Explanations of Independent Behaviour

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Independent Behaviour

There are many explanations on independent behaviour. Individual differences are personal factors that mean people will respond to situations in different ways. One explanation of independent behaviour is locus of control. Locus of control was developed by Julian Rotter; this concept suggests that some people feel they are entirely in control of their actions, whereas others are victims of fate. There is the internal locus of control; these people believe that what happens to them is consequence of their own behaviour, and they can succeed in difficult or stressful situations. Whereas people with external locus of control believe what happens to them is controlled by external factors, such as luck or fate, and they are relatively helpless in difficult or stressful situations; making them easier to conform and obey.

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Locus of control has many supporting studies. For instance, Avtgis carried out a meta-analysis which looked at locus of control. They found that those who scored higher on external locus of control were more easily persuaded. However, Williams and Warchal studied university students using tasks based on Asch’s experiments; they found that assertion may be more important that locus on control.  Furthermore, Rotter’s Locus of control is only a scale where people self-reported a list events. Therefore, there Is a high risk that there is demand characteristics which means the findings are unreliable and therefore cannot be generalised.  

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