Tests
🕹️

Locus of control test

Who's driving your life: you or chance?

Rotter's classic: do you attribute what happens to you to your own effort, or to luck, connections and the system? An internal locus predicts everything from salary to health — though taken to the extreme it becomes blaming yourself for the weather.

Start8 questions · 2 min

Character · 1

  • Locus of control

    What you attribute your outcomes to: your effort (internal) or chance and the system (external).

Where this comes from

This test draws on published, peer-reviewed instruments. It is not a certified adaptation: the items are rewritten in everyday language.

  1. [1]
    Rotter (1966). Psychological Monographs, 80(1), 1–28

    The original construct: internal vs external expectancies of reinforcement control

  2. [2]
    Ng, Sorensen & Eby (2006). Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27(8)

    Workplace meta-analysis: internal locus tracks with satisfaction and performance

  3. [3]
    Cheng, Cheung, Chio & Chan (2013). Psychological Bulletin, 139(1)

    Cross-cultural meta-analysis: the locus–anxiety–depression link across countries