Locus of Control: Total

Locus of Control: Total is administered here as one of the International Personality Item Pool's single-construct scales: original public-domain items catalogued at ipip.ori.org (Goldberg, 1999) and keyed to one specific individual-differences construct, rather than belonging to a broad multi-factor inventory. This form presents 20 items rated on a 5-point scale; responses are summed in the keyed direction after any reverse-worded items are recoded.

The construct label and item membership follow the IPIP catalog directly. Because this exact public-domain item set is what is administered, the standings shown in the norms section are computed on this form itself (see the cited reference-sample note), not borrowed from any other instrument.

The notes below are reproduced from the platform's psychometrics register for this instrument — the same source-cited reliability, validity, and norms text that accompanies its downloadable report.

Composite LOC total combining internality and chance-externality facets; the 20-item composite is expected to show higher reliability than individual 10-item subscales.

The composite score provides an overall locus of control profile that integrates internal (self-directed) and external (fate/chance) orientations, consistent with Rotter's (1966) original conceptualization.

Scores are expressed as percent-of-maximum on the 1–5 accuracy scale using Higher/Average/Lower bands. No published normative tables exist for this specific IPIP operationalization.

“Feel comfortable with myself.”

Illustrative only. During administration items are presented one screen-set at a time; response-key direction is never shown to respondents.

Item responses are summed within each scale (reverse-keyed items recoded first) and expressed as a percent of the maximum possible score. No normative percentile is applied — there is no verbatim-matched published norm for this exact item set.

International Personality Item Pool (ipip.ori.org).