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: dustin_griffin22@eku.edu

• 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).