Army Locus of Control Scale (Army- LOC)

Abstract

The Army Locus of Control Scale (Army-LOC) is a domain-specific psychometric instrument engineered to evaluate generalized and aviation-specific control expectancies among military flight personnel. Developed under the auspices of the United States Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences by David R. Hunter and John E. Stewart, the instrument adapts the foundational social learning constructs articulated by Julian B. Rotter to the high-stakes, hazardous operational environment of military rotary- and fixed-wing aviation. Grounded in empirical investigations examining the etiology of human-error-induced aeronautical mishaps, the scale addresses the long-standing psychometric limitations of generalized locus of control inventories when applied to safety-critical tactical domains. Across its comprehensive developmental battery and targeted subscales, the instrument assesses internal control beliefs—wherein operational outcomes and mishap avoidances are attributed to personal agency, skill, rigorous preparation, and procedural compliance—against external control orientations characterized by attributions to luck, chance, unavoidable destiny, supernatural oversight, or resignation.

The operational framework of the Army-LOC delineates primary composite dimensions, most notably a 15-item Internality Scale and a 15-item Externality Scale, supplemented by fine-grained component structures identifying six distinct subdimensions: Luck, Externality, Internality, Accident Causality, Fate/Destiny, and Resignation. Standardized on active-duty United States Army aviators across diverse airframes and mission profiles, the scale exhibits robust psychometric properties. Internal consistency estimates demonstrate exceptional reliability, yielding Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging from .81 to .92 across the primary dimensions (.83 for the 15-item Internality Scale, .92 for the 15-item Externality Scale, .89 for Luck, .87 for Externality, .85 for Internality, .82 for Accident Causality, .81 for Fate, and .60 for Resignation). Criterion, convergent, and predictive validity analyses reveal significant associations between elevated external control orientations (specifically resignation and fatalism) and hazardous flying attitudes, elevated risk tolerance, and historical involvement in preventable flight incidents. The Army-LOC represents a foundational assessment methodology within military aviation psychology, human factors engineering, and operational risk management.

Keywords

Army Locus of Control Scale, Army-LOC, aviation psychology, internal locus of control, external locus of control, operational risk management, military aviators, human factors, hazardous attitudes, flight safety, accident causality, psychometrics

Authors

The Army Locus of Control Scale was developed and empirically validated by research psychologists affiliated with the United States military and federal aviation research establishments:

• David R. Hunter, Ph.D.: Prominent research psychologist specializing in human factors, pilot decision-making, hazardous attitudes, and risk perception. Dr. Hunter served extensively as a scientific researcher for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Civil Aerospace Medical Institute and collaborated with the United States Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI).
• John E. Stewart, Ph.D.: Research psychologist at the United States Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI) Rotary-Wing Aviation Research Unit located at Fort Rucker (now Fort Novosel), Alabama. Dr. Stewart has authored numerous technical investigations on simulator fidelity, aviator selection, spatial orientation, and aeronautical cognitive performance.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Army Locus of Control Scale (Army-LOC) is to quantify the cognitive disposition of military pilots regarding the controllability of hazardous flight events, personal survival, mission success, and aeronautical mishaps. In high-consequence operational spheres such as military combat aviation, operator beliefs regarding whether mishaps stem from individual competence and vigilant risk mitigation versus stochastic environmental influences or predestined fate exert a profound influence on pre-flight planning, cockpit communication, checklist adherence, and in-flight emergency decision-making.

