Study 1, 98 male college students completed a measure of conservatism-liberalism, Kerpelman's Activism scale, and
locus of control scales designed to differentiate between two types of externals:
belief in powerful others versus belief in chance forces. In Studies 2 and 3,
female college students (Ns ~ 26 and 40) who differed in the extent of their
participation in leftist political activities or feminist causes responded to the
multidimensional locus of control scales. As predicted, results from analyses of
variance and trend analyses indicate that for liberals, increases in expectancies
of control by powerful others are positively associated with increases in activism, while for conservatives, there is a negative relationship. The importance
of controlling for ideology and the implications of the differentiated view of
externality for understanding social action are discussed.

The purpose of this study is twofold: (a)

to provide data relevant to a multidimensional (yet generalized-expectancy) delineation of locus of control and (b) to examine
the relationship between locus of control and
social-political activism, controlling for the
effects of political ideology. Rotter (1966),
with his Internal-External (I-E) Scale, has attempted to measure the extent to which people perceive that events are contingent upon
their own behavior (internally controlled) or
the degree to which they feel that events are
beyond their own control and are determined
by fate, chance, or powerful others (externally controlled). Despite the fact that over
1,000 studies have been published dealing
with the construct, findings relating locus of
control to involvement in voluntary social
action activities have been conflicting and
A preliminary version of Study 1 was presented
at the meeting of the Southwestern Psychological
Association, El Paso, Texas, May 1974. The authors
would like to thank Alice H. Eagly and Lester
Shine for their suggestions regarding the analysis
of data.
Jim Miller is now at the Department of Social
Rehabilitation and Control, Southern Pines, North
Carolina 28387.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Hanna
Levenson, Department of Psychology, Texas A&M
University, College Station, Texas 77843.

confusing. For example, according to Rotter's

theory, internals should be more likely to
participate in social action because they believe their behavior would bring about desired goals. Externals, on the other hand,
should not become involved because they
perceive little connection between their behavior and desired outcomes. Studies conducted during the early 1960s have supported
this reasoning. Gore and Rotter (1963) and
Strickland (1965) found that black youths
who were willing to participate in or who
had actually engaged in civil rights activities
held more internal control expectancies than
their less active black peers.
Some researchers, however, have found
that the I-E scale scores are not significantly
related to activism (Blanchard & Scarboro,
1972; Evans & Alexander, 1970; Gootnick,
1974). In addition, other investigators have
found that externals are more politically active than internals. A relationship between
black activism and externality was shown in
a study by Ransford (1968), and Sanger and
Alker (1972) found that feminist activists
scored more externally on a dimension of
Protestant ethic ideology than a control
group. Why should people become involved
if they feel they have no mastery over the
situation?

