Differential Behavior on Skill and Chance Tasks as a Function of Perceived Locus of Control

This investigation was designed to examine differences in behavior that may exist between internals and externals on skill and chance tasks. Since internals should be more motivated in a skill task, it was hypothesized that they would show more trials to extinction, more frustration, and more arousal in acquisition and extinction on the skill task than externals. Since externals should be more motivated on a chance task, it was hypothesized that they would show more trials to extinction, more frustration, and more arousal in acquisition and extinction on the chance task than internals. Subjects were pre-selected on the basis of their scores on the James I-E Scale to form the internal, internal-external, and external groups. The skill and chance tasks were the Skye apparatus and a card guessing task, respectively. Frustration was measured by the Zaks and Walters Aggression Scale and arousal by the plethysmograph. Results were in the predicted direction for all of the hypotheses except one. Internal females in the skill task did not show greater arousal during extinction than external females. The following hypotheses were supported: (I) internals had more trials to extinction than externals in the skill task, (2) externals had more trials to extinction than internals in the chance task, (3) externals showed greater arousal in acquisition than internals in the chance task, (4) external males showed greater arousal in extinction than internal males in the chance task, and (5) external females showed greater arousal in extinction than internal females in the chance task