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Women Prisoners' Multidimensional Locus of Control

Claremont Graduate School

Amelia Pennington-Averett

Claremont Graduate School

Inez Bryan

University of La Verne

Most studies investigating internal-external locus of control (LOC) in prison samples have found inmates to be externally oriented. On the whole, these studies have excluded women prison inmates. The present study investigated LOC in a sample of volunteers (n = 174) from randomly selected inmates at a state prison for women. Results on a multidimensional measure of LOC showed that: (a) education and income were significantly and positively related to the internal orientation and negatively related to the external orientation of LOC; (b) compared to minority women inmates, white women inmates were less likely to attribute events to chance; and (c) no significant relationship was found between LOC and length of imprisonment. Findings suggest that differences in LOC between men and women prison inmates are related to sex-specific adaptation to prison and differences in prison environs rather than to length of imprisonment.

Criminal Justice and Behavior, Vol. 8, No. 3, 375-389 (1981)
DOI: 10.1177/009385488100800308


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