Perceptions of Control: Determinants and Mechanisms

Interest in individuals’ perceived control over their environment, and the physical and psychological effects of varying degrees of perceived personal control, has a long history in psychology. Control has been associated with a striving for superiority (Adler, 1930), an instinct to survive (Hendrick, 1943), a need for competence (White, 1959) and a desire for personal causation (deCharms, 1968). Even a cursory examination of the literature on control suggests that individuals are motivated to effect their environment in instrumental ways (Fisher, 1981).

[1]  K. J. Kennelly,et al.  Perceived Contingency of Reinforcements, Helplessness, Locus of Control, and Academic Performance. , 1985 .

[2]  D. Hamilton,et al.  Variables influencing judgments of correlational relations. , 1986 .

[3]  H. M. Jenkins,et al.  The Judgment of Contingency and the Nature of the Response Alternatives , 1980 .

[4]  R. Bolles.  Reinforcement, expectancy, and learning. , 1972 .

[5]  E. Langer.  The Psychology Of Control , 1983 .

[6]  M. Strube,et al.  The Type A behaviour pattern, induced mood, and the illusion of control , 1988 .

[7]  R. Rescorla,et al.  A theory of Pavlovian conditioning : Variations in the effectiveness of reinforcement and nonreinforcement , 1972 .

[8]  J. Hokanson,et al.  Expectations of success and anagram performance of depressives in a public and private setting. , 1978, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[9]  Perceived Contingency of Parental Reinforcements, Parent-Child Relations, and Locus of Control , 1975 .

[10]  N. Mackintosh.  A Theory of Attention: Variations in the Associability of Stimuli with Reinforcement , 1975 .

[11]  A. Bandura,et al.  Impact of perceived self-efficacy in coping with stressors on components of the immune system. , 1990, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[12]  S. Levy,et al.  Psychosocial risk factors, natural immunity, and cancer progression: Implications for intervention , 1987 .

[13]  K. Dobson,et al.  A conceptual and empirical review of the depressive realism hypothesis. , 1989 .

[14]  H. Kelley.  Attribution in social interaction. , 1987 .

[15]  L. J. Chapman,et al.  Illusory correlation as an obstacle to the use of valid psychodiagnostic signs. , 1969, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[16]  Lyn Y. Abramson,et al.  Induced mood and the illusion of control. , 1981 .

[17]  Principles of animal learning and motivation , 1982 .

[18]  C. Carver,et al.  Self-focusing effects of dispositional self-consciousness, mirror presence, and audience presence. , 1978 .

[19]  I. Hendrick,et al.  The Discussion of the ‘Instinct to Master: A Letter to the Editors , 1943 .

[20]  A. Dickinson,et al.  Associative Accounts of Causality Judgment , 1988 .

[21]  G. Chapman,et al.  Cue interaction in human contingency judgment , 1990, Memory & cognition.

[22]  Philip E. Tetlock,et al.  Impression management versus intrapsychic explanations in social psychology - a useful dichotomy , 1985 .

[23]  C. Hammen,et al.  Interpersonal consequences of depression: responses to men and women enacting a depressed role. , 1978, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[24]  S. Thompson.  Will it hurt less if i can control it? A complex answer to a simple question. , 1981 .

[25]  G. Chapman,et al.  Trial order affects cue interaction in contingency judgment. , 1991, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[26]  L. J. Chapman,et al.  Genesis of popular but erroneous psychodiagnostic observations. , 1967, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[27]  Theory Driven Processing and the Use of Complex Evidence. , 1978 .

[28]  Dale T. Miller.  Ego involvement and attributions for success and failure. , 1976 .

[29]  L. Abramson,et al.  Depressive realism: Four theoretical perspectives. , 1988 .

[30]  L. Alloy,et al.  Clinician and patient as aberrant actuaries: Expectation-based distortions in assessment of covariation. , 1988 .

[31]  Arnold H. Buss,et al.  Self-consciousness, self-report of aggressiveness, and aggression , 1978 .

[32]  H. M. Jenkins,et al.  JUDGMENT OF CONTINGENCY BETWEEN RESPONSES AND OUTCOMES. , 1965, Psychological monographs.

[33]  G. W. Bradley.  Self-serving biases in the attribution process: A reexamination of the fact or fiction question. , 1978 .

