Abstract
The Brown Locus of Control Scale (BLOCS) is a 25-item multidimensional self-report psychometric instrument designed to evaluate an individual’s generalized expectancies regarding the determinants of life outcomes. Developed by educational psychometrician Ric Brown (1983, 1990), the BLOCS expands upon traditional unidimensional conceptualizations of Rotter’s internal-external locus of control construct and refines the multi-faceted models introduced by Hanna Levenson. The instrument measures three empirically and theoretically distinct dimensions: Internal Control (the belief that personal effort, agency, and competence direct outcomes; 9 items), External Social Control (the perception that social hierarchies, institutional gatekeepers, interpersonal networking, and group pressures govern reinforcement; 9 items), and External Other Control (the attribution of life events to chance, luck, systemic fate, historical traditions, or transcendent forces; 7 items). Items are calibrated using a 6-point Likert-type response format ranging from 1 (“Very Strongly Disagree”) to 6 (“Very Strongly Agree”).
Psychometric evaluations demonstrate moderate to high internal consistency across subscales, with reported Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of .74 for Internal Control, .71 for External Social Control, and .66 for External Other Control. Temporal stability assessments indicate robust test-retest reliability across a two-week interval: .88, .91, and .84, respectively. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, including cross-cultural replications (e.g., Brown & Marcoulides, 1996), substantiate the three-factor orthogonal structure. The BLOCS serves as a valuable assessment tool within clinical, educational, occupational, and cross-cultural research, offering an explicit distinction between interpersonal-institutional determinants of control and abstract-fatalistic expectations.
Keywords
Brown Locus of Control Scale, BLOCS, locus of control, internal locus of control, external social control, external other control, attribution theory, social learning theory, psychometrics, factor analysis, agency, fatalism
Authors
The Brown Locus of Control Scale was developed by Ric Brown, Ed.D., an educational researcher and psychometrician specializing in measurement, evaluation, and educational psychology. Dr. Brown conducted foundational research while affiliated with institutions including California State University, Fresno. Additional psychometric modeling and structural invariance evaluations of the BLOCS were conducted in collaboration with George A. Marcoulides, Ph.D., a distinguished quantitative psychometrician and methodologist recognized for structural equation modeling (SEM) and multivariate statistics.
Purpose
The primary purpose of the Brown Locus of Control Scale (BLOCS) is to provide an accurate, multidimensional profile of an individual’s causal attributions concerning life achievements, social interactions, and personal difficulties. Prior to the development of the BLOCS, traditional psychological research predominantly relied on Rotter’s (1966) unidimensional Internal-External (I-E) scale. While revolutionary, the binary conceptualization treated external control as a monolithic entity, conflating random chance with systemic social influence and political power. The BLOCS addresses these limitations by differentiating between personal agency, social-relational influence, and fatalistic forces.
In clinical, educational, and organizational settings, understanding this distinction is critical:
- Educational Applications: The scale enables educational psychologists and counselors to assess academic agency. Students who display low internal control often exhibit learned helplessness, while those endorsing moderate external social control may effectively leverage interpersonal networks and institutional navigational skills.
- Clinical and Counseling Contexts: Psychotherapists utilize the BLOCS to identify maladaptive attributional styles. In cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), understanding whether a patient attributes personal distress to fatalistic hopelessness (External Other) versus interpersonal subjugation (External Social) guides clinical case formulation and targeted cognitive reframing.
- Organizational and Career Research: The instrument assesses career adaptability, leadership self-efficacy, and organizational politics. The External Social subscale explicitly captures an employee’s perception that career progression depends on corporate gatekeepers, networking, and pleasing powerful individuals.
- Cross-Cultural Research: The BLOCS provides a nuanced framework for cross-cultural psychology. Collectivist cultures often emphasize social harmony and external social attributions, which standard unidimensional scales would pathologize as passive external control. The BLOCS disentangles healthy social interdependence from fatalistic helplessness.
Psychological Construct
The core psychological construct measured by the BLOCS is locus of control of reinforcement, defined as the degree to which individuals expect that a reinforcement or outcome of their behavior is contingent upon their own characteristics versus the degree to which they perceive it as controlled by outside forces. Rather than conceptualizing this construct as a single continuum spanning from internality to externality, the BLOCS specifies three structurally independent dimensions:
1. Internal Control (9 Items)
The Internal Control dimension measures self-efficacy, personal agency, effort expectancy, and behavioral accountability. Individuals scoring high on this dimension operate under the conviction that personal actions, diligence, strategic preparation, and competence directly govern life outcomes. Illustrative items include: “Most of the time, I control what happens in my life” and “Hard work will get me where I want to go.” High internality is strongly correlated with academic achievement, self-regulatory capacity, problem-focused coping mechanisms, and proactive health behaviors.