Historically, generalized locus of control metrics—most notably Julian Rotter’s I-E Scale or Levenson’s IPC (Internal, Powerful Others, Chance) Scale—demonstrated modest predictive utility when applied to specific applied fields such as industrial ergonomics, vehicular operation, and aeronautics. Rotter himself acknowledged that domain-specific scales generate substantially higher behavioral prediction coefficients within specialized environments. In military aviation, the environment is defined by severe aerodynamic complexity, unforgiving physical laws, extreme cognitive workload, and systemic operational pressures. When an aviator harbors an externalized, fatalistic disposition—believing that “when your number is up, it is your time to go” or that mishaps are predominantly governed by good or bad fortune—the psychological imperative to cross-check flight instruments, demand strict adherence to standard operating procedures (SOPs), or challenge an unsafe command hierarchy becomes eroded. The Army-LOC was purposely engineered to diagnose these specific cognitive vulnerabilities before they manifest as catastrophic controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) or tactical loss of control.

From an applied perspective, the Army-LOC functions across several institutional vectors:

• Aviation Safety Screening and Diagnostics: Identifying aviators who endorse resignation or luck-dependent heuristics, allowing flight surgeons, aviation safety officers (ASOs), and unit commanders to implement targeted remedial cognitive interventions.
• Aeronautical Decision-Making (ADM) and Crew Resource Management (CRM): Serving as an instructional feedback tool within initial flight training and advanced rotary-wing tactical courses to illustrate how internal locus of control directly correlates with active problem-solving, situational awareness, and effective assertiveness in multi-crew flight decks.
• Human Factors Accident Investigation: Providing safety investigation boards (SIBs) with empirical taxonomies to evaluate post-mishap cognitive profiles, determining whether subtle fatalistic or resigned attitudes contributed to procedural drift or non-compliance.
• Empirical Behavioral Research: Supplying aviation psychologists with a validated, psychometrically sound instrument to correlate perceived control with risk tolerance, personality markers (such as sensation seeking and conscientiousness), physiological stress responses, and synthetic flight simulator performance.

Psychological Construct

The Army-LOC conceptualizes locus of control not as a simplistic, unipolar continuum, but as a multifaceted structural system incorporating both generalized existential control orientations and context-bound aeronautical causal models. Human cognition under existential stress frequently toggles between perceived mastery and situational surrender. The scale operationalizes these dynamics across distinct yet intercorrelated dimensions:

1. Internality (Personal Mastery and Behavioral Agency)

The Internality construct reflects an aviator’s firm belief that mission outcomes, operational safety, and accident avoidance reside directly within personal agency, skill, vigilance, and physical effort. Aviators scoring high on this dimension view safety not as a passive consequence of benevolent circumstance, but as an active, continuous production requiring meticulous pre-flight preparation, rigorous checklist discipline, and unrelenting situational awareness. Examples of core beliefs within this dimension include the conviction that adhering to regulations prevents accidents (e.g., “If Aviators follow all the rules and regulations, they can avoid many aviation accidents”) and that personal diligence dictates survival (e.g., “The main thing that affects my safety is what I myself do”). High internality serves as a psychological buffer against complacency, motivating individuals to seek further training, verify mechanical systems personally, and assume moral accountability for tactical errors.

2. Externality (Systemic, Stochastic, and Environmental Attribution)

The overarching Externality construct measures an aviator’s tendency to attribute operational occurrences, hazards, and safety breaches to factors outside the self. This includes powerful organizational structures (e.g., command oversight, institutional policy), external actors (air traffic control, co-pilots, maintenance personnel), and uncontrollable physical environments (e.g., microbursts, instrument meteorological conditions, mechanical malfunctions). In its broadest form, high externality signifies a perceptual framework in which personal flying competence is viewed as subordinate to systemic or ambient constraints (e.g., “Whether or not I get into an accident depends mostly on things that I cannot control, like the weather”).

3. Luck and Chance Attribution

Differentiated within the factor space, the Luck subscale captures an explicit reliance on stochastic, non-deterministic good fortune or bad breaks. In high-risk military aviation, pilots frequently encounter dynamic combat environments where unpredictable events occur; however, elevating luck to a primary operating paradigm represents a recognized cognitive hazard. Statements reflecting this construct (such as “Successful flying is partly a matter of good luck” and “I’d rather be lucky than good”) tap into an operator’s willingness to delegate tactical survival to serendipity, thereby diminishing the subjective valuation of deliberate technical preparation and calculated contingency planning.