199

200

HANNA LEVENSON AND JIM MILLER

Changing Times and Confounding

Variables

of hostility (e.g., Rotter, 1971). The global

There appear to be two related explana- definition of externals might obscure the
tions of the failure of the Rotter I-E control importance of perceptions of powerful others
(system control) for understanding the inscale to predict social activism; one is based
strumentality
of protest behavior.
on the change in the nature of social activism
It
was
reasoned
that the multidimensional
in this country and in the expectancies of
scales
developed
by
Levenson (1974) would
people who do become involved, and the other
be
useful
in
analyzing
the relationship beis based on the confounding of variables on
tween
locus
of
control
and
activism. Leventhe I-E scale (Hersch & Scheibe, 1967; Joe,
son
constructed
the
Internal,
Powerful Oth1971; Lefcourt, 1972).
ers,
and
Chance
scales
in
order
to measure
When the I-E scale was developed, embelief
in
chance
or
fate
expectancies
as sepapirical data supported the unidimensional
rate from a powerful others orientation. The
nature of the items. However, results of rerationale behind differentiating two types of
cent factor analytic studies (Collins, 1974;
Kleiber, Veldman, & Menaker, Note 1) have externals stemmed from the reasoning that
indicated the presence of several factors on people who believe that the world is unthe I-E scale. Since there is a 10-year time ordered would behave and think differently
span between the development of the I-E from people who believe that the world is
ordered but that powerful others are in conscale and recent evidence that indicates its
multidimensionality, one cannot overlook the trol. In the latter case a potential for control
possibility that the seeming discrepancy is a exists.
Previous work with the Internal, Powerful
function of the changing times. The social
Others,
and Chance scales has led to a fuller
action activism of the early 1960s might have
understanding
of the phenomenological varibeen an outgrowth of a belief that a person
ables
involved
in
perceived parental upbringcould make meaningful changes in society
ing,
psychopathological
diagnosis, clinical imthrough information and increased effort
provement,
membership
in antipollution
(high belief in personal control). However,
groups,
imprisonment,
and
academic
performany changes usually occurred gradually, and
ance
(Levenson,
1973a,
1973b,
1974,
in
press;
many students began to realize the power of
Prociuk
&
Breen,
197S).
The
authors
hythe "system" to control outcomes (high bepothesize
that
the
powerful
others
dimension
lief in system control). Thus, it is not surprising that those who participated in the of the tripartite differentiation of locus of
more violent protests of the late 1960s could control will be meaningfully related to activism, especially in view of past research,
have rejected the view of internal control.
which can be interpreted as relating perceived
In addition to the changing times explanation, another reason why researchers have discrimination against oneself (system control) and activism.
not found consistent relationships between
scores on the I-E scale and activism may lie Political Ideology
in the format and conceptualization of the
In addition to the changing times and the
scale. Unfortunately, because of the forcedconceptual weaknesses within the I-E scale,
choice format of the I-E scale, rejection of
another consideration that may explain conthe internal items results in a high external
flicting data relating locus of control to
score, which is denned as a belief that events
activism is the confounding of political inare controlled by fate, chance, or powerful
volvement and political ideology. Kerpelman
others. Frequently, however, the expectancy
(1969) and Lewis and Kraut (1972) have
of control by powerful others is not taken pointed out that many conclusions relating
into consideration in interpreting the results. personality differences to political activism
When activists score in an external direction, are based on sudies in which either liberal
they are often interpreted as alienated indi- activists were compared to liberal and conviduals whose rioting and protesting behav- servative nonactivists or very active liberals
iors are seen as noninstrumental expressions were compared to slightly active conserva-

LOCUS OF CONTROL IN SOCIOPOLITICAL ACTIVISTS

tives. Most of the studies relating locus of

control to activism fall into the former category, with no attempt made to control for
political ideology. In fact, there has been
a tendency in psychological research in general to equate activism with involvement in
leftist causes. However, since there are protest groups of conservative ideologies, activism should be denned independently of political philosophy. Neglect of ideological differences is a serious shortcoming for locus of
control research, since it has been shown that
internal items on the I-E scale are more
appealing to conservatives (Thomas, L970)
and to those supporting a Protestant ethic
philosophy (Mirels & Garrett, 1971).
Abramowitz (1973) has been one of the
few researchers to attempt to analyze scores
on the I-E scale as a function of activism
and political ideology (left, middle, right).
He found that left activists had higher external scores than right activists. However,
interpretation of these data is complicated
by the fact that Abramowitz was not able to
control for activism level across the political
ideologies; in his study left activists were
significantly more politically active than the
right activists (mean Activism scale score of
41.2 versus 25.S).
From the foregoing review of relevant studies, it appears that the relationship between
activism and locus of control might be clarified if locus of control scores of groups that
were equated for activism and political ideology were compared and if differentiated
measures of externality were used. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between Internal, Powerful Others, and
Chance scale scores and social-political activism, controlling for political ideology.
Often-cited investigations on activism and
apathy in adolescents (e.g., Block, Haan, &
Smith, 1968; Flacks, 1967; Keniston, 1970)
have emphasized the importance of perceptions of powerful others. Conservatives are
seen as those who accept traditional American values and authority, while the liberal
activists are described as those who reject
policies and institutions that conflict with
their egalitarian view of political participation.
It appears that most of the work done on

