Control Behavior Research Paper

1. Conceptual Distinction Between Control Behavior And Perceived Control

The field of control-related research has suffered from conceptual confusion between constructs addressing control behavior on the one hand and constructs about perceptions or beliefs about control on the other (see also review in Schulz and Heckhausen 1999). Although a functionalistic analysis of control-related behavior would view control behavior as more critical for determining outcomes, research on control since the 1970s has been dominated by constructs and assessments of perceived control and related concepts (e.g., self-efficacy, Bandura 1977). This almost exclusive emphasis on perceived control rather than control-directed behavior or realized control has lead to widespread conceptual confusion, in that all kinds of control are subsumed and not differentiated from perceived control (see, e.g., Skinner 1996).

Before reviewing the key findings from the different bodies of research, specific definitions for the major control constructs are given. Control-related behavior is directed at producing contingencies between own behavior and events. When the events targeted are located in the outside world, the control-related behavior is primary control behavior. In contrast, when internal events are targeted it is secondary control behavior. Control is realized contingency between behavior and event. Perceived control, by contrast, refers to the extent to which an individual believes to control behavior–event contingencies. It thus becomes clear that perceived control does not reflect behavior, but internal representations, and may thus be involved in secondary control.

2. Research About Perceived Control

Perceived control and related constructs have a long-standing history in the psychology of motivation and self-regulation. Five major conceptions have guided research in this area: locus of control (Lefcourt 1981, Rotter 1990), causal attributions (Weiner 1985), learned helplessness (Seligman 1975, Abramson et al. 1978), self-efficacy (Bandura 1977), and perceived own intelligence as fixed vs. malleable (Dweck and Elliott 1983). Locus of control refers to the issue whether an event is controlled or produced by factors inside or outside the individual. Causal attributions refer to the retrospective explanation of outcomes of behavior by internal factors such as effort or ability and external factors such as task difficulty and luck. Learned helplessness focuses on the issue of whether events are contingent on the organism’s behavior, and further distinguishes between stable and unstable and specific and unspecific causes of events. Finally, the distinction between fixed vs. malleable intelligence addresses inter-individual differences in the tendency to view intelligence as either an unchangeable entity or as a modifiable resource for performance. All these characteristics addressed by the five theories have been found to hold important implications for behavior and the evaluation of outcomes (Weiner 1986, Heckhausen 1991, Skinner 1995, Dweck 1999). Depending on the outcome, internal, stable, and general control beliefs are conducive, in the case of success, or detrimental, in the case of failure, to effort investment, ambitious task choice, persistence, and improvement in performance. Moreover, the temporal direction of control perceptions is critical, with prospective expectations of control influencing goal choice, and persistence, and retrospective attributions of control guiding the way in which success and failure are interpreted as indicative of future control potential.

Recently, researchers in this field have called for conceptual and domain-specific distinctions to be discussed in more detail here. Perceptions about personal control involve two components, ‘agents of control, and means of control’ (Skinner et al. 1988, Skinner 1996, p. 552). These two components are often not sufficiently differentiated, but confounded in a summary construct of perceived control. First, control beliefs imply conceptions about the controllability and the relevant means to attain an outcome. This component of control beliefs is captured by various closely related concepts (see review in Skinner 1996): contingency judgment; means–ends beliefs, and strategy beliefs. Second, control beliefs involve conceptions about the agent’s resources for control in terms of having access to means for bringing about an outcome. This component of control beliefs is referred to as competence judgment, agency beliefs, and capacity beliefs.

Research about perceived control falls into two broad areas: (a) normative age changes in perceptions of control across the lifespan, and (2) the association of perceived control and various functional outcomes, such as task-performance, school grades, subjective well-being, and health (see also review in Schulz and Heckhausen 1999).

Research on childhood development of perceived control has shown that control beliefs become increasingly realistic, thus moving away from illusory gross overestimations of control in early childhood (Weisz 1983). However, the extent to which perceptions of personal control become realistic in mid-childhood, adolescence, and adulthood is a function of cultural variation (Little et al. 1995). School children in the United States, for instance, hold beliefs about their competence to attain good grades (i.e., agency beliefs), which have little relation to their actual school grades, whereas children in the former German Democratic Republic reported agency beliefs which closely resembled their actual school achievements.