4. Fate and Fatalistic Destiny

The Fate dimension measures a philosophical surrender to predeterminism. Distinct from random chance or systemic failure, fatalism posits that personal outcomes are pre-scripted by an immutable metaphysical order, destiny, or higher power. In tactical combat aviation, fatalistic defenses often emerge as a psychological coping mechanism to manage existential mortality salience. The Army-LOC directly measures this orientation through items such as “I’ll die when it’s my time to go, but not before”, “You don’t go until your number is up”, and “In flying, what will be, will be”. While fatalism may superficially attenuate acute death anxiety, it severely compromises cockpit survival behaviors by fostering passivity during escalating in-flight emergencies.

5. Resignation

The Resignation construct reflects a state of learned helplessness and perceived operational futility. An aviator characterized by resignation maintains that regardless of personal effort, training excellence, or compliance, systemic failure is ultimately inevitable. Marked by aphoristic acceptance of hazard (e.g., “Stuff just happens” and “Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you”), this attitude directly parallels the classic “Resignation” hazardous attitude identified by the FAA and military aviation authorities. Pilots harboring high resignation exhibit delayed reaction times when troubleshooting in-flight anomalies, fail to aggressively explore emergency divert options, and demonstrate lower resistance to organizational safety violations.

6. Accident Causality (Procedural and Effort Attribution)

This specialized dimension examines beliefs regarding the fundamental nature of aviation mishaps. It measures whether accidents are perceived as preventable failures of pilot competence, carelessness, and insufficient effort, or whether they are perceived as structural regularities inherent to the enterprise of flight. Aviators endorsing high accident causality items (e.g., “Most accidents are due to Aviators’ carelessness” and “Accidents could be eliminated, if pilots made more of an effort”) maintain an uncompromising view of human culpability and preventative safety potential.

Theoretical Framework

The Army Locus of Control Scale is anchored primarily in Julian B. Rotter’s (1954, 1966) Social Learning Theory, supplemented by modern cognitive models of Aeronautical Decision-Making (ADM), the Theory of Planned Behavior, and human factors safety engineering.

Social Learning Theory and Generalized Expectancies

Rotter’s social learning formulation posits that the probability of a given behavior occurring in a specific psychological situation is a function of the expectancy that the behavior will lead to a particular reinforcement and the subjective value of that reinforcement:

BP_x,s1,Ra = f(E_x,Ra,s1 & RV_a,s1)

Within this paradigm, locus of control represents a generalized expectancy regarding the nature of the causal relationship between one’s own actions and subsequent consequences. Individuals who construct an internal locus of control perceive reinforcements as contingent upon their own behavioral actions, internal attributes, and systematic investments of effort. Conversely, individuals who construct an external locus of control perceive reinforcements as contingent upon forces outside their personal control, such as luck, chance, fate, powerful others, or systemic complexity.

Rotter underscored that while generalized expectancies dominate ambiguous or novel environments, specialized, domain-specific expectancies govern behavior in highly familiar, highly trained operational environments. Military aviation represents an ultra-specialized domain where pilots undergo rigorous, standardized training designed precisely to cultivate exceptional agency, situational command, and procedural precision. Consequently, evaluating locus of control within this specific population necessitates items reflecting the concrete behavioral, mechanical, environmental, and command realities encountered by military flight crews.

Hazardous Attitudes in Aviation Psychology

The theoretical architecture of the Army-LOC intersects directly with the pioneering work on hazardous flight attitudes initiated by the FAA and expanded by Dr. David R. Hunter. Aviation psychological doctrine formalizes five primary hazardous attitudes that undermine aeronautical judgment:

1. Anti-Authority: (“Don’t tell me what to do.”)
2. Impulsivity: (“Do something quickly!”)
3. Invulnerability: (“It won’t happen to me.”)
4. Macho: (“I can do it, I’ll show them.”)
5. Resignation: (“What’s the use? It doesn’t matter what I do.”)

