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The Effects of Culture and Religion
On the Locus of Control and Psychological Well-being RelationshipDustin P. Griffin
Eastern Kentucky University, Department of Psychology
Contact: [email protected]
• This research is examining the effect culture and religious identification has on
one’s view of the world, hereto after referred to as locus of control, which is
known to affect levels of stress, depression, and self-esteem (Eid & Diener,
1999).
• The scientific community uses the term locus of control to refer to the extent to
which an individual determines outcomes are the result of one’s own actions
or the action of external forces (Rotter, 1966).
• Internal locus of control is belief that one’s own actions control an
outcome.
• External locus of control is belief that external forces control an
outcome.
• The United States, a country that scores high in internal locus of control, has a
profound rate of mental illness, with estimates up to 26.2% of the population
suffering from at least one mental disorder (Kessler, Chiu, Demler, & Walters,
2005).
• A recent locus of control and psychological well-being study, using a two-factor
model, suggests that only external locus of control is important when
predicting unique variance in psychological well-being (Griffin & Gore, 2013).
BACKGROUND RESULTS
DISCUSSION
• With external and internal locus of control each predicting unique
variance for psychological well-being, this study further confirms that
locus of control should be measured as a two-factor construct and not
across a single continuum.
• Individualism and collectivism did not significantly affect the
relationship between internal or external locus of control and
psychological well-being. This may be due to the somewhat lower
participant count (N=150) or cultural influence may not be completely
explained by this model.
• Having a religious affiliation was found to lessen some of the negative
relationship between external locus of control and psychological well-
being. This seems to imply that religious affiliation allows one to view
external forces as necessary or less of a hindrance on well-being.
• Participants were 150 undergraduate students from Eastern Kentucky
University. Of the 150 students, 31 were male, 119 female. Each student
received credit towards course completion by answering survey questions in
an online data collection system.
• The survey consisted of 127 questions answered on a 5-point Likert scale.
Questions covered locus of control, stress, depression, self-esteem, culture
identity, and demographics such as age, gender, and religious affiliation.
Survey Question Examples
Locus of Control (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree)
“In my case, getting what I want has little or nothing to do with luck.”
“I feel that I have little influence over the things that happen to me.”
Stress (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree)
“I wish I could have more respect for myself.”
Depression (1=never, 5=very often)
“I felt that everything I did was an effort.”
Self-esteem (1=never, 5=very often)
“…felt that things were going your way?”
Culture Identity (1=never, 5=very often)
“I see myself as my own person.”
METHOD
References
Eid, M., & Diener, E. (1999). Intraindividual variability in affect: Reliability, validity, and
personal correlates. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 51, 1058-1068.
Griffin, D. & Gore J.S. (2013). Locus of control and psychological well-being:
separating the measurement of internal and external constructs. Manuscript submitted for
publication.
Kessler, R.C., Chiu, W.T., Demler, O., Walters, E.E. (2005). Prevalence, severity, and
comorbidity, of twelve-month DSM-IV disorders in the national comorbidity survey replication
(NCS-R). Archives of General Psychiatry, 62(6), 617-27.
Rotter, J.B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of
reinforcement. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 80(1), 609.
External locus of control (Figure 2) positively
predicted depression (b = .347, p < .000) and
stress (b = .433, p < .000), and negatively
predicted self-esteem (b = -.353, p < .000).
Using linear regression analyses, internal
locus of control (Figure 1) positively
predicted self-esteem (b = .238, p < .01), and
negatively predicted depression (b = -.199, p
< .01) and stress (b = -.222, p < .01).
HYPOTHESES
1. External locus of control will be negatively correlated to psychological well-
being for both individualistic and collectivistic identifiers; however,
individualists will have a stronger negative correlation in comparison.
2. Those who affiliate with a religion will lessen external locus of control’s
negative relationship to psychological well-being when compared to non-
religious identifiers.
3. Internal locus of control will be higher in individualistic identifiers and non-
religious identifiers, but will not predict any variance in psychological well-
being.
External Locus of
Control
Pearson Correlation -.499*
Sig. (2-tailed) .021
N 21
Pearson Correlation .512*
Sig. (2-tailed) .018
N 21
Pearson Correlation .424
Sig. (2-tailed) .056
N 21
Christian Self_Esteem Pearson Correlation -.316**
Sig. (2-tailed) .004
N 81
Depression Pearson Correlation .291**
Sig. (2-tailed) .009
N 81
Stress Pearson Correlation .434**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000
N 81
Atheist & Agnostic
*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
Religion
Self_Esteem
Depression
Stress
Figure 5
Individualism (Figure 3) positively predicted
internal locus of control (b = .271, p < .001),
but did not predict external locus of control (b
= .238, n.s.)
Collectivism (Figure 4) did not predict any
variance in internal locus of control (b = .020,
n.s.) or external locus of control(b = .161,
n.s.)
Using a bivariate correlation analysis (Figure 5), it appears that those
who identify as atheist or agnostic are more likely to express symptoms
of high depression (r = .512, p < .05) and low self-esteem (r = -.499, p <
.05).
Religious identifiers, in this case Christians, when compared to atheists
and agnostics, expressed lower levels of depression (r = .291, p < .01)
and higher levels of self-esteem (r = -.316, p < .01).