Can Having Internal Locus of Control Insure against Negative Shocks? Psychological Evidence from Panel Data

Hielke Buddelmeyer and Nattavudh Powdthavee
Additional contact information
Hielke Buddelmeyer: Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne

Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series from Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne

Abstract: We investigate whether the intensity of emotional pain following a negative shock is different across the distribution of a person’s locus of control – the extent to which individuals believe that their actions can influence future outcomes. Using panel data from Australia, we show that individuals with strong internal locus of control are psychologically insured against becoming a victim of property crime and death of a close friend, but not against the majority of other life events. The buffering effects vary across gender. Our findings thus add to the existing literature on the benefits of internal locus of control.

Keywords: Locus of control; resilience; well-being; happiness; HILDA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 I19 J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48pp
Date: 2015-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-hap and nep-neu
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/downloads ... series/wp2015n12.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Can having internal locus of control insure against negative shocks? Psychological evidence from panel data (2016)
Working Paper: Can having internal locus of control insure against negative shocks? Psychological evidence from panel data (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2015n12

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series from Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010 Australia. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sheri Carnegie ().