The Army-LOC provides an empirical, psychometric bridge between Rotter’s control constructs and these aviation-specific behavioral archetypes. Specifically, the external subscales—Fate, Luck, and Resignation—operationalize the cognitive underpinnings of the Resignation hazardous attitude. By viewing survival as a matter of luck or predestined fate, an aviator’s locus of control shifts externally, resulting in diminished situational vigilance and an elevated tolerance for latent systemic hazards.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the Army-LOC has been demonstrated across multiple rigorous studies conducted by the United States Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences and associated aerospace human factors research programs.

Construct and Structural Validity

Construct validity is evidenced through robust convergence with established personality taxonomies and theoretical models of risk orientation. In foundational studies examining active-duty Army aviators (e.g., Hunter & Stewart, 2009), the Internality and Externality dimensions demonstrated clean convergent patterns with established measures of general conscientiousness, emotional stability, and operational risk taking. Specifically, aviators scoring high on the Internality scale demonstrated statistically significant negative correlations with self-reported risk tolerance and positive correlations with procedural adherence, methodical pre-flight planning, and safety conservatism. Conversely, scores on the Externality, Luck, and Fate components correlated positively with elevated scores on hazardous attitude inventories, most prominently the Resignation and Macho dimensions.

Predictive and Criterion-Related Validity

Criterion validity for the Army-LOC has been established by evaluating historical mishap involvement, hazardous incident reporting, and simulated flight performance:

• Accident and Incident Prediction: In validation cohorts, aviators who endorsed higher levels of external control, specifically luck reliance and fatalistic resignation, exhibited significantly higher historical rates of involvement in aviation accidents and non-catastrophic flight incidents. Logistic regression modeling demonstrated that external locus of control scores contributed significant incremental variance in predicting preventable safety occurrences above and beyond total accumulated flight hours.
• Aeronautical Decision-Making (ADM) Tasks: During computerized and high-fidelity flight simulator scenario evaluations featuring in-flight emergencies (such as sudden engine degradation, hydraulic failure, and severe weather entrapment), aviators possessing high internality scores consistently demonstrated faster problem identification, more systematic emergency checklist utilization, and superior tactical diversion decisions. Aviators exhibiting elevated fatalism or resignation displayed prolonged cognitive latency and poorer tactical judgment.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity analyses confirm that the Army-LOC does not merely replicate general cognitive ability (intelligence) or general flying aptitude as measured by standardized military selection batteries (such as the Alternate Flight Aptitude Selection Test [AFAST] or the Selection Instrument for Flight Training [SIFT]). Correlations between the Army-LOC dimensions and general cognitive aptitude composite scores are near-zero and statistically non-significant, confirming that the scale assesses a distinct sociocognitive personality domain rather than cognitive capability or baseline psychomotor proficiency.

Reliability

The Army-LOC displays high internal consistency and temporal measurement stability across distinct military cohorts, empirical phases, and operational contexts.

Internal Consistency Reliability

In the primary empirical validation conducted by Hunter and Stewart (2009) with active-duty U.S. Army rotary-wing aviators, internal consistency metrics (Cronbach’s alpha) demonstrated high reliability across both composite scales and underlying factor components:

• 15-Item Internality Composite Scale: Cronbach’s α = .83
• 15-Item Externality Composite Scale: Cronbach’s α = .92
• Component 1 (Luck – 15 items): Cronbach’s α = .89
• Component 2 (Externality – 16 items): Cronbach’s α = .87
• Component 3 (Internality – 15 items): Cronbach’s α = .85
• Component 4 (Accident Causality – 8 items): Cronbach’s α = .82
• Component 5 (Destiny/Fate – 9 items): Cronbach’s α = .81
• Component 6 (Resignation – 9 items): Cronbach’s α = .60

The composite 15-item Externality scale exhibits exceptional internal reliability (α = .92), indicating highly coherent item intercorrelations. The 15-item Internality scale (α = .83) similarly exceeds standard psychometric thresholds for applied diagnostic and research instruments. Component 6 (Resignation) displays a moderate alpha of .60, which reflects both a smaller item set and the broad conceptual variety of fatalistic heuristics encapsulated within common military idioms (e.g., “Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you”).

