ABSTRACT
People have always striven to exercise control over events that affect their lives. They seek control because it provides them with countless personal and social benefits. Uncertainty in things that have significant personal consequences is highly unsettling. To the extent that people are able to influence their outcomes, they are better able to predict them. Predictability fosters foresightful and adaptive preparedness. By influencing events over which they command some control, people can better realize desired futures and forestall undesired ones. Inability to exert influence over things that adversely affect one’s life breeds apprehension, dysfunction, apathy and despair.
