Locus of Control
Promotion of an internal locus of control is an important aspect of any hard culture and encouragement of an external locus of control is the clearest bellwether of a parasitic culture. Having an internal locus of control yields benefits along almost every conceivable metric, from mental health to physical health, romantic success, and career achievement. Since we discuss the topic ad nauseam in The Pragmatist’s Guide to Life, we shall keep this book’s exploration brief. (If you are looking for reading on this here are a few studies.[[25]](#_ftn25))
A person with an internal locus of control takes total personal responsibility for things that happen to them, be they positive, negative, or even technically not caused by them (in such cases, people focus on what they can do about whatever happened, not that external forces were at play). In contrast, a person with an external locus of control blames their failures on exogenous forces, such as other people, bigotry, sexism, grudges, a crazy ex, etc. while crediting their successes to luck or privilege. In other words, to have an external locus of control involves attributing life’s developments to anything or anyone but oneself.
Of course, in reality, the things that happen to us are products of both our own actions and outside forces over which we lack control. Sometimes, people really do get fired because their bosses are racist. Sometimes we really are successful due to dumb luck. The thing is, we can only control our own actions and reactions—and research on the subject makes it abundantly clear that writing your internal narrative in a way that suggests you don’t control your fate, even if it is true, hurts not just your mental health, but your odds of future success.
Why? When you focus on aspects of outcomes over which you have control, you not only identify actionable things you can do to tip odds of future successes in your favor but also enjoy a feeling of empowerment.
The cultures that whisper in your ear: “It’s not your fault—there is nothing you could have done” are injecting venom into the very core of your soul, calcifying your sense of agency. These groups are not your friends and do not have your best interests at heart. They are the family member who sneaks cake and soda to the diabetic patient in the hospital. They would rather see the part of you that matters, which acts freely on its own, dead than see you personally empowered.
Perhaps no phrase more perfectly embodies an external locus of control than “trigger warning,” in that trigger warnings enable people to maintain control over their internal mental state by shielding it from potentially challenging, offensive, or emotionally difficult information. With over a decade of research on the subject, we now know trigger warnings don’t help. In a 2020 meta-study[[26]](#_ftn26) reviewing 17 other studies on the subject, Payton Jones, Benjamin Bellset, and Richard McNally found that trigger warnings neither alleviate emotional distress nor significantly reduce negative affect or minimize intrusive thoughts, which are hallmarks of PTSD (this holds true even for individuals with a history of trauma). In fact, Jones and his co-authors found that trigger warnings “were not helpful even when they warned about content that closely matched survivors’ traumas” and that they appeared to make things worse for these individuals, leading them to “view trauma as more central to their life narrative.” The paper concluded, “Trigger warnings may be most harmful to the very individuals they were designed to protect.”