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ED 293 022 CG 020 670

AUTHOR Flammer, August; And OthersTITLE Attribution of Control in Swiss Adolescents.PUB DATE Jul 87NOTE 24p.; Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the

International Society for the Study of BehavioralDevelopment (9th, Tokyo, Japan, July 12-16, 1987).Research supported by the Swiss National ScienceFoundation.

PUB TYPE Reports Research/Technical (143) --Speeches /Conference Papers (150)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS *Adolescents; Foreign Countries; Higher Education;

*Individual Power; *Life Satisfaction; *Locus ofControl; Postsecondary Education; Quality of Life;Secondary Education; Self Concept; *Self Evaluation(Individuals); Well Being

IDENTIFIERS Switzerland

ABSTRACTControl of private life and involvement in public

life is regarded as an important condition of subjective well-being,especially for adolescents. A survey on control attributions wasadministered to 1,902 adolescents between the ages of 14 and 20 inSwitzerland. The survey included a separate questionnaire desi,ned toprovide six measures of perceived quality of life. Subjects wereinstructed to imagine a concrete situation of an indicated kind andthen to answer 12 questions. This process was repeated for a total ofnine issues in the personal, interpersonal, and societal domains. Theresults revealed that subjects were most bothered by the futureworking place and personality development issues and least botheredby the issue of public youth projects. Money was the only issue thatwas more important to male adolescents than to females. Mostadolescents reported feeling that they had control or participated inthe control over the selected issues. M expected, general lifesatisfaction depended heavily on the feeling of control. This wasfound to be especially true for the issues of personal appearance,personality development, and friendship. Having no control overissues within the societal domain did not significantly affect thegeneral satisfaction. (NB)

************************************************************************ Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made . ** from the original document. ************************************************************************

Attribution of control in Swiss adolescentsContribution to the IXth Biennial meetings of the International Society for the

Study of Behavioral Development. Tokyo, July, 12-16, 1987.

August Flamer, Ruth Ltithi., Alexander Grob, Andrew Mackinnon

Department of Psychology, University of Bern, Laupenstrasse 4, 3008 Bern, Switzerland

(Research subverted by the Swiss Notional Science Foundation. Project Mr. 1.077-044)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

ED TIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATIONRESOURCE

received from the person or organizationof control as follows:

originating IL . . .

0 Minor changes have been made to improvereproduction Quality

Office of Educational Research and Improvement

Control of private life andinvolvment in public life isregarded as an important condi-tion of subjective well-being.This appears especially true foradolescents. The authors under-stand certain, society-shaking.riots by adolescents in Switzer-land in the early 1980's as anexpression of a general subjec-tive loss of control.

Thus, a survey on control attri-bution by Swiss adolescents withboth a cross-sectional and alongitudinal perspective wasinitiated in 1986. It is basedon a self-made questionnairewhich differentiates the concept

his document has been reproduced as

Point sof view or opinions slated in this docu-ment do not necessarily represent officialOERI poititoon or policy

2

(1) The attribution of controlis considered to vary different-ly within three 'domains', i.e.,personal,' interpersonal, andsocietal. Each domain was repre-sented by selected 'issues'.(2) For each issue the sameseries of questions was presen-ted, i.e.,. personal control (ac-tual, future, comparison withpeers)) distribution of control(other participants in control,barriers to personal control,'objective' controllability),and. importance (of the domain,of the control of the issue;personal effort to maintain orto gain control).Only a small section of the datais included in this contribu-tion.

"FTRMMSIONTOREPRODUCETHMMATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY

/96;4.1645 /97.040""

TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)."

The 'sample consisted of 1902adolescents. between 14 and 20years, i.e., 168 primary schoolstudents, 594 secondary schoolstudents, 429 College students,

adolescents in vocationald'r:.ning and 57 youths who have

schooling at all aid areworking. The analysis furthertakes into account differentliving areas (urban, suburban,country) as well as their pa-

rents' socio-economic status.The survey included a separatequestionnaire designed to pro-vide six measures of perceivedquality of life.

4

Sheet no. 2

The issues were introduced byinviting the subject to imaginea concrete situation of an indi-cated kind; example ('personalappearance' = AP): "You arelooking at yourself before themirror, your eyes, your face,your hair, your whole body. Youmight find yourself attractiveor not so much. How much can youcontribute yourself as to howyou look like?" After this in-troduction a series of 12 ques-tions on this issue followed.All subjects had to go throughthe .nine issues, each containingthe same series of 12 questions.The nine issues are indicated onSheet no. 3.

Index 1:The nine issues:

Personal domain:

PE = personality developmentMO= money, personal financial

ressourcesAP = personal appearance

Interpersonal domain:

FR = friendship

CP= conflict with parents

Societal domain:

EN =VP=WP=SM=

natural environmentpublic youth projectfuture working placesubjectmatter in school

or in apprenticeship

6

Sheet no. 3

Index 2:Classes of potential control holders:

Peers:Auth:last:Sac:Nat:

Person with mare status, peer group

Person with hider status, authorities

Institutions

Society

Nature (therein chatre, fate)

7

FEMALE MALEADOLESCENTS ADOLESCENTS

PE 4.6;p1 4.71.