[34]  R. Decharms.  Personal causation : the internal affective determinants of behavior , 1968 .

[35]  Sigmund Freud,et al.  Mourning and Melancholia , 1922 .

[36]  F. Gibbons,et al.  Focus of attention and placebo utility , 1984 .

[37]  L. Alloy,et al.  Assessment of covariation by humans and animals: The joint influence of prior expectations and current situational information. , 1984 .

[38]  L. Abramson,et al.  Judgment of contingency in depressed and nondepressed students: sadder but wiser? , 1979, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[39]  H. Tennen,et al.  Depression, self-esteem, and the absence of self-protective attributional biases. , 1987, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[40]  V. Benassi,et al.  Contingency judgments by depressed college students: sadder but not always wiser. , 1985, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[41]  D. Schroeder,et al.  Self-awareness and self-confrontation: effects of self-focused attention on members of a clinical population. , 1985, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[42]  A. Dickinson,et al.  Instrumental judgment and performance under variations in action-outcome contingency and contiguity , 1991, Memory & cognition.

[43]  E. E. Jones.  Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior , 1987 .

[44]  G. Weary,et al.  Depressive self-presentation : beyond self-handicapping , 1990 .

[45]  John G. Nicholls,et al.  Causal attributions and other achievement-related cognitions: Effects of task outcome, attainment value, and sex. , 1975 .

[46]  A. Bandura.  Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory , 1985 .

[47]  J. Rodin,et al.  Development of control-related beliefs, goals, and styles in childhood and adolescence: A clinical perspective , 1990 .

[48]  W. F. Prokasy,et al.  Classical conditioning II: Current research and theory. , 1972 .

[49]  A. Dickinson,et al.  Judgement of Act-Outcome Contingency: The Role of Selective Attribution , 1984 .

[50]  M. Strube,et al.  Control Motivation and Self-Appraisal , 1993 .

[51]  William C. House,et al.  Effects of knowledge that attributions will be observed by others. , 1980 .

[52]  F. Terrell,et al.  Depression and the illusion of control. , 1977, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[53]  W. Miller,et al.  Learned helplessness, depression and the perception of reinforcement. , 1976, Behaviour research and therapy.

[54]  S. Mineka,et al.  The relationship between anxiety, lack of control and loss of control. , 1989 .

[55]  M. Seligman,et al.  Learned helplessness in humans: critique and reformulation. , 1978, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[56]  R. W. White.  Motivation reconsidered: the concept of competence. , 1959, Psychological review.

[57]  Edward A. Wasserman,et al.  The effects of unidirectional versus bidirectional rating procedures on college students' judgments of response-outcome contingency , 1986 .

[58]  J. Coyne,et al.  Toward an interactional description of depression. , 1976, Psychiatry.

[59]  B. R. Schlenker,et al.  Audiences' reactions to self-enhancing, self-denigrating, and accurate self-presentations , 1982 .

[60]  C. Wortman,et al.  Some determinants of perceived control. , 1975 .

[61]  A. Dickinson,et al.  Temporal Contiguity and the Judgement of Causality by Human Subjects , 1989 .

[62]  R. DeRubeis,et al.  Is depressive realism real , 1991 .

[63]  D R Shanks,et al.  Selectional processes in causality judgment , 1989, Memory & cognition.

[64]  Dale T. Miller,et al.  Self-serving biases in the attribution of causality: Fact or fiction? , 1975 .

[65]  J. Burger.  Individual Differences in Control Motivation and Social Information Processing , 1993 .

[66]  S. Folkman.  [Personal control and stress and coping processes: a theoretical analysis]. , 1988, Kango kenkyu. The Japanese journal of nursing research.

[67]  J. Rotter.  Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. , 1966, Psychological monographs.

[68]  J. Burger,et al.  Social anxiety, self-presentation, and the self-serving bias in causal attribution. , 1980, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[69]  Timothy W. Smith,et al.  Depression and self-focused attention , 1981 .

[70]  Michael Chapman,et al.  Control, means-ends, and agency beliefs : A new conceptualization and its measurement during childhood , 1988 .

[71]  D. Mcclelland.  Power: The Inner Experience , 1975 .

[72]  S. Mineka,et al.  Comorbidity of anxiety and depressive disorders: A helplessness-hopelessness perspective. , 1990 .

