Researchers study people's sense of personal control through correlation and experiments in which the amount of perceived control a person has over a situation is raised and lowered. One interesting aspect of this is the locus of control, which is basically whether you believe forces are within your control or out of your control. Having an internal locus of control is believing that you control your own destiny. This could effect your personality in that, having this mindset, you would achieve more in school, act more independently, enjoy better health, delay gratification, better self-control, and better able to cope with stress. You understand that bad things result from you, and this impacts your actions.
Having an external locus of control is perceiving that chance or outside forces determine your fate. You would blame other factors for bad situations or occurences. This could go either way, meaning you could either not even try to do anything because you think everything comes from outside forces, or after something bad has already happened, you blame others instead of taking responsibility.
...Sound familiar? Perhaps like...Eicha?!?! Exactly! Yerushalayim very obviously has an external locus of control in the beginning of the megillah. She blames the destruction on her enemies, on G-d, on anything besides herself. She blames other factors for the terrible things that happened to her, and it's not until the end of the megillah that she attains an internal locus of control, where she realizes that her sins caused her destruction.
This concept can also be applied to a pretty famous story. Once upon a time, in a city far far away, there was a storm that brought about a flood. One man looked out of his window and saw the water rising. He went to the second story of his house, then the third, then finally the roof as the water continued to rise. Once he reached the roof, he saw that he would soon be overtaken by the water. Different rescue teams continued to come by, first in rafts, then in boats, then in a helicopter. Each time, they told him to come with them, but he merely replied, "I have faith that G-d will save me." Eventually, the rescue teams could do nothing to change his mind, and he passed away and went to heaven. Once getting there, G-d asked him why he died. The man said, "There was a flood, and I had faith that You would save me, but You didn't!" Hashem then said, "What do you mean, I sent you rafts, boats, and helicopters!"
This man had an unwavering external locus of control. He put everything into the hands of outside forces, not understanding that even though G-d does ultimately control our lives, He does not perform outright miracles and we still need to recognize His hand in everyday things. Having a complete external locus of control is not a good thing, we need to have an internal locus of control as well and make choices for ourselves.
Interesting post, Shani. I never thought of applying the concept of external locus on control to that story. To me, this says a lot about human nature and, specifically, how people can balance belief in G-d with an internal locus of control. Finding this balance, as we discussed in Kohelet, is one of the major challenges in life and can be extremely interesting to observe.
ReplyDeleteSuper interesting post, Shani. It's funny, after we learned about external and internal locus of control, I began to observe it manifest itself in different situations. Also, props on the connection to Eicha. I wonder though if the person-situation controversy applies to personal control, and if it can change over the course of your life.
ReplyDelete