In addition, developmental research has revealed that the agency and the means–ends components of control beliefs, as well as beliefs about different causal factors (e.g., ability, effort, luck, teacher) were increasingly differentiated during mid-childhood and exhibit unique developmental trajectories and relations to outcomes. Skinner et al. (1998), for instance, showed that during mid-childhood, cycles of influences between perceived personal control and school achievement were focused on different components at different ages. Beliefs about effort dominated the cycles in younger school children, whereas beliefs about ability were the focus of the regulatory cycles in older children.

As to normative age changes during adulthood the findings to date provide a mixed picture (see review by Schulz and Heckhausen 1999). While earlier reviews of the literature reported little evidence for age-related changes in generalized measures of control (Lachman 1986a), more recent research has identified decreases in perceived control across adulthood (e.g., Mirowsky 1995). However, Lachman was the first to emphasize and provide evidence for domain specific perceptions of control and their age-related trajectories (Lachman 1986b). Lachman’s research shows that older adults report decreasing perceptions of control for those domains for which their more constraint social roles and declining physical fitness yield deteriorated opportunities and resources for control.

The association of perceived control and health has been studied extensively using field experimental paradigms involving interventions improving objective control opportunities (e.g., Langer and Rodin 1976, Schulz and Hanusa 1978, Baltes and Baltes 1986), quasi-experimental methods exploiting naturally occurring environmental changes of control potential (e.g., Timko and Moos 1989), and large sample surveys (e.g., Krause 1987, Menec and Chipperfield 1997). Findings from all these studies, research paradigms, and assessments of perceived control and health outcomes converge to show that having high perceptions of control benefits one’s health, and having low perceptions of control can be damaging (see also review in Schulz and Heckhausen 1999).

3. Evolutionary Origin And Ontogenetic Potential Of Human Control Behavior

A common characteristic of all motivated behavior is that the organism attempts to achieve outcomes in the environment by its own activity. In all activities relevant for survival and procreation, such as foraging, attracting a mate, or competing with a rival, the organism strives for control in terms of bringing about desired outcomes and preventing undesired ones. Thus, the most fundamental and universal motivational tendencies relate to this basic strive to control the environment referred to as primary control striving (Heckhausen and Schulz 1995, Heckhausen 2000).

The striving for control is shared with a broad range of species and goes back far into the phylogenetic past, probably as far back as to those species which first acquired a notable flexibility in their behavior programs (see review by Heckhausen 2000). This assumption converges with White’s (1959) classical article on the motivation for competence, effectance, and mastery as a universal striving of humans and mammals in general.

The fundamental status of control striving in behavior regulation is supported by findings about neonatal behavioral preferences (see review by Heckhausen and Schulz 1995). Neonatal humans are able to detect behavior–event contingencies, learn head movements to control milk reinforcement, and, most importantly, continue to show the control behavior even when after complete satiation the milk reinforcement has lost its consummatory value and merely provides a contingency event to the infants’ head-turning behavior.

Humans hold a unique potential for control in terms of pursuing goals, which can involve multiple subgoals and cover extensive time spans. This capacity is based on the mental representation of goals, which renders the organism independent of immediate external response elicitation and feedback, and sets it free for self-regulation.

Another important characteristic of humans’ control-related behavior is their sense of self, and their quest for learning about and feeling good about the characteristics of their own self (e.g., about competence). The sense of self is acquired in early childhood, and in itself becomes a motivational incentive for control striving (see review by Heckhausen and Schulz 1995). Control goals are pursued not only for the sake of their outcomes, and the behavior–event contingency they represent, but also in view of the anticipated enhancement or confirmation of self-ascribed capacities to control outcomes. Mental representations of one’s own control capacity and of the control potential inherent in a situational challenge are referred to as perceived control (Skinner 1996).

Particularly for challenging control pursuits, the anticipation of positive information about one’s own competence implied in a successful completion of the control striving becomes a major resource for motivation. Anticipatory positive self-evaluation motivates the individual persistently to invest effort into acquisitional processes. Only this way can time-extended acquisitional processes of expertise development be sustained motivationally. However, this ability to develop conceptions about one’s own competence and control also renders the human motivational system vulnerable to experiences of failure. From about 4 years of age, humans perceive failure as negative feedback about their own competence and react with embarrassment and shame (see review by Heckhausen and Schulz 1995). For humans older than 4 years of age, failure may thus undermine self-ascribed competence and perceived control, both important motivational resources needed for persistent primary control striving.