201

activism and political ideology indicates that

attitudes toward authority are of crucial importance. It was reasoned that the locus of
control dimension of expectancy for control
by powerful others would be differentially
related to activism depending upon one's
political ideology. It was expected that the
more liberals perceived that powerful others
play a major role in controlling their lives,
the more activist they would become, because the power would be perceived as inhibiting realization of their potentials. On
the other hand, it was predicted that conservatives would see power as legitimate and,
therefore, increases in expectancies of control
by powerful others would be associated with
decreases in activism levels. Specifically, it
was hypothesized that activist liberals would
have significantly higher Powerful Others
scale scores than the activist conservatives.
One main study and two corollary investigations were conducted.
STUDY 1
Method
Subjects and Procedure
Although scores on self-report measures were used
to divide subjects into groups according to political
ideology and activism, an attempt was made to
include students who were highly active in conservative and liberal causes in the testing procedure. In
order to accomplish this, the presidents of the senior
class and/or representatives of the student senate at
four large state universities in the Southwest provided the present authors with the names of students who were most involved in left and right
political activities. These informants were told the
nature of the research in very general terms, and
they were assured that the students' names would
be kept confidential. Since very few females were
identified by these student leaders, data were gathered only for males. By obtaining the names of
activist subjects in this manner (n = 5l), we hoped
to test a number of conservative activists who were
just as active as their liberal counterparts, since the
inability to equate activism levels between the two
ideologies has been a serious shortcoming in most
studies (Kerpelman, 1969).
These identified activist students were either approached individually in the universities' student
government offices or they were telephoned and
asked to meet the researcher to discuss possible
participation in a research project. All students who
were able to be contacted ( = 48) agreed to participate. No mention was made of political ideology
or of student activism in recruiting the subjects.
They were instructed to complete a number of self-

202

HANNA LEVENSON AND JIM MILLER

report measures in private and to return them to

the second author, a male graduate student, who
projected the appearance of neither a right-wing
reactionary nor a left-wing radical.
In order to obtain subjects (n = SO) who would
probably report less involvement on the self-report
activism measure, several classes at the four universities used above were tested by the same male
researcher. The average age for the identified activists was 23 years; that of the remaining sample
was 22 years. To avoid the possibility of confounding race with political ideology, all subjects (n
98) were white. All data were collected in the
spring of 1973.

Instruments
Locus of control. The self-report measures for
assessing locus of control were Levenson's (1974)
Internal, Powerful Others, and Chance scales, each
of which is comprised of eight items in a Likert
format (possible range on each scale = 0-48). The
three scales were derived on an a priori basis from
several items adapted from Rotter's I-E scale and
a set of statements written specifically for the new
scales. While previous studies have found slight to
moderate correlations between the Powerful Others
and Chance scales (.23 to .59), the internal, powerful others, and chance orientations were the first
three clusters to emerge from factor analyses on
data from normal (Levenson, 1974) and psychiatric
samples (Levenson, 1973a). These factors seem to
be conceptually pure in that only items from the
appropriate scale load on that one factor. Table 1
contains the items that were presented to the subjects as a unified attitude scale of 24 items. The
statements attempt to measure the degree to which
a subject perceives the events in his own life as
being a consequence of his own acts, under the
control of powerful others, or determined by chance
forces.
The three new scales differ from Rotter's I-E
scale in four important ways: (a) Instead of a
forced-choice format, a Likert 6-point scale is used,
so that the three scales are statistically independent
of one another, (b) The statements on the scales
are worded in the first person (personal control)
rather than mixing first-person with third-person
(system control) phrasing. This distinction was
made based on the factor analyses of Gurin, Gurin,
Lao, and Beattie (1969) and Mirels (1970). (c)
The scales have a high degree of parallelism in content among each triad, (d) The scales are not correlated with a measure of social desirability. For
the present sample, Cronbach's alpha is .77 for the
Internal scale, .71 for the Powerful Others scale,
and .73 for the Chance scale.
Political activity. Social-political involvement was
measured by Kerpelman's (1969) Actual Activism
subscale of the Political Activity scale. The Actual
Activism subscale is comprised of 12 Likert-type
items that ask how much time has been spent in
various activist pursuits (range = 12-60). In the

