Perceived control

Perceived control (PC) can be defined as the belief that one sees he or she has control over their inside state, behaviors and the place or people or things or feelings or activities surrounding a person. There are two important dimensions: (1) whether the object of control is in the past or the future and (2) whether the object of control is over outcome, behavior, or process. Perceived control (PC) can be defined as the belief that one sees he or she has control over their inside state, behaviors and the place or people or things or feelings or activities surrounding a person. There are two important dimensions: (1) whether the object of control is in the past or the future and (2) whether the object of control is over outcome, behavior, or process. The cognitive revolution which was completed around the 1940's changed Psychology. Being influenced by the idea of Pavlov and other physiologists, scientists turned their interest in direction of the observable. Away from subjectivity, the objective investigation of behavior became trustworthy and allocable. This revolution helped developing fields of the study of perceived control. Goal seeking and human motivation became important in many theories.In 1959, White introduced a theory called 'effectance motivation', in which human drive for control is explained through an innate need to be able to handle a situation and the obtainment of control over the environment. In 1966 Julian Rotter published his Publication:'Generalized Expectancies for Internal versus External Control of Reinforcement.” in which he used the term 'perceived control' for the very first time. His work influenced multiple disciplines such as psychology, sociology, economics and health care. After his publication, the scientific work on his concept of perceived internal control differed mostly into two branches. One believed perceived control to be a fixed personality trait, and therefore refers to concepts like self efficacy and competence, the other spoke about perceived control as a cognitive process, influenced from environmental clues that could be manipulated systematically. This relates to concepts as illusion of control, learned helplessness and mindfullness. “A series of studies provide strong support for the hypotheses that the individual who has a strong belief that he (sic) can control his own destiny is likely to be alert to those aspects of the environment, which provide useful information for his future behavior; (b) take steps to improve his environmental condition; (c) place greater value on skill or achievement of reinforcements and be generally more concerned with his ability, particularly his failures; and (d) be resistive to subtle attempts to influence him.” Rotter 1966 From this perspective perceived control can either be seen as a personality trait or a cognitive processing, which in either case enhances functioning and survival. In the year 1975, Martin E.P. Seligman coined the term 'learned helplessness'. In Terms of perceived control, Seligman's term of 'learned helplessness' described that the perceived control of a situation leads to a specific outcome of behavior. Seligman confronted dogs with a situation accompanied by a total lack of perceived control, which ultimately lead the dogs to give into the situation. They learned passiveness, helplessness. Seligman transferred his experiments to humans, speculating that perceived control is related to the development of, for instance, depression.