The antecedents of women’s external locus of control: Associations with characteristics of their parents and their early childhood

Abstract

Locus of control (LOC) measures individuals’ expectancies regarding their ability to affect what happens to them based on how they behave. The more they believe their behaviour has something to do with what happens to them the more internal they are. In contrast the more they perceive that what happens to them is beyond their control and determined by luck, fate, chance or powerful others the more external they are. Copious research findings suggest that external LOC (ELOC) is associated with many adverse personal, social, academic and health outcomes. In spite of its importance in so many areas of human behaviour relatively little is known about the features of the early background of individuals that contributes to these expectancies. This is the first in a number of studies that will suggest possible antecedents and consequences of having a high ELOC.The study takes advantage of the data collected in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), which started by studying pregnancies in 1991–1992 of residents in an area of south-west England. Over 12000 of the women who enrolled during pregnancy completed a set of questions in mid-pregnancy from which an LOC score was computed. ELOC was defined as a score greater than the median. The relationships with characteristics of the women’s parents and her early childhood (<6 years) are considered first as unadjusted odds ratios and then as adjusted after analysis using hierarchical sets of stepwise logistic regressions. The relative contributions to the women’s ELOC was measured using a goodness-of-fit (GOF) measure.The analyses demonstrated the independent importance of maternal and paternal backgrounds as well as features of her early childhood (<6 years). The final model identified nine independent features (each with P < 0.0001): year of birth of her mother, maternal and paternal education levels, father smoked, mother smoked when pregnant, year of birth of study woman, the number of older siblings she had, whether her father was absent during this period, and whether she spent her childhood in the study area.In conclusion, the woman’s LOC appears to be independently influenced by a number of characteristics which may give clues as to possible mechanisms—and how internality may be supported in the future. Subsequent papers will assess both whether features of later childhood influence the woman’s LOC and whether the LOC of men in the study have similar antecedents.

The mid-childhood and adolescent antecedents of women’s external locus of control orientation

“…The analyses used six different mutually distinct groupings, those providing the greater GOF were features of the parents and of early childhood ( Table 5). We have shown elsewhere that a combination of these two groups of variables increased the GOF to 6.89 ( Golding et al , 2017); in Table 5 we show that each addition of the various measures increased the GOF, implying that all facets had a role to play in determining ELOC.…”

“…In our earlier paper we showed that there were aspects of early childhood (birth to 5 years) that were independently associated with the women’s ELOC ( Golding et al , 2017). These comprised year of birth, whether they were born in Avon, breast fed (protective), had a birthmark, had at least two older siblings and whether their father was present in the household ( Supplementary Table 1).…”

“…Combining variables from these two groups with those identified in the first 5 years of life ( Golding et al , 2017) revealed 10 as independently associated ( Table 2). These indicated that the age at which the absence of the father was most predictive of ELOC was in early childhood, whereas absence of the mother was most relevant in adolescence.…”

“…In the present study, we continue our search to clarify antecedents of LOC by focusing on events, familial behaviors and other features of later childhood and adolescence, particularly stressful environments and traumatic events, that may be associated with the locus of control of the adult women on whom we reported in the earlier study ( Golding et al , 2017). We also evaluate whether characteristics from early childhood predictive of adult ELOC sustain their impact at a later age, or whether they are themselves predictive of factors that have a more direct effect on the development of ELOC.…”

“…( Golding et al , 2017). The associations went beyond the usual personality/child rearing attitude indicators identified in previous studies, and found external LOC to be related to: the years in which the women’s parents were born (the more recent, the more likely they were to be externally oriented); the education levels reached by each of their parents (those whose parents were less educated were more externally oriented); whether either of their parents was a smoker, and in particular whether their mothers smoked prenatally; the womens’ own year of birth; the number of older siblings the mothers had; and whether their father was absent from home in the first years of their childhood.…”