TABLE 1
INTERNAL, POWERFUL OTHERS, AND CHANCE Locus
OF CONTROL SCALE ITEMS
Internal scale
1. Whether or not I get to be a leader depends mostly
on my ability.
4. Whether or not I get into a car accident depends
mostly on how good a driver I am.
5. When I make plans, I am almost certain to make
them work.
9. How many friends I have depends on how nice a
person I am.
18. I can pretty much determine what will happen in
my life.
19. I am usually able to protect my personal interests.
21. When I get what I want, it's usually because I
worked hard for it.
23. My life is determined by my own actions.
Powerful others scale
3. I feel like what happens in my life is mostly determined by powerful people.
8. Although I might have good ability, I will not be
given leadership responsibility without appealing
to those in positions of power.
11. My life is chiefly controlled by powerful others.
13. People like myself have very little chance of protecting our personal interests when they conflict
with those of strong pressure groups.
15. Getting what I want requires pleasing those people
above me.
17. If important people were to decide they didn't like
me, I probably wouldn't make many friends.
20. Whether or not I get into a car accident depends
mostly on the other driver.
22. In order to have my plans work, I make sure that
they fit in with the desires of people who have
power over me.
Chance scale
2. To a great extent my life is controlled by accidental
happenings.
6. Often there is no chance of protecting my personal
interest from bad luck happenings.
7. When I get what I want, it's usually because I'm
lucky.
10. I have often found that what is going to happen
will happen.
12. Whether or not I get into a car accident is mostly
a matter of luck.
14. It's not always wise for me to plan too far ahead
because many things turn out to be a matter of
good or bad fortune.
16. Whether or not I get to be a leader depends on
whether I'm lucky enough to be in the right
place at the right time.
24. It's chiefly a matter of fate whether or not I have
a few freiends or many friends.
Note. All 24 locus of control items (8 for each scale) are
included in the table. The numbering represents the order in
which the items appeared to participants in the study.

present investigation, the behaviorally identified

student activists scored more than one standard
deviation higher on the Activism subscale than the
classroom-tested subjects (p < .001), even though
several self-identified activists were in the latter

LOCUS OF CONTROL IN SOCIOPOLITICAL ACTIVISTS

203

TABLE 2
MEANS, STANDARD DEVIATIONS, AND CELL s FOR THE ACTIVISM X IDEOLOGY CELLS (STUDY 1)
Activis m level
SD

Measure

Activism
Conservatives
Liberals
Conservatism-liberalism
Conservatives
Liberals
Cell ns
Conservatives
Liberals

