*External Or Internal Locus of Control, Or Both?*

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Am wondering whether the concept of cognitive "perspective" on things called locus of control is applicable to AS people?

Whereas most people supposedly have just one, fairly consistent, locus of control, ( relatively internal or external depending on whether they perceive themselves as acting on life, or life acting on them), perhaps AS have two or more, depending on whether relating to stable and unstable elements, things or people, for example, or perhaps they have no fixed locus of control at all, and the concept is not applicable to them, because they experience self in relation to environment in very different ways to NTs.

I just took a mini Rotter test ( 10 questions) and got "mixed" internal-external, but it didn't ask me anything very much. Apparently the Duttweiler Index ( 1984) is better/more reliable, because it distinguishes better, perhaps crucially, between unstable and stable elements, both internal and external ones.

Does anyone have a link to a Duttweiler Control Index test?

Do you tend to experience yourself as controlled by ... your body, environment/objects, people, language, etc ?

Or do you tend to experience yourself as controlling ... your body, your environment/objects, people, language?

Last edited by ouinon on 24 Apr 2008, 5:29 am, edited 5 times in total.

I think I'm more easily controlled by things (the people who constantly try to provoke me know this).

I don't know how this relates to the spectrum, but I don't think it's exclusive to it. I would also like the link.

I'd say I'm "controlled" (driven) by my "obsessions" (interests) so I guess I qualify for external

Do you mean stable elements? Whereas you have an internal ( strong) locus of control as far as people, ( unstable elements) are concerned?

Wiki link for overview at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control

Last edited by ouinon on 23 Apr 2008, 6:25 am, edited 3 times in total.

No, I think that people (unstable elements) have a stronger influence on me. Bullies verbally harassing me, for example. I'm trying to exercise my internal control though.

Ok, got you; yes, me too.

Sorry to hear about the bullying. Hope you can control them.

It's happening as we speak, and I'm (so far) successfully ignoring them (online and in real life).

I just remember how cowardly they really are and it works wonders.

Good. I'm glad. Congratulations.

If we/AS did have two, or more, locii of control that might explain why there is such a gap between our behaviour in different activities, very adult/clever/confident/competent in some situations, and very fragile/childlike/uncertain/incompetent in others.

Last edited by ouinon on 23 Apr 2008, 6:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

Apparently it is also about how "attribute" successes and failures, whether ascribe them to self/other.

I thought for a moment that I tend to attribute "failures" to "other", and successes to myself. , but actually I don't. And I am having trouble distinguishing what I do do with them. It changes constantly.

Maybe a locus of control in permanent flux might be an AS thing?

I have a bad habit of blaming problems on external forces even when I shouldn't, so my LoC is probably external. This possibly stems from my rejection of the common, "contra-casual" or "libertarian" version of the notion of Free Will; that is, there isn't some mysterious "spirit" or "soul" that acts as a "unmoved mover" of our behavior. Or perhaps it's the other way around and by my disbelief in free will is the result of my external LoC.


I'll be willing to make a guess that, in the US at least, people with an external LoC on average tend to lean to the Left politically and people with an internal LoC will tend to lean to the Right politically. The reason why I think this is because people on the left tend to emphasize external forces ("corporatist power structures," racism, sexism, etc.) affecting behavior, beliefs, and well-being while those on the right tend to emphasize internal things ("personal responsibility," etc.).

I found a test for this:

http://www.queendom.com/tests/access_pa ... egTest=704

I got 28 of of 100

0 = extremely external
100 = extremely internal

I got a 50. I guess I'm both.

I answered all of those questions and cannot obtain my score due to page error. Awesome.

46

Thanks, Odin; I got 41 on that test.

Do AS attribute control/cause differently to NTs? The relationship between outside and inside is maybe more ambiguous, less defined, so that dividing up between self and other/outside seems almost impossible.

I was thinking that this would fit with AS executive-dysfunction aswell as hugely differing levels of capacity/perceived competence in superficially similar but crucially different circumstances.

When I thought about it I realised that I often don't know how to separate outside cause from inner, unless take very extreme positions on it ( eg: everything is the fault of school! ) . External and internal are too closely entwined. I make efforts from time to time, or in certain areas of my life, ( eg: food and mood) , to divide them up, but it can be counter productive.

In fact the more I thought about it the more difficult I find it to believe that there are people, apparently the majority, who consistently and reliably, even invariably, tend to attribute stuff ( failures, etc) to some point on a scale between outside or inside factors. I am always in immense confusion about it.

What do other people tend to do? Attribute to some fixed/constant/regular blend of inner and outer influence/action/force, or change all the time, sometimes blaming everything bad on external factors, sometimes all on oneself?

Last edited by ouinon on 23 Apr 2008, 9:31 am, edited 2 times in total.

Depends on the situation. Some things are under my control, some things aren't. It wouldn't make sense to, say, blame my procrastination on somebody or something else, but it also wouldn't make sense for me to blame my allergy attack on myself.

I got a 50 on the test, putting me exactly in the middle.