2. External Social Control (9 Items)
The External Social Control dimension quantifies the extent to which an individual views outcomes as determined by social networks, societal power dynamics, institutional hierarchies, and interpersonal dependencies. This dimension reflects an awareness of sociological realities, corporate power structures, peer influence, and nepotism. Exemplified by items such as “Getting ahead is a matter of pleasing people in power” and “Strong pressure groups determine my role in society,” this subscale captures the pragmatic or cynical acknowledgment that individual ability is constrained or facilitated by the sociopolitical environment.
3. External Other Control (7 Items)
The External Other Control dimension assesses fatalistic, metaphysical, and stochastic attributions. Individuals with elevated scores on this factor perceive personal outcomes as dictated by unpredictable luck, immutable fate, transcendental forces, religious predestination, or historical customs. Reflected in items such as “My life is often affected by fate” and “Accidental happenings have a lot to do with my life,” this construct is closely associated with fatalism, passive coping strategies, existential resignation, and an externalized attributional style that detaches behavioral effort from outcome expectancy.
Theoretical Framework
The theoretical foundations of the Brown Locus of Control Scale are rooted in Rotter’s (1954, 1966) Social Learning Theory, Weiner’s (1979) Attribution Theory, and Levenson’s (1974) Tripartite Locus of Control Model.
Julian Rotter formulated locus of control within a behavioral formula: Behavior Potential = f(Expectancy & Reinforcement Value). Rotter argued that when individuals generalize the expectancy that reinforcements follow personal skill or effort, they exhibit internal control; conversely, if reinforcements are viewed as unpredictable or controlled by external agents, external control emerges. However, empirical researchers early on noted significant variance within external locus of control that Rotter’s forced-choice scale could not parse.
Hanna Levenson (1974) challenged Rotter’s unidimensional conceptualization by separating external control into two discrete domains: Powerful Others and Chance. Levenson argued that expecting powerful humans to govern reinforcement implies an ordered, predictable social world wherein an individual can potentially maneuver or negotiate, whereas believing in chance reflects an unpredictable, chaotic reality.
Ric Brown (1983, 1990) extended Levenson’s conceptual advances to better reflect contemporary socio-educational realities. In the BLOCS framework:
- External Social Control broadens Levenson’s “powerful others” construct beyond direct authoritarian figures to encompass broader systemic, cultural, and interpersonal dynamics (e.g., social groups, friends, structural pressure groups, and systemic norms).
- External Other Control isolates metaphysical, fatalistic, traditional, and stochastic parameters (such as luck, accidents, ancestral customs, and religious destiny).
- The construct operates from the theoretical premise of orthogonality: an individual may simultaneously endorse high Internal Control and high External Social Control—a profile characteristic of politically astute, high-achieving individuals who acknowledge both their personal competency and institutional constraints.
Validity
The psychometric validity of the Brown Locus of Control Scale has been verified across multiple studies assessing construct, concurrent, convergent, and cross-cultural validity.
Construct and Factorial Validity
In the foundational validation study reported by Brown (1990), exploratory factor analysis supported the construct validity of the 25 items across three distinct dimensions. The empirical separation of the External Social and External Other dimensions demonstrated that external control is not a homogeneous psychometric entity. Cross-cultural construct validity was further substantiated by Brown and Marcoulides (1996), who tested the three-factor measurement model using structural equation modeling across distinct ethnic and cultural cohorts, establishing acceptable metric invariance.
Concurrent and Convergent Validity
Concurrent validity was established through systematic comparisons with existing personality, behavioral, and demographic indices across multiple empirical samples (Brown, 1983, 1990):
- Sex-Role Orientation: In a sample of 114 female graduate students, Brown (1983) observed statistically significant associations between BLOCS dimensions and sex-role self-concept, demonstrating that women with androgynous or masculine-instrumental identities scored significantly higher on Internal Control and demonstrated distinct External Social profiles compared to traditional gender-typed peers.
- Academic Performance and Ambition: Significant positive correlations emerged between BLOCS Internal Control scores and objective measures of academic performance, goal setting, and persistent study habits.
- Convergence with Standard Measures: The External Social subscale demonstrated robust convergent correlations with Levenson’s Powerful Others subscale (r values typically ranging between .55 and .68), while displaying moderate divergent validity from general psychological distress measures, confirming that measuring social power dynamics is not merely an artifact of negative affectivity or neuroticism.
Reliability
The Brown Locus of Control Scale possesses well-documented internal consistency and temporal stability metrics across diverse research samples.