High

Moderate

Low

Very high

SD

SD

SD

18.06
19.75

2.70
1.75

25.54
25.43

1.81
1.91

32.40
33.00

3.24
3.11

43.67
47.21

4.58
5.27

98.29
53.38

19.60
12.50

87.92
53.50

16.27
9.76

98.67
48.50

18.40
9.80

97.22
44.07

24.32
10.48

17
8

group. For the present sample, the alpha coefficient

for the Actual Activism subscale is .91. Scores on
the Activism subscale provided the basis for assigning subjects to activism groups.
Political ideology. The measure of political ideology was constructed specifically for this study, since
it was felt that little information on criterion validity was available for existing ideology scales and
that many items contained in older scales were not
appropriate in 1973. The Conservatism-Liberalism
scale is comprised of 25 Likert-type items, and its
alpha reliability is .92 (Levenson & Miller, 1974).
A high score indicates a conservative view on topics
such as drugs, national defense, censorship, and
welfare (range = 25-175). In the present study the
behaviorally identified conservative activists scored
almost two standard deviations higher than their
behaviorally identified liberal activist peers (p <
.001). Scores on the Conservatism-Liberalism scale
formed the basis for dichotomizing subjects into
either conservative or liberal ideology groups.
In the present study, the Conservatism-Liberalism scale, the locus of control scales, and the Actual
Activism scale were combined into a booklet and
presented to the subject in that order, preceded by
a cover sheet requesting certain demographic information and containing the statement, "If you would
like to obtain a copy of the results at the completion of this project, please give me your name
after you are finished and I will be glad to send
you a copy."

Results
Design
It was decided to use a two-way factorial
design to test the presence of the predicted
interaction effect between activism and ideology in predicting locus of control scores.
Subjects who scored above the median (68)
on the Conservatism-Liberalism scale consti-

13
14

9
14

9
14

tuted the conservative group ( = 49) and

those who scored below the median represented the liberal group (w = 49). Subjects
were also divided into quartiles based on
their Activism scale scores. Since past research has indicated that activism is positively related to a liberal political ideology,
it was considered extremely important to
make sure that the various levels of activism
between conservative and liberal students
were equivalent and to control for ideology
across the activism levels before analyzing
the locus of control scores. Table 2 presents
the mean scores and standard deviations on
the Conservatism-Liberalism and the Activism scales for each of the cells in the 2 X 4
grouping.
Two 2 X 4 analyses of variance indicated
a significant interaction on the scores on the
Activism scale and on the Conservatism-Liberalism scale. Analysis for simple effects indicated that for the highest level of activism,
liberals were significantly more active than
conservatives; these liberals also scored significantly more liberal than two other groups
of liberals. Therefore, the subjects in the
highest level of activism were excluded from
the analysis of locus of control scores. The
remaining 2 X 3 (Ideology X Activism) design was considered most appropriate to test
the hypotheses for the following reasons: (a)
In all cells ideology and activism were
equated, thus permitting a test of the predicted interaction on locus of control scale
scores, (b) The data from over 75% of the

204

HANNA LEVENSON AND JIM MILLER

total sample could be analyzed, (c) The

three levels of activism still provided a wider
range of involvement for both conservatives
and liberals than in most studies.
Inspection of Table 2 indicates that activism scores for the nonactivists of the political
right and left agree very closely with those
obtained by Abramowitz (1973) and are
somewhat lower than those in Kerpelman's
(1969) study. The highly activist liberals
scored approximately the same as the corresponding group in Kerpelman's study (M =
32.71); however, the present investigation
was able to include a highly activist conservative group which scored one standard deviation more active (M = 32.40) than similar
groups in the studies of Kerpelman (M =
25.60) or Abramowitz (M = 25.SO). The activism scores of subjects in the eliminated
very high category are considerably greater
than those found in previous studies.
It can be seen from the cell ns in Table 2
that there are unequal and disproportionate
cell frequencies. There were relatively more
conservative nonactivists and more liberal
activists. These unequal cell ns appear to be
an inherent feature of the problem under
investigation. This relationship between activism and ideology is consistent with those
reported by other researchers (e.g., Kerpelman, 1969) and might help to explain why
there have been few studies on the relatively
scarce conservative activist. Based on the
conclusions from various researchers concerned with how to handle data from nonorthogonal designs (Appelbaum & Cramer,
1974; Carlson & Timm, 1974; Overall &
Spiegel, 1969), it was decided to use a least
squares multiple regression analysis to examine the effects of ideology and activism on
locus of control scores (Barr & Goodnight,
Note 2).
Analyses
Analyses of scores on the Internal and
Chance scales indicate that neither the effect
of Activism nor that of the Activism X Ideology interaction is significant. However, the
effect of ideology approaches significance.
Compared with the liberals, the conservatives tended to score higher on the Internal
scale (Ms = 34.12 vs. 31.53, p < .10) and

lower on the Chance scale (Ms = 15.97 vs.

