Association between Levenson's Dimensions of Locus of Control and Measures of Coping and Defense Mechanisms

Abstract

Personality differences may affect performance in basic training directly or by acting in combination with specific stresses. In either case, personality must be considered to isolate and describe stress effects. A person's beliefs about his ability to control what happens to him (i.e., perceived control) and his style of adjusting to stress (i.e., defense preferences) have been shown to predict attrition from Marine Corps basic training. The effects of these two aspects of personality may not be independent. The present paper explored the hypothesis that perceived personal control is related to effective adaptation to stress while perceived control by external factors is related to ineffective adaptation. The information is to be used to guide subsequent research designs and analysis procedures in studies attempting to isolate the effects of stress in basic training.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1981
Accession Number
ADA120039

Entities

People

  • Michael A. Haight
  • Ross R. Vickers
  • Terry L. Conway

Organizations

  • Naval Health Research Center

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Basic Training
  • Biomedical Research
  • Classification
  • Defense Mechanisms
  • Factor Analysis
  • Human Behavior
  • Information Science
  • Marine Corps
  • New York
  • Perception
  • Personality
  • Psychological Adaptation
  • Psychology
  • Ratings
  • Security
  • Social Sciences
  • Training

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Instructional Design and Training Evaluation.
  • Organizational Psychology.
  • Theoretical Analysis.