Locus of Control and Levels of Aspiration in Black And White Children

There is general agreement among most educational and sociological authorities that culturally impoverished environments have deleterious effects both on personality traits and on behaviors associated with or predicted by these traits. While there are sound reasons for believing that these assumptions are true, in reality data base supporting these assumptions, especially from a psychological point of view, is not extensive, with most of these conclusions arising from intuitive rather than empirical support. What would seem to be primarily lacking is sound research utilizing salient, reliable, and constructly valid variables that allow for comparisons between different social groups. The purpose of study presented in this paper is to report one such research effort. In this paper a study will be reported where several populations of both culturally deprived and culturally advantaged students were assessed on a standard measure of personality as well as several indices of personal aspirations. The general purpose of this study was to assess effect of different environments studied on these variables. The specific purpose of study was to ascertain how these predictor and criterion variables interrelate, and whether this relationship varies as a function of environment in which both are tested. Perhaps most salient variable that has received considerable basic and applied research attention in recent years (especially in educational settings) is construct of locus of control, originally formulated by Rotter (1966). Locus of control is an expectancy variable that describes perception of personal control that one has over reinforcements that follow his behavior. In Rotter's thinking, an person perceives that he is in control of his fate and that effort and reward will be correlated. An external person perceives that powerful others or the system determine how well he can do, and that rewards are distributed by such powerful others in a random fashion. Using I-E Scale, researchers have found that internal people: are more likely to make typical or rational shifts in their levels of aspiration (Battle, & Rotter, 1965; Feather, 1968; Rotter, & Mulry, 1965); take intermediate rather than extreme risks (DuCette, & Wolk, 1972; Julian, & Katz, 1961; Liverant, & Scodel, 1960); are more confident in their abilities (Lao, 1970); make better use of environmental feedback (Phares, 1963; Ude, & Vogler, 1971);and are more likely to be social activists (Forward, & Williams, 1970; Gore, & Rotter, 1963). The general conclusion from this research is that, in most cases, inter-