19.19, p< .10).
The 2 X 3 factorial analysis of Powerful
Others scale scores shows there are no main
effects, but the predicted interaction is significant, F(2, 69) =3.37, p < .05. Table 3
contains the cell means and standard deviations. In order to conduct a more conservative test, a regression analysis described by
Overall and Spiegel (1969) was also applied
to these data to estimate the main effects,
disregarding the interaction. Results indicate
that neither of the main effects approaches
significance on the Powerful Others scale
scores, even when the effect due to the interaction is assumed nonexistent. In order to
investigate the source of the significant interaction, simple main effects were tested. As
hypothesized, a planned comparison indicated
that highly activist liberals believed significantly more in control by powerful others
than highly activist conservatives, t ( 2 2 ) =
2.25, p < .02. There is a tendency for the
reverse relationship to hold for those who are
minimally involved; conservative nonactivists
scored higher on the Powerful Others scale
than liberal nonactivists, (24) = 1.32, p <
.10. For those with moderate levels of involvement, however, conservatives and liberals scored approximately the same, between
the scores of the two extreme activism groups.
Trend analyses were performed separately
for conservatives and liberals, in order to
assess the hypothesized differential relationship between levels of activism and expectancies of control by powerful others depending upon one's political ideology. Gaito's
(1965) technique for deriving orthogonal coefficients for unequal ns and unequal intervals
was used. For the conservatives, a significant
linear relationship was found, F(l,36) =
7.99, #<.001; coefficient =-1.10. The
quadratic regression is not significant (F =
.19). Therefore, the data support the hypothesis that increases in the activism level
of conservatives are accompanied by proportional decreases in expectancies of control by
powerful others. For the liberals, the quadratic regression is also nonsignificant (F =
1.32), while the linear component approaches
significance, ^(1,33) = 2.85, p .10; coefficient = .64. Increases in the activism level

LOCUS OF CONTROL IN SOCIOPOLITICAL ACTIVISTS

TABLE 3
SCORES ON THE POWERFUL OTHERS SCALE (STUDY 1)
Political ideology
Liberals
level

Low
Moderate
High
Very high

205

of radical activism in the psychological literature (e.g., Fowler, Fowler, & Van de
Riet, 1973; Lewis & Kraut, 1972; Kerpelman, 1969; Sanger & Alker, 1972).

Conservatives

SD

SD

17.88
17.36
22.36
22.26

7.79
6.77
6.68
9.50

22.47
17.84
15.56
15.00

8.50
6.50
7.70
6.08

of liberals tend to be related to increases in

scores on the Powerful Others scale.
In addition to the 2 X 3 design and trend
analyses, a 2 X 4 design incorporating all
four levels of activism and trend analyses for
all subjects were computed in order to examine how the results might differ if the subjects in the very active (yet uncontrolled)
cells were included. Results were similar to
those obtained for the controlled design. The
predicted Ideology X Activism interaction
was significant only for predicting Powerful
Others scale scores (p < .05), and the trend
analyses indicated a significant negative relationship between activism and expectations
of control by powerful others for the conservatives (p < .05) and a tendency for a
positive relationship between the two variables for the liberals (p = .07).
Results from analyses of variance and
trend analyses supported the hypotheses, but
the relationship between activism and Powerful Others scale scores was found to be more
marked for conservatives than for liberals.
Therefore, it was decided to conduct two
corollary studies in order to examine further
the relationship between perceptions of control by powerful others and activism for liberals. In addition, since the subjects in Study
1 were male students, in Studies 2 and 3
liberal activist and nonactivist female students were tested. The two corollary studies
also differ from Study 1 in that behavioral
rather than attitudinal measures of activism
and ideology were used.
In Study 2 the focus was on activism in
left-wing political causes, and in Study 3
activism in feminist causes was investigated.
These two areas were chosen because they
have frequently been examined as examples