The system of control behavior in humans therefore needs to involve processes that protect and restore conceptions of own competence and mastery. Heckhausen and Schulz in their lifespan theory of control (Heckhausen and Schulz 1995, Schulz and Heckhausen 1996) have proposed to subsume diverse, mostly cognitive processes, which serve to protect motivational resources and focus them on a given goal (i.e., volitional commitment) of primary control striving, under the construct of secondary control striving. Among such secondary control processes are those that help the individual to disengage from a futile goal (e.g., devalue goal, increase value of alternative goals) and protect the self against unfavorable implications of failure and loss (e.g., downward social comparison, egotistic causal attributions). In addition, secondary control strategies are also needed for generating and maintaining motivational commitment to a chosen goal (e.g., enhance value of chosen goal, devalue alternatives, overestimate perceived control for goal attainment, Gollwitzer and Kinney 1989, Heckhausen 1999, Wrosch and Heckhausen 1999).

4. Research About Control Of Development

The study of actual control behavior and control striving, as distinct from perceived control, is an emergent field of research (Heckhausen and Schulz 1995, Brandtstadter 1998, Schulz and Heckhausen 1999). Two major models of developmental regulation, which address processes of individual control in developmental change, are considered here: the dual-process model of coping by Brandtstadter and colleagues (overview by Brandtstadter 1998), and the life-span theory of control by Heckhausen and Schulz (Heckhausen and Schulz 1995, Schulz and Heckhausen 1996).

4.1 The Dual-Process Model: Assimilation And Accommodation

Brandtstadter and colleagues (Brandtstadter 1998, Brandtstadter et al. 1999) view personal control of development as motivated by the fundamental goal of preserving personal continuity and identity. In the service of self-continuity and consistency, the individual can profit from two processes, assimilation and accommodation, which both help to bring desired and actual situations or states into congruence. Assimilation encompasses all intentional action directed at achieving goals. In contrast, accommodative processes are subintentional and help the individual to protect the self by adjusting mental representations (e.g., lowering goal aspiration) to external constraints. These two processes are conceptualized as antagonistic but complementary modes of coping.

In the context of psychological aging, Brandtstadter proposes that accommodative processes play a major role in bringing about the seeming paradox of aging-related decline without costs to psychological well-being. He argues that it is through processes of downscaling goals, and adjusting aspirations to attain-able outcomes, that individuals maintain their sense of consistent self. Accordingly, the two modes of coping follow inverse developmental trajectories across the lifespan: assimilation decreases, and accommodation increases towards old age.

A particularly important contribution of Brandtstadter’s model is its inclusion of subintentional processes (Brandtstadter et al. 1999), by which evaluations of goals and aspiration levels can be adjusted, when goal attainment has become uncontrollable. Without intent and even awareness, the attractiveness of a goal, which has become unattainable in old age, might fade away. Also, cognitions that immunize the self against failure experiences (e.g., deflect self-blame) unwittingly emerge in the individual’s mental account of a loss-relevant episode. Such subintentional and subconscious accommodations have been demonstrated in experimental studies, and were shown to be closely associated with superior psychological well-being.

4.2 The Lifespan Theory Of Control

Heckhausen and Schulz (Heckhausen and Schulz 1995, Schulz and Heckhausen 1996) have developed the lifespan theory of control which proposes that the desire to exert control over ones environment and thus realize primary control rules the system of control behavior. The lifespan theory of control elaborates the distinction between primary and secondary control, originally proposed by Rothbaum et al. (1982) and applies it to the human lifespan. Primary control striving is expected to remain the dominant motivator of behavior across the lifespan, while the potential to realize primary control undergoes radical changes across age (see also Heckhausen 1999). The potential for primary control, in contrast, increases during childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, then reaches a maximum and plateau during mid-life, and declines with the loss of social roles and physical fitness associated with old age. The increasing discrepancy between primary control striving and primary control potential at older ages provides a challenge for the individual, in that it can only be managed by disengagement from age-inappropriate goals and engaging with new more age-adapted goals. Such cycles of goal engagement and disengagement can only be mastered by activating specific processes addressing the internal world of the individual in terms of goal hierarchies and motivational commitment. Such strategies are conceptualized as secondary control strategies. Brandtstadter’s conception of accommodative coping processes emphasizes the nonintentional nature of some goal disengagement and self-protective processes, which he contrasts with assimilative coping that comprises intentional attempts to control developmental losses (Brandtstadter 1998).

