Locus of Control and Adolescents’ Aggression

Abstract

Having control of one’s life can decrease aggressive and violent behaviours. To achieve this, people must have control over their personal environment. Some people feel that they either have control over any situation in their lives while some other thinks that things happen due to their luck or chance. Locus of control is a construct that measures the degree to which individuals believe they are responsible for the consequences of their behaviour. Aggression is a forceful action or procedure specially when intended to dominate or master. This study attempted to see how locus of control is correlated with aggression. The study was conducted in Sonitpur district of Assam. The sample for the study was 32 numbers of respondents identified and selected purposively from a population of 185 students belonging to IXth (Ninth) standard of selected schools. A standardized questionnaire namely Direct & Indirect Aggression Scales developed by Bjorkqvist and Niemela [4] was used to gather data to find out the prevalence of aggression among adolescents. For assessment of Locus of Control, Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale developed by Nowicki and Srickland [5] was used. The findings of the study revealed that three types of aggression viz. physical verbal and social were present among the respondents which were categorized as high, average and low. Results also revealed that majority of the respondents (93.75%) had external locus of control whereas only 6.25 per cent of the respondents had intermediate locus of control and no respondents were recorded to have internal locus of control. The results revealed positive correlation between external locus of control and adolescents’ aggression which is significant at 5% probability level (r=.362, p=.042).