Powerlessness, Social‐Political Action, Social‐Political Views: Their Interrelation among College Students¹

Abstract

Powerlessness, as measured by externality on the I‐E Scale, was investigated as an individual difference between college students who take social‐political action and those who do not. Questionnaires, including Rotter's I‐E Scale, measures of social‐political activity, and measures of social‐political views were administered to UCLA undergraduates. For males, externality was positively correlated with social‐political activity, particularly protest activity, and with left‐wing views. These correlations primarily reflected the externality of left‐wing activists and the internality of non‐left‐wing nonactivists. For females, I‐E scores were unrelated to views or to action. Implications for the meaning of the I‐E Scale and the nature of student activism were discussed.

Locus of Control and Achievement—the Confirmation of a Theoretical Expectation

“…For one thing Rotter I-E scores have shown a consistent and significant relationship to social desirability responding and to the denial of psychopathology (1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 11,12). For another, Rotter I-E items confound personal, social, political, and ideological causation (8,9,20,21). Last, the scale's forced choice format and difficult reading level may make it inappropriate for noncollege populations ( 15).…”

Scholarly elites orient left, irrespective of academic affiliation

“…The first part of this delineation appears consistent across issues: liberals exhibit greater willingness to impart rights to segments that are less represented from the observer's perspective 4 -which results from their more external control ideology 5 (Levenson & Miller, 1976;Silvern & Nakamura, 1971; Thomas, 1970), empathy (Hirsh, DeYoung, Xu, & Peterson, 2010) and trust (Solon, 2014) held for less represented 6 segments. However, the second part of this delineation-the notion that conservatives adhere more to orthodoxy-is challenged by multiple counterexamples.…”

The effect of traditional vs. counter‐culture attitudes on the relationship between the internal‐external scale and political position1

“…This interpretation of the ethnic differences in the findings provides a possible explanation of the failure of the I-E Scale and political position to be significantly related among females in two studies (Dembroski, 1972, Silvem & Nakamura, 1971). It may be that for women in the dominant culture, socialization of other traditional attitudes is not usually associated with inculcation of a behef in individual initiative, skill control and other aspects of intemaUty (see Deaux & EimsweUer, 1974).…”