STUDY 2
Method
The behavioral criterion for the activists was
attendance at a regional conference of Students for
a Democratic Society (SDS). The corresponding
nonactivist liberal group was a campus association
for political science majors. This group had been
rated by political science faculty members as quite
similar to the activist group in political ideology but
comparatively inactive. All data in Study 2 were
collected at a large university in the Southwest.
A female undergraduate student requested the
participation of female SDS members as they entered
the conference area. Half of those approached in
this fashion filled out the locus of control scales
(n = 9). Testing of the members of the political
science group was accomplished in a similar manner.
Another female undergraduate student positioned
herself near the group's meeting room and solicited the cooperation of the female members as
they approached. Two thirds agreed to participate
(=17). As in the first study, no mention was
made of political ideology or of student activism.
Furthermore, neither tester was informed of the
purpose of the study or the reason for approaching
a particular group. Students in both groups were
offered a copy of the results of the completed study.

Results
One-way analyses of variance on the Internal and Chance scales indicated that there
were no significant differences between activist and nonactivist liberals (Fs= .31 and
.58). However, the predicted difference on
the Powerful Others scale was highly significant. Activists expected more control by
powerful others (M 2 7 . 1 1 ) than did nonactivists (M =19.00); F(l, 24) = 14.68, p
< .001.
STUDY 3
Method
Since the women's liberation movement is the
most rapidly growing social movement in the United
States (Sanger & Alker, 1972) and since it has been
demonstrated that feminist attitudes are highly correlated with political radicalism (Fowler et al.,
1973), the behavior in Study 3 was concerned with
women's rights. It was hypothesized that those who
devoted more time and energy to feminist causes
would have stronger beliefs that powerful others
exerted an influence in their lives.

206

HANNA LEVENSON AND JIM MILLER

The behavioral criterion for the liberal student

activists was participation in a small lesbian group
that was quite involved in trying to change sexist
laws and attitudes. The corresponding campus group
was a relatively inactive chapter of a national women's liberation group. All data in Study 3 were
collected at a coeducational college in the Southwest.
One of the two undergraduate testers in Study 2
went to a meeting of the lesbian group (n 12)
and the other went to a meeting of the feminist
organization ( = 28). The testers explained that
they were interested in the attitudes of students on
campus. No mention was made of political ideology,
feminist issues, or activism. All students present
agreed to participate, and the locus of control scales
were administered during that meeting.

Results
As predicted, the students in the activist
lesbian group scored extremely high on the
Powerful Others scale (M = 39.75) as compared to the feminist group members (M =
15.89), ^(1,38) = 81.88, p < .001. The difference between groups on the Chance scale
is not significant (F = .91), but the difference between means on the Internal scale
is also highly significant. The members of the
activist lesbian group felt they had less personal control over their lives (M 21.67)
than those in the feminist group (M =
37.39); F(l, 38) = 98.76, p < .001.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
The results indicate that expectancies of
control by powerful others appear quite relevant for understanding the activism of these
conservative and liberal students. The finding
that there is a differential relationship between activism and locus of control depending upon one's political ideology can be
described according to attribution theory.
Attribution theory describes the processes
which operate as if the individual were motivated to attain a cognitive mastery of the
causal nature of the environment (Kelley,
1967). From an attributional point of view,
Rotter's external control dimension represents
the attribution of causality to external forces,
while internal control represents the attribution of causality to personal forces.
By examining an attributional model of
achievement motivation, Weiner and his colleagues (Weiner, Heckhausen, Meyer, &
Cook, 1972) have delineated four elements
that are contained within two causal dimen-

