Individuals with an internal locus of control view events as resulting from their own actions. For example, a person with an internal locus of control will attribute the failure to meet a desired goal to poor personal preparation, whereas, one with an external locus of control will attribute failure to circumstances beyond the individual's control. The way individuals interpret such events has a profound affect on their psychological well-being. If people feel they have no control over future outcomes, they are less likely to seek solutions to their problems. The far-reaching effects of such maladaptive behaviors can have serious consequences, which has led many social psychologists to examine the origin of locus control and its impact on the social world.
Control is a concept that plays an important role in several psychological theories.
He defines an event as controllable when a person's voluntary responses have an impact on the consequences of that event. By contrast, an event is considered to be uncontrollable when no voluntary response has an impact on the event. For example, when an organism receives electric shocks regardless of its efforts to stop them, the electric shocks are uncontrollable to the organism. However, when the organism has the ability to prevent the shocks by pressing a button, the shock is considered to be controllable. Seligman explains his analysis through a mathematical approach.