ABSTRACT
Much has been written about internal vs. external control in children and adolescents since Rotter’s monograph was published in 1954, but few publications are concerned with domain-specific aspects of control beliefs. Flammer (1990) is an exception. While in earlier work control theorists (e.g. Rotter, 1982; Crandall et al., 1965) assumed that control beliefs are stable personality dispositions, in more recent studies a trajectory towards internality has been postulated. For theoretical reasons and due to findings since the 1980ies increasing attention has been given to the development of control beliefs within important domains in children’s lives (Flammer, 1990, Lüthi, Grob & Flammer, 1989). This research perspective is grounded in the assumption that developmental trajectories in different domains may diverge, given the different experiences of children and adolescents. Among these domains are settings for interactions with significant others such as parents, friends, and classmates, sometimes located in specific contexts (e.g., school, Oettingen & Little, 1993). In contrast with Rotter’s assumption that internal vs. external control beliefs represent generalized control expectancies, Lüthi, Grob & Flammer (1989) postulated that individual control beliefs should be conceptualized as domain specific expectancies which may differ from one situation to the next. Accordingly, control beliefs do not represent stable dispositions of individuals but self-schemes which rest on specific and subjectively relevant experiences.
