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Beliefs About Success and Failure

Locus of control
People who think that they are responsible for their own successes and failures, and have control over their own learning and teaching, may be said to have an 'internal locus of control'. In contrast, people who believe that they have little control over their own learning and teaching, and who believe that their successes and failures are due to forces beyond their control (such as other people or the difficulty of the task), are said to have an 'external locus of control'. Locus of control is associated with feelings of self-confidence, self-esteem, self-regulation and achievement (McInerney, 1998, p. 255). Locus of control is closely related to attribution theory.

Cognitive thinking styles such as locus of control interact with various situations. Individuals who adopt a strictly either/or 'internal-external' perspective might be too simplistic to account for contextual variations (McInerney, 1998, p. 255; Askell-Williams, 2004, p. 256). However, conceptualisations such as locus of control provide useful starting points for understanding people's thinking patterns and for designing targeted interventions. In particular, the relationships between locus of control, attribution theory and learned helplessness provide useful ways of understanding people's reactions to life events, including grief and loss.

Comment
In times of change and when under pressure, it becomes important to listen to our language and think about our reasoning. Where we feel helpless and unable to influence events, we can develop feelings of low self-esteem. When we can turn around these feelings and emphasise what we can control, we build up our personal mental health and wellbeing.

Related topics can be found at Attributing the cause of events