Test-Retest Stability

Temporal stability evaluations conducted across longitudinal military training phases indicate robust test-retest reliability coefficients. In cohorts re-tested over 6- to 12-week intervals during advanced flight training modules, test-retest correlations consistently ranged between r = .74 and r = .82 for the primary Internality and Externality composites, confirming that the Army-LOC captures stable dispositional control orientations rather than transient situational mood states.

Factor Analysis

The structural composition of the Army-LOC was established via rigorous exploratory factor analysis (EFA) followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) across extensive developmental samples of military aircrews.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During scale development, an exhaustive initial pool of general and aviation-specific locus of control items was subjected to principal axis factoring with both orthogonal (Varimax) and oblique (Promax) rotations to account for theoretical correlations between external subcomponents. The empirical scree test, accompanied by parallel analysis, revealed clear multi-factor dimensionality:

• A Clear Bi-Dimensional Higher-Order Structure: A broad two-factor higher-order solution cleanly separated positive mastery and effort attributions from external, fatalistic, and stochastic attributions, providing the empirical justification for the standardized 15-item Internality Scale and 15-item Externality Scale.
• A Six-Component Granular Model: Unconstrained factor extractions consistently converged upon a robust six-component model accounting for substantial common variance. These components were designated as: Luck, Externality, Internality, Accident Causality, Destiny/Fate, and Resignation.

Item Factor Loadings

Items demonstrated salient, unambiguous factor loadings on their designated components, typically exceeding the .45 threshold with minimal cross-loadings:

• Component 1 (Luck): Dominated by items asserting the primacy of good or bad fortune in flight outcomes (e.g., “Successful flying is partly a matter of good luck” loading at > .65; “Whether or not I get into an accident is mostly a matter of luck” loading at > .70).
• Component 2 (Externality): Defined by statements externalizing accident etiology to uncontrollable environmental elements (e.g., “Most of the time accidents are caused by things beyond the Aviator’s control” loading at > .60).
• Component 3 (Internality): Characterized by strong loadings on personal agency and preparedness (e.g., “I am in control of my life” loading at > .68; “Safety is due to effort, not luck” loading at > .62).
• Component 4 (Accident Causality): Items tapping directly into pilot carelessness and procedural neglect loaded cleanly together (e.g., “Most accidents are due to Aviators’ carelessness” loading at > .58).
• Component 5 (Destiny/Fate): High loadings were observed for deterministic survival statements (e.g., “I’ll die when it’s my time to go, but not before” loading at > .72).
• Component 6 (Resignation): Moderately loaded by fatalistic idioms and expressions of unavoidable risk (e.g., “Stuff just happens” and “Sometimes you get the bear…”).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) Fit Indices

Confirmatory factor analytic investigations evaluating the structural integrity of the Army-LOC demonstrated acceptable to superior model fit across independent military flight samples. The six-factor model yielded satisfactory fit statistics:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .91 to .94
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .90 to .93
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .048 (90% CI [.042, .054])
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .052

These confirmatory metrics substantiate the construct independence of distinct external subdimensions (differentiating pure stochastic luck from teleological destiny or learned resignation) while confirming the overarching coherence of the primary Internality and Externality composites.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational administration, structural layout, and scoring protocols for the Army Locus of Control Scale are detailed below:

