ASSESSING LOCUS OF CONTROL OF REINFORCEMENT IN ELDERLY PEOPLE - EVALUATION OF THE DESIRED CONTROL MEASURE

To determine whether Reid and Ziegler's Desired Control Measure assess es locus of control of reinforcement 363 community-residing elderly in dividuals completed: (a) the Desired Control Measure (DCM); (b) Levens on's Internal (I), Powerful Other (PO), and Chance (C) Locus of Contro l Scales; (c) the Life Satisfaction Index - Form A; and (d) the Affect Balance Scale. Support for construing the DCM as an index of locus of control was not obtained: (a) DCM scores correlated only modestly wit h the I, PO, and C scales; (b) factor solutions indicated minimal item overlap on the two measures; and (c) regression analyses indicated th at the DCM added substantially to the variance in adjustment measures accounted for by I, PO, and C. We conclude that the DCM does not prima rily tap locus of control, and is more appropriately conceptualized as an index of individuals' perceptions/evaluations of their environment .