Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
Locus of control; Millennialism;
Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship among millennial irrationalism and the degree to which people believe they have control over the events in their lives as reflected by performance on a locus of control scale. This belief is referred to in this study as internal or external locus of control. It was hypothesized that individuals who feel that they have considerable control over the things that happen to them would express less irrationalism than those who tend to ascribe the course of their lives more to external factors. It was also predicted that there would be gender differences in the response patterns of men and women. Two questionnaires were used in the study: the Internal External Locus of Control (LOC) Scale (Rotter, 1966), and a newly designed instrument, the End Of The 20th Century Questionnaire (Dennis & Gilgen, 1999). Science-based, secular, superstitious, and religious-based millennial viewpoints contributed to the conceptual framework of this study. Participants (N = 186; 31 males, 155 females) were recruited from Introduction to Psychology classes at a midwestern university. The results of the study indicated that men and women, regardless of degree of perceived control, differ in the manner in which they perceive the arrival of the coming millennium. The results indicated that locus of control was not related to millennial irrationalism overall, but there were gender differences in magnitude of item endorsements on the End of the 20th Century Questionnaire. Possible explanations for the obtained results were explored.
Year of Submission
2000
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Department of Psychology
First Advisor
Albert Gilgen
Second Advisor
Augustine Osman
Third Advisor
Andrew Gilpin
Date Original
2000
Object Description
1 PDF file (111 leaves)
Copyright
©2000 Angela Nicole Dennis
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Dennis, Angela Nicole, "Perceived Personal and Societal Control of Events and Millennial Irrationalism" (2000). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 2481.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/2481
Comments
If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.