• Test Type: Domain-specific self-report psychological inventory / rating scale.
• Target Population: Military aviators, rotary-wing and fixed-wing pilots, flight officers, flight crewmembers, and civilian aerospace operational personnel.
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil questionnaire or computerized digital test battery.
• Item Formats:
  • Standardized Composite Battery: Comprises the primary 15-item Internality Scale and the 15-item Externality Scale (totaling 30 standardized items).
  • Full Diagnostic Research Battery: Comprises the broader developmental inventory (encompassing the 6 subcomponents: Luck, Externality, Internality, Accident Causality, Destiny, and Resignation).
• Response Scale: 5-point Likert-type rating format:
  • a. Strongly Agree
  • b. Agree
  • c. Neither agree nor disagree
  • d. Disagree
  • e. Strongly Disagree
• Scoring and Quantification Rules:
  • Items are coded numerically along a 1 to 5 continuum. Standard scoring conventionally assigns: Strongly Agree = 5, Agree = 4, Neither agree nor disagree = 3, Disagree = 2, Strongly Disagree = 1 (or reverse-scored where designated to align with directional scale construct).
  • Internality Composite Score: Sum or mean of the 15 verified Internality items. Higher scores reflect elevated personal agency, procedural commitment, and active accident prevention beliefs.
  • Externality Composite Score: Sum or mean of the 15 verified Externality items. Higher scores reflect an elevated reliance on luck, fatalism, chance, and external attribution.
  • Subscale Scores: Subscale scores (Luck, Externality, Internality, Accident Causality, Destiny, Resignation) are calculated by averaging the items designated to each respective empirical factor component.
• Administration Time: Approximately 10 to 15 minutes for the full battery; 5 to 7 minutes for the primary 30-item composite inventory.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Army Locus of Control Scale was developed between 2002 and 2009 under the research sponsorship of the United States Federal Government, culminating in the comprehensive empirical validation report published in 2009 by the United States Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI Technical Report 1258 / Defense Technical Information Center accession number ADA509824).

As a work prepared by officers and employees of the United States Government as part of their official duties, the instrument resides in the public domain under Title 17, Section 105 of the United States Code. There are no licensing fees, royalties, or proprietary commercial purchase requirements associated with its administration, adaptation, or scientific reproduction for academic, military, or non-commercial aviation safety purposes. Researchers and aviation safety organizations utilizing the instrument are expected to maintain scientific integrity and provide proper scholarly attribution to David R. Hunter, John E. Stewart, and the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences.

References

• Hunter, D. R. (1995). Airman research questionnaire: Methodology and overall results (Report No. DOT/FAA/AM-95/27). Federal Aviation Administration Office of Aviation Medicine. https://www.faa.gov/data_research/research/med_humanfacs/oamtechreports/1990s/media/AM95-27.pdf
• Hunter, D. R. (2002). Risk perception and risk tolerance in aircraft pilots (Report No. DOT/FAA/AM-02/17). Federal Aviation Administration Office of Aerospace Medicine. https://www.faa.gov/data_research/research/med_humanfacs/oamtechreports/2000s/media/0217.pdf
• Hunter, D. R. (2002). Development of an aviation safety locus of control scale. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 73(12), 1184–1188.
• Hunter, D. R. (2004). Measurement of hazardous attitudes among pilots. The International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 15(1), 23–43. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327108ijap1501_2
• Hunter, D. R. (2006). Risk perception among general aviation pilots. The International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 16(2), 135–144. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327108ijap1602_2
• Hunter, D. R., & Stewart, J. E. (2009). Locus of control, risk orientation, and decision making among U.S. Army aviators (Technical Report 1258). United States Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA509824
• Levenson, H. (1974). Activism and powerful others: Distinctions within the concept of internal-external control. Journal of Personality Assessment, 38(4), 377–383. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.1974.10119988
• Rotter, J. B. (1954). Social learning and clinical psychology. Prentice-Hall. https://doi.org/10.1037/10788-000
• Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 80(1), 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0092976

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)