Internal Consistency
As documented in the 1990 validation study encompassing multiple normative cohorts, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the three subscales are:
- Internal Control: α = .74
- External Social Control: α = .71
- External Other Control: α = .66
While the coefficient for the External Other subscale is slightly below the conventional .70 benchmark—partially attributable to its shorter length (7 items) and the heterogeneous nature of fatalistic, lucky, and traditional beliefs—the subscale retains adequate psychometric utility for group-level comparative and correlational research.
Test-Retest Reliability (Temporal Stability)
Stability across time was evaluated over a two-week interval using a subsample of 92 university students drawn from the original validation research cohort (Brown, 1990). Pearson product-moment stability coefficients demonstrated strong temporal stability across all three dimensions:
- Internal Control: r = .88
- External Social Control: r = .91
- External Other Control: r = .84
These coefficients confirm that the BLOCS measures stable cognitive personality dispositions rather than transient emotional or psychological states.
Factor Analysis
The structural composition of the BLOCS was derived via principal axis factor analysis with both orthogonal (Varimax) and oblique rotations (Brown, 1990). The empirical extraction yielded a definitive three-factor solution based on the scree test and eigenvalue criteria (> 1.0), accounting for a substantial proportion of the total item variance.
Factor Distribution of Items
- Factor 1: Internal Control (9 items): Comprises items 4, 9, 13, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 25. These items load saliently on self-governance, individual effort, proactive social building, and personal responsibility.
- Factor 2: External Social Control (9 items): Comprises items 1, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, and 23. These items load heavily on systemic bureaucracy, authority figures, social opportunism, and peer influence.
- Factor 3: External Other Control (7 items): Comprises items 2, 3, 5, 12, 17, 18, and 24. These items demonstrate high factor loadings on fate, luck, historical tradition, predeterminism, and religious surrender.
In subsequent confirmatory factor analyses (CFA), Brown and Marcoulides (1996) tested the goodness-of-fit of this tripartite structure across multi-ethnic student groups. The hypothesized three-factor model yielded satisfactory comparative fit indices (CFI > .90; RMSEA ≤ .06), demonstrating configural and metric invariance across demographic samples.
Instrument / Measurement Tool
- Name: Brown Locus of Control Scale (BLOCS)
- Author: Ric Brown, Ed.D.
- Instrument Type: Multidimensional self-report rating scale
- Total Number of Items: 25 items
- Subscale Breakdown:
- Internal Control: 9 items (4, 9, 13, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25)
- External Social Control: 9 items (1, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 23)
- External Other Control: 7 items (2, 3, 5, 12, 17, 18, 24)
- Administration Time: Approximately 5 to 10 minutes
- Target Population: Adolescents, university students, and adult populations
- Response Scale: 6-point Likert format:
- 6 = Very Strongly Agree
- 5 = Strongly Agree
- 4 = Agree
- 3 = Disagree
- 2 = Strongly Disagree
- 1 = Very Strongly Disagree
- Scoring Protocol: Each subscale is scored independently by summing the raw numerical responses (1 through 6) of its assigned items. There are no reverse-coded items. The subscale ranges are:
- Internal Control: 9 to 54
- External Social Control: 9 to 54
- External Other Control: 7 to 42
- Interpretation Rules: Scores must be interpreted within each specific dimension. Raw scores cannot be aggregated into a single composite score, nor can total scores be compared directly across different subscales.
Permissions & Fee and Test Year
The Brown Locus of Control Scale was first introduced in empirical research by Ric Brown in 1983, with comprehensive psychometric validation and subscale properties published in 1990 in Educational and Psychological Measurement. The scale was established as an open-access psychometric instrument for non-commercial scientific, educational, and clinical research purposes.
No licensing fee is required for academic investigations, university research, or non-commercial clinical evaluation. Researchers utilizing the instrument must appropriately cite the primary validation studies (Brown, 1983, 1990; Brown & Marcoulides, 1996) in all scientific publications and presentations.
References
- Brown, R. (1983). Locus of control and sex role orientation of women graduate students. College Student Journal, 17(1), 10–12.
- Brown, R. (1990). The construct and concurrent validity of the social dimension of the Brown Locus of Control Scale. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 50(2), 377–382. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164490502018
- Brown, R., & Marcoulides, G. A. (1996). A cross-cultural comparison of the Brown Locus of Control Scale. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 56(5), 858–863. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164496056005011
- Levenson, H. (1974). Activism and powerful others: Distinctions within the concept of an internal-external control. Journal of Personality Assessment, 38(4), 377–383. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.1974.10119988
- Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 80(1), 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0092976
- Weiner, B. (1979). A theory of motivation for some classroom experiences. Journal of Educational Psychology, 71(1), 3–25. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.71.1.3