Who’s In Control?
Locus of Control (LOC) is a psychological personality trait measuring the degree to which individuals believe outcomes in their lives are due to internal versus external forces such as luck, powerful others and chance. Life history theory, an evolutionary anthropological theory, predicts that individuals in risky & unpredictable environments would shift their LOC to be more external. Pandemics cause widespread cultural, economic, and mortality risk change, we predict that the pandemic environment will shift individual LOC to be more external. Our data support this prediction. Compared with the early pandemic, and with 21 previous years of university student LOC scores, mean LOC collected one year into the pandemic (2021) is significantly more external than forecasting models predict.