[73]  R. E. Vogler,et al.  Internal versus external control of reinforcement and awareness in a conditioning task. , 1969, The Journal of psychology.

[74]  Deborah Davis,et al.  Use of first person pronouns as a function of increased objective self-awareness and performance feedback , 1975 .

[75]  M. Strube,et al.  Type A behavior pattern and the judgment of control. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[76]  M. Gargan,et al.  Denial, anxiety, locus of control, and the discrepancy between aspirations and achievements as components of depression. , 1975, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[77]  Developmental Change in Perceived Control: Recognizing Noncontingency in the Laboratory and Perceiving It in the World , 1980 .

[78]  R. Solomon,et al.  Affect, conditioning, and cognition : essays on the determinants of behavior , 1985 .

[79]  Thane S. Pittman,et al.  Control Motivation and Attitude Change , 1993 .

[80]  Jennifer Crocker,et al.  Judgment of Covariation by Social Perceivers , 1981 .

[81]  Richard A. Monty,et al.  Choice and perceived control , 1979 .

[82]  J. Weisz,et al.  Changing the world and changing the self: A two-process model of perceived control. , 1982 .

[83]  L. Abramson,et al.  Depressive Realism and Nondepressive Optimistic Illusions: The Role of the Self , 1990 .

[84]  R. Laxer.  SELF-CONCEPT CHANGES OF DEPRESSIVE PATIENTS IN GENERAL HOSPITAL TREATMENT. , 1964, Journal of consulting psychology.

[85]  E. Langer,et al.  Heads I win, tails it's chance: The illusion of control as a function of the sequence of outcomes in a purely chance task. , 1975 .

[86]  Illusory Contingency in Children at the State Fair , 1981 .

[87]  S. Duval,et al.  A theory of objective self awareness , 1972 .

[88]  A. Beck.  Depression : clinical, experimental, and theoretical aspects , 1967 .

[89]  L. Abramson,et al.  Depression and the generation of complex hypotheses in the judgement of contingency. , 1981, Behaviour research and therapy.

[90]  M. Seligman,et al.  Human Helplessness: Theory and Applications , 1980 .

[91]  Edward A. Wasserman,et al.  Response-outcome contingency: Behavioral and judgmental effects of appetitive and aversive outcomes with college students , 1985 .

[92]  F. Gibbons,et al.  Self-focused attention and self-report validity. , 1977, Journal of personality.

[93]  C. Peterson.  Recognition of noncontingency. , 1980 .

[94]  Peter M. Gollwitzer,et al.  Effects of deliberative and implemental mind-sets on illusion of control. , 1989 .

[95]  G. A. Miller,et al.  Book Review Nisbett, R. , & Ross, L.Human inference: Strategies and shortcomings of social judgment.Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1980. , 1982 .

[96]  B. Pelham.  On the benefits of misery: self-serving biases in the depressive self-concept. , 1991, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[97]  E. J. Plares.  Differential utilization of information as a function of internal-external control1 , 1968 .

[98]  D. Murphy,et al.  Cognitive processes in depression. , 1981, Archives of general psychiatry.

[99]  C. Clements,et al.  Depression and the illusion of control : the role of esteem maintenance and impression management , 1992 .

[100]  S. Thompson.  Naturally Occurring Perceptions of Control: A Model of Bounded Flexibility , 1993 .

[101]  J. Greenberg,et al.  Self-regulatory perseveration and the depressive self-focusing style: a self-awareness theory of reactive depression. , 1987, Psychological bulletin.

[102]  C. Murchison,et al.  Psychologies of 1930 , 1930 .

[103]  Edward A. Wasserman,et al.  Perception of causal relations in humans: Factors affecting judgments of response-outcome contingencies under free-operant procedures☆ , 1983 .

[104]  B. Campbell,et al.  Punishment and aversive behavior , 1969 .

[105]  C. Clements,et al.  Illusion of control: invulnerability to negative affect and depressive symptoms after laboratory and natural stressors. , 1992, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[106]  A. Bandura.  Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. , 1977, Psychological review.

[107]  J. Pearce,et al.  A model for Pavlovian learning: Variations in the effectiveness of conditioned but not of unconditioned stimuli. , 1980 .

