Locus of Control. Locus of control was
measured by responses to questions from the
Pearlin Mastery scale. This seven item scale
developed by Pearlin, Lieberman, Menaghan,
and Mullan (1981) is a measure of self-concept
and references the extent to which individuals
perceive themselves as having control
of forces that significantly impact their lives.
Each item is a statement regarding the respondent’s
self-perception and allows four
response categories: (a) strongly disagree, (b)
disagree, (c) agree, and (d) strongly agree. As
shown in Table 1, two items were oriented
toward internal locus of control. These items
were recoded so all items were oriented toward
external locus of control. The total scale
scores range from 7 to 28 with higher scores
representing a greater tendency for external
locus of control attitude