Heckhausen and Schulz (Heckhausen and Schulz 1995, Heckhausen 1999) distinguish between four types of control strategies. Selecti e primary control refers to the investment of internal behavioral resources such as effort, time, and skills in the pursuit of a goal. Compensatory primary control is required when internally available behavioral resources of the individual are insufficient to attain the goal, and external resources such as help or advice from others or technical aids (e.g., wheelchair) have to be recruited. Selective secondary control serves to enhance and maintain motivational commitment to a chosen action goal, particularly when it is challenged by unexpected obstacles or attractive alternatives. Selective secondary control strategies include enhanced valuation of the chosen goal, and devaluation of nonchosen alternatives, as well as positive illusions about one’s control, potential for the chosen goal. Compensatory secondary control is required when the individual experiences a loss of control and when the goal becomes unattainable or excessively costly. Compensatory secondary control can be attained by disengaging from the obsolete goal. In addition, compensatory secondary control involves specific self-protective strategies, such as self-protective causal attribution (avoid self-blame) and downward social comparisons, which deflect the potential negative effects of failure experiences on important motivational resources of affective balance and self-esteem.

The theory of control behavior can be integrated with modern motivational action theory, which views motivation behavior as organized in action cycles of goal engagement and goal disengagement Heckhausen 1991). Specifically, goal engagement involves the strategies of selective primary and selective secondary control as well as, in cases of obstacles, compensatory primary control. Goal disengagement relies of the compensatory secondary control strategies of goal distancing and self-protection.

The use of primary and secondary control strategies was investigated in various developmental ecologies during the lifespan (Chipperfield et al. 1999, Heckhausen 1999, Wrosch and Heckhausen 1999). Heckhausen (1999) found in a socially heterogeneous sample of East and West German adults that striving for primary control remained constant across age groups, whereas the flexibility of adjusting one’s goals, a key component of compensatory secondary control, increased with higher ages. Chipperfield et al. (1999) investigated the effectiveness of primary and secondary control strategies in a sample of older adults experiencing either acute temporary or chronic severe health stress. They found that primary control strategies had positive health implications for the young– old, but that the same strategies appeared to be detrimental to health in advanced old age.

One way to study the responsiveness of control behavior to different control potential is to study developmental regulation across distinct life-course transitions in control potential (Heckhausen 1999). Developmental regulation across the lifespan is organized along a timetable of waxing and waning opportunities to attain important developmental goals, such as graduating from school, building a career, finding a permanent partner, and having a child. The age-graded opportunity structures for various developmental goals involve final time constraints, conceptualized as developmental deadlines. An example is the so-called ‘biological clock’ for child-bearing.

Developmental deadlines were shown to be the watersheds between urgent predeadline goal engagement and postdeadline goal disengagement and self-protection (Wrosch and Heckhausen 1999). Individuals approaching a developmental deadline, such as the early 40s in the case of child-bearing, activated goal engagement strategies of control (i.e., selective primary, selective secondary, compensatory primary control) fervently striving to attain the goal before the time runs out. In contrast, once a deadline has been passed, (e.g., women in their early 40s or 50s with regard to child-bearing) control strategies of goal disengagement, such as devaluing the goal and self- protective downward comparison with others were preferred. Moreover, it was shown that the employment of phase-congruent control strategies (i.e., goal engagement in the predeadline phase and goal dis-engagement in the postdeadline phase) was associated with greater psychological well-being and mental health (e.g., less depressive symptoms, more positive affect) than phase-incongruent control strategies.

5. Future Directions Of Research

Future research about control behavior and control perceptions should take a functionalistic perspective and analyze the consequences that objective changes in opportunities for control have for domain-specific components of perceived control and their behavioral correlates. Specifically, future research can exploit the model of action cycles. In both developmental and non-developmental contexts, control processes associated with goal engagement and goal disengagement can be investigated in terms of their congruence with control opportunities. This approach also allows to study interindividual differences in the ability to recognize changes in opportunity structures and in the flexibility of switching between goal engagement and goal disengagement. This may provide an avenue to investigate interindividual differences in vulnerability versus resilience to developmental transitions.

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