Some clinicians suggest that locus of control, while a cognitive concept, is more about how we react to, rather than explain, what happens to us. In a way, it’s behavioral.

People with an external locus of control believe that forces outside them—fate, luck, circumstances, caramel corn—are responsible for the events of their lives. In contrast, those who perceive ...

In other words, a locus of control is a habit of attributing success or failure either to one's own efforts, qualities, knowledge, skills, etc. or to external factors.

We conceptualize control at three levels: (1) perceptions of individual locus of control (i.e., feeling that one can control one's own circumstances), (2) perceptions of societal control (i.e., ...