4.5 FR 4.62

LS? 4445

I EN 4.4014--

MO 4.05

SM 3.99AP 4.04

IYP 3111

wp 4.81

rt PE 4.21

FR 4,37

CP 4.224211./EN

MO 4.19

SM3.80]AP

3.12Ifix

Sheet no. 4

The ratings for theimportance of the is-sues varied between thenine issues, but didnot vary much betweenthe age groups. ThisFigure gives the aver-age ratings over thenine issues and bothsexes (5 = maximum, 1 =minimum).

The future workingplace and the persona-lity development bothermost all subjects, pub-lic youth projectsbother least. Money isthe only issue which ismore important to themale adolescents thanthe female.

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10

Sheet no. 5

Most adolescents feelthey have control orparticipate in the con-trol over the selectedissues. This Figurerepresents the percen-tages of subjects fee-ling they have 'no'

control at all or 'rat-her none' over a givenissue.

Control over scholasticsubject-matter is gene-rally perceived asbeing very low (thoughimportant!), and thisin subjects who for themost part still. go toschool! High control inFR -may be a healthycompensation as well asthe optimistic estisa-tion of control in thefuture (1) 'writing

place.

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The above pie-charts shoal the attributed distribution of control both overthe nine issues and the subjects feeling no (or rather no) personal controland those feeling a substantial part in control (separate question, seeFigure on Sheet 5). The meaning of the colors is indicated on Sheet 3.

9

This Table shows the most important control holder over age (for index referto the low left Figure; the numbers represent the number of subjects forwhom the given control holder is mentioned as maximum control holder).While younger subjects hold the teacher or the school director responsiblefor the curricula, the older subjects see the control in (rather anonymous)institutions. Comparable shift in EN: While younger subjects see singlepeople responsible for the natural environment, the older attribute it tothe (complex and intransparent) society.

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Appearance I I I59.I6 67.I0 62.7 58.6 61.I3 66.I4 67.4

Personality I 1 I I I66.I1 73.6 70.5 68.7 61.9 70.I8 60.5

Mbney I I I I I I48.0 50.5 52.1 57.0 57.8 63.1 66.I4

Conflict with Auth I I I' I I Iparents 52.5 52.8 48.9 53.8 53.1 56.2 56.6

Frienddhip I I T82.I6 80.8 78.7 77.I9 77.I0 78.I0 78.7

Working place I I I I 1 I I71.0 77.4 73.9 71.1 72.9 69.2 66.2

SUbjectmatter Auth Auth Auth Inst Inst Inst Inst44.3 39.5 41.2 40.2 55.0 62.6 55.5

Environment Peers Peers Soc Soc Soc Soc Soc26.8 29.8 33.7 42.2 48.3 52.1 50.4

Youth project Peers Soc Inst Inst Soc Inst Peers28.2 30.5 31.8 31.6 26.8 28.3 28.1

If a subject has ('rather') 'no' control over an issue, then it might be

that he or she regards the issue as basically uncontrollable (by anyone).

This Table shows the percentages of those subjects who profess this convic-

tion of uncontrollability.Most subjects lacking of control still believe the issue is controllable; it

is just not them who have the control! It is surprising how such they

perceive the natural environment is controllable at all although they parti-cipate little in it (cf. Figure on Sheet 9). Scholastic subject-matter isconsidered as the least controllable at all Furthermore, those who feel notbeing in control of their appearance and of their personality development

may feel so because of a conviction of general uncontrollability of these

issues.

Allsubjects

N

SubjectsSubjects feeling no controlfeeling and believing inno control incontrollabilityOMMMIlkillmaiMM 000040.1100 =N11.011.

% of all % of no-

n % n subj. con.subj.411MOMOOMINOMOMOOMWP=MMEMMINIINNINNOWN.~1Dmew

Friendship 1814 125 6.9 35 1.9 28.0

working place 1879 245 13.0 42 2.2 17.1

Conflict w. parents 1880 284 15,1 47 2.5 16.5

Money 1748 380 21.7 52 3.0 13.7

Youth project 1759 523 29.7 54 3.1 10.3

Environment 1870 833 44.6 77 4.1 9.2

Appearance 1885 317 16.8 93 4.9 29.3

Personality 1864 306 16.4 130 7.0 42.1

Subjectmatter 1838 986 53.7 183 10.0 18.6

21

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Sheet no. 9

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Sheet no. 10

As expected, the gene-ral life satisfactiondepends heavily on thefeeling of control (orelse: General lifesatisfaction deter-mines whether one es-timates optimisticallyhis or her own controlor not...). This isespecially true forthe issues of personalappearance, personali-ty development, andfriendship. Having nocontrol over issueswithin the societaldomain does not affectgreatly the generalsatisfaction.

94