[108]  F. Gibbons.  Sexual standards and reactions to pornography: Enhancing behavioral consistency through self-focused attention. , 1978 .

[109]  J Rodin,et al.  The Construct of Control: Biological and Psychosocial Correlates , 1985, Annual Review of Gerontology and Geriatrics.

[110]  S. Fisher,et al.  Stress and The Perception Of Control , 1984 .

[111]  E. Langer.  The illusion of control. , 1975 .

[112]  Andrew Steptoe,et al.  Stress, personal control and health. , 1989 .

[113]  M. Scheier,et al.  Public and private self-consciousness: Assessment and theory. , 1975 .

[114]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases , 1974, Science.

[115]  J. Harvey,et al.  New Directions in Attribution Research , 2018 .

[116]  F. Gibbons.  Self-attention and self-report: The "veridicality" hypothesis. , 1983, Journal of personality.

[117]  J. Weisz,et al.  Perceived contingency of skill and chance events: A developmental analysis. , 1982 .

[118]  M. Strube,et al.  Type A behavior pattern and the judgment of noncontingency: mediating roles of mood and perspective. , 1985, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[119]  Perceived Contingency of Teacher Administered Reinforcements and Academic Performance of Boys. , 1975 .

[120]  S. Freud.  The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud , 1953 .

[121]  M. Seligman,et al.  Learned helplessness: Theory and evidence. , 1976 .

[122]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  Judgment under uncertainty: Informal covariation assessment: Data-based versus theory-based judgments , 1982 .

[123]  C. Carver,et al.  Self-directed attention, awareness of bodily states, and suggestibility. , 1979, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[124]  S. Nolen-Hoeksema,et al.  Sex Differences in Unipolar Depression: Evidence and Theory Background on the Affective Disorders , 1987 .

[125]  S. E. Newman,et al.  Putting judgments of control into context: Contrast effects. , 1989 .

[126]  A C CATANIA,et al.  Experimental control of superstitious responding inhumans. , 1963, Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior.

[127]  E. Langer,et al.  The effects of choice and enhanced personal responsibility for the aged: a field experiment in an institutional setting. , 1976, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[128]  F. Terrell,et al.  The illusion of control among depressed patients. , 1979, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[129]  J. Rodin,et al.  Self-Directedness: Cause and Effects Throughout the Life Course , 1991 .

[130]  J. Singer,et al.  Urban stress: experiments on noise and social stressors , 1972 .

[131]  C. Vázquez,et al.  Judgment of contingency: cognitive biases in depressed and nondepressed subjects. , 1987, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[132]  P. Wong.  Sex differences in performance attribution and contingency judgment , 1982 .

[133]  G. Bower,et al.  From conditioning to category learning: an adaptive network model. , 1988 .

[134]  S. Hollon,et al.  Universal versus personal helplessness in depression: belief in uncontrollability or incompetence? , 1980, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[135]  Michael S. Greenberg,et al.  Depression versus anxiety: Differences in self- and other-schemata. , 1988 .

[136]  S. Folkman,et al.  Stress, appraisal, and coping , 1974 .

[137]  Lyndon Jones,et al.  Theories of Motivation , 1987 .

[138]  P. Sweeney,et al.  Attributional style in depression: a meta-analytic review. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[139]  L. Abramson.  Social cognition and clinical psychology: A synthesis. , 1988 .

[140]  L. Kamin.  Predictability, surprise, attention, and conditioning , 1967 .

[141]  Kerry L. Marsh,et al.  Control motivation and social cognition , 1993 .

[142]  C. Carver,et al.  Attention and Self-Regulation: A Control-Theory Approach to Human Behavior , 1981 .

[143]  D. Shanks.  Forward and Backward Blocking in Human Contingency Judgement , 1985 .

[144]  M. Zuckerman,et al.  Attribution of success and failure revisited, or: The motivational bias is alive and well in attribution theory , 1979 .

[145]  R. Ingram.  Self-focused attention in clinical disorders: review and a conceptual model. , 1990, Psychological bulletin.

[146]  C Peterson,et al.  Personal control and health promotion. , 1989, Social science & medicine.

[147]  J. Averill.  Personal control over aversive stimuli and its relationship to stress. , 1973 .

[148]  L. Alloy,et al.  Depression and self-directed attention. , 1988 .