locus of control

Meaning: Locus of control, associated with Julian Rotter and social learning theory, describes where a person places the cause of events. With an internal locus, success and failure are seen as results of one's own effort, ability, and choices. With an external locus, they are seen as results of luck, fate, or powerful other people. It is a continuum, not two sealed categories. An internal locus tends to be linked with persistence, health-promoting behavior, and resistance to learned helplessness, while an external locus is more often found in people who have repeatedly met uncontrollable events. These are tendencies, not guarantees.

On the MCAT: A passage gives a person's explanation of an outcome, such as "I failed because the exam was unfair" (external) versus "I failed because I didn't study enough" (internal), and you classify it. It also appears alongside attribution theory (dispositional is internal, situational is external), motivation, and health behavior, where you predict who is more likely to act on advice.

Common confusion: Locus of control is not self-efficacy. Self-efficacy (Bandura) is confidence in one's ability to perform a particular task. Locus of control is about whether outcomes depend on one's own actions at all. A person can think effort matters (internal) yet doubt their own skill (low self-efficacy).