{
  "id": "locus-of-control.attribution",
  "term": "locus of control",
  "sense": "attribution",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 15,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "window",
  "definition": "Whether a self-model reads its outcomes as set by its own action or by conditions outside its reach, before any test of which is true.",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "self-model.reflexive",
      "reach.action",
      "set.fix",
      "read.information",
      "outcome.result",
      "action.deed",
      "condition.state",
      "outside.spatial",
      "time.dimension",
      "test.assessment",
      "true.accurate"
    ],
    "interaction": "The self-model reads each outcome as set either from within its reach or from outside it; the habitual answer becomes a standing reading that decides, before any test, whether acting is worth trying.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "a disposition of the reading, not of the reach",
      "one dial that can err in either direction",
      "attribution that precedes action"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "Julian Rotter introduced locus of control in a 1966 monograph and measured it with his Internal-External scale.",
      "domain": "psychology"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "dichotomy-of-control.sort",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "locus of control is a standing disposition of the self-model and can be wrong; the dichotomy of control is a deliberate sort judged by whether it is accurate"
    },
    {
      "id": "learned-helplessness.under",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "learned helplessness is an external locus learned from failure and held where reach is wide"
    },
    {
      "id": "illusion-of-control.over",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "illusion of control is an internal locus held where no action of one's own sets the outcome"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "external locus of control",
    "internal locus of control",
    "loci of control",
    "locus of control"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-28",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-locus-of-control.attribution"
}