Influence of Locus of Control on Court Attendance

• Main Author: Cutlip, Anna
• Other Authors: William Bankston
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: LSU 2002
• Subjects: Sociology
• Online Access: http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-0418102-094358/

The aim of the present study was to discover whether there is a relationship between locus of control and court attendance. Data were collected from 95 inmates residing in a southern Louisiana jail. It was expected that a person with an internal locus of control would choose to comply with court attendance requirements because of the belief that he may affect the outcome, while another individual with an external locus of control would passively respond through absence because the outcome is believed to be controlled by chance, luck, or fate. The Prison Locus of Control scale was employed to measure the inmates' origin of control. The logistic regression analysis revealed statistically significant relationships in the predicted direction between locus of control and court attendance in two models. The first model also included marital tie, education, and belief in the importance of a court appearance as being significantly associated with court attendance. In the second model, in addition to locus of control, education remained significant and age, race, and two interaction effects also achieve statistical significance.