Julian Rotter
American clinical and personality psychologist
American psychologist who developed a social learning theory of personality and the concept of locus of control. He taught at Ohio State University and, from 1963, at the University of Connecticut.
Why this person matters
His social learning framework, which gave a central place to expectancies about outcomes, linked learning ideas to personality and clinical work. His 1966 monograph summarised about a decade of research on locus of control, and its I-E scale became widely used and then widely criticised.
Main contributions
Social learning theory of personality
He set out his social learning theory in Social Learning and Clinical Psychology (1954) and applied it to clinical practice. The American Psychological Association citation quoted by UConn describes it as transforming behavioural approaches to personality and clinical psychology.
Locus of control and the I-E scale
A 1966 Psychological Monographs article summarised about a decade of his research and proposed the I-E scale, a forced-choice measure of whether people see outcomes as shaped by their own actions or by outside forces. It has 23 scored items plus six fillers. Most of the underlying studies were done at Ohio State.
Clinical assessment and training
With Rafferty he published the Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank in 1950. At Ohio State he directed the psychological services clinic, and after moving to the University of Connecticut in 1963 he became director of its clinical psychology programme.
Context and limits
Critics challenged the I-E scale's forced-choice format, its susceptibility to social desirability and its heterogeneity (Duttweiler, 1984), and from about 1970 Levenson argued that beliefs about self, powerful others and chance should be measured separately. Smith (1989) found it only weakly tied to self-efficacy. Rotter described internality and externality as ends of a continuum and wrote about misconceptions in how others used the construct. Reported differences between countries and groups have been explained in different ways, for example through relational mobility. Bialer's children's scale (1961) came earlier.
In your introductory course
Personality.Locus of control and Rotter's social learning theory appear in the personality chapter and in stress and health discussions of perceived control. Students meet them as a measurable belief about who controls outcomes.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 11.4. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1950
Published the Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank with Rafferty.
- 1954
Published Social Learning and Clinical Psychology.
- 1963
Joined the University of Connecticut from Ohio State University.
- 1966
Published a Psychological Monographs article proposing the locus of control scale and summarising about a decade of research.
- 1988
Received the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Contribution award.
Sources
- UConn Today, Professor Emeritus of Psychology Julian Rotter DiesUniversity. Institutional biography inspected.
- Social Behavior and Personality, Obituary: Julian B. RotterSociety or association. Institutional biography inspected.
- Wikipedia, Julian RotterReference work. Reference article inspected.
- Wikipedia, Locus of controlReference work. Reference article inspected.