sions: locus of control (internal versus external) and stability (fixed versus variable).
Ability and effort are perceived as internal
determinants of success and failure, while
luck and task difficulty are external causes.
However, as Weiner et al. point out, ability
and task difficulty are relatively constant
over time, while effort and luck are more
variable. These investigators feel that changes
in expectancy of success are due to the stability of the attributional dimension, rather
than to the locus of control dimension.
Weiner's reasoning for suggesting a Stability X Locus of Control classification scheme
is quite similar to the rationale for differentiating between two types of externals in the
development of the Powerful Others and
Chance scales. Both of these scales measure
orientations that are external to the individual, but chance implies great variability,
while powerful others could be seen as relatively stable or predictable. This added dimension of predictability becomes quite important for understanding how some students
with an external locus of control could engage in instrumental activism. In such a situation, the potential for change with increased
effort exists. If one incorrectly equated externality with a view of an unstable world,
then one would probably interpret the activism of externals as noninstrumental, expressive releases brought about by frustration.
Pertinent to the consequences of causal
attributions, Weiner et al. (1972) not only
have evidence that changes in expectancy of
success are related to the stability factor, but
they also have shown that affective responses
to an outcome are determined primarily by
the locus of control dimension of causality.
This emphasis on affect is of interest in
delineating differences between liberals' and
conservatives' attributions for negative conditions.
When faced with situations in which powerful others are believed to control outcomes,
the activism level of the conservative could
be less because the expectancy for success
would be low. For liberals, however, attributing the causes for such negative conditions as
poverty, sexism, and racism to other people
instead of to one's own inadequacies should

LOCUS OF CONTROL IN SOCIOPOLITICAL ACTIVISTS

augment activism and lessen negative affect

because, according to Weiner's conceptualization, the external locus of causality reduces
personal responsibility for present negative
circumstances. Similar reasoning has been
used by Gurin et al. (1969) and Sanger and
Alker (1972) to explain why externality is
positively correlated with activism for blacks
and feminists.
Several factors are important for deciding
on the generality of the findings in these
three studies. College-educated liberal activists could have scored higher on the Powerful Others scale because they tended to view
authority with suspicion. However, there are
probably several groups of conservative activists who might have a similar distrust of
authorities (e.g., Wallace supporters, John
Birch Society members). In addition, not all
liberal activists feel they are controlled by
other people per se; for many, institutionalized barriers and policies are seen as more
constraining. Therefore, it may be that the
findings from these studies do not generalize
to all activists, but depend on the specific
external targets relevant to a particular group.
Future work on the relationship between the
Powerful Others scale and other types of
predictable, controlling forces (e.g., racism,
poverty) should be informative. In Studies 2
and 3, subjects were tested as they appeared
for a group meeting. Although the experimenter did not mention political ideology or
activism, there is a possibility that responses
to the self-report measures were partially a
reflection of the salience of group membership. It may be that people who knew they
were being tested because they were members
of a "radical" group responded in a more
paranoid, defensive manner.
In Studies 1 and 2, differences between
groups were significant only for Powerful
Others scale scores. In Study 3, however, the
lesbians (highly active liberals) scored higher
on perceptions of control by powerful others
than less active feminists, as predicted, but
they also felt that they had significantly less
personal control over their lives. One might
speculate that there is an interplay between
the three locus of control orientations as a
function of success or failure in achieving
desired goals. Although the lesbians had been

207

striving to change attitudes and laws, they

perceived that they had had little success,
and therefore their low Internal scale scores
could be a reflection of their estimation of
their ability and/or effort. If such is the
case, their "defensive externality" (Minton,
1972) does not seem to be alleviating selfblame. The lower Internal scores could also
be an internalization of society's negative
view of homosexuals. Since the Internal, Powerful Others, and Chance scales are empirically independent, it might be fruitful in
future research to make predictions based on
two or three of the locus of control scale
scores.
REFERENCE NOTES
1. Kleiber, D., Veldman, D. J., & Menaker, S. L.
The multidimensionality of locus of control.
Paper presented at the meeting of the Eastern
Psychological Association, Washington, D.C.,
April 1973.
2. Barr, A. J., & Goodnight, J. H. Statistical analysis system. Unpublished manuscript, 1972. (Available from Students' Supply Stores, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina
27607).
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