Understanding Perceived Control From Psychology

The need of control which come from the human's demand of foreseeable environment may be one of the most basic need of human, and it is essential for individual's existence to obtain and keep control. Opposite to objective control( i.e. control that individual actually own) ,the subjective control is named perceived control, which is the perception and belief about one's ability to effect desired outcome and avoid undesired outcome in his or her life, and about the effect is determined by themselves rather than some factors from outside , such as destiny, powerful others, and so on. People may experience a loss of control when his or her freedom is threatened by exterior powers, or he or she is troubled by some bad results from a new situation. When a loss of control appear, one's possible response may include :looking for information, the worse reaction to the situation, counteractive behavior and despair/ helplessness. Since a perceived control may be so important in such times, it is very necessary for people to obtain it again. In general, people can decrease the negative effect from loss of control and change the level of his or her perceived control by use control intervention strategies, include primary control and second control. Primary control refers to individual's efforts are aimed at the questions and solve it by finding out coping strategies or situation reconstruction. Secondary control relates to changing the self in order to accommodate to the environment when person is not able to control the entironment by individual's efforts. Secondary control is a confederate of primary control, which serves to preserve the motivational resources for primary control striving. Factors, such as age, gender, health state, education level, income level and culture, are all related with perceived control. These factors interlace and affect individual's perceived control together. Over the past few decades, the pattern of these research findings suggests that the holding of perceived control result in positive reactions, whereas the perception of a loss of control result in negative reactions. In general, the perceived control would affect the mode of individual thinking, offer the foundation for individual to experience optimism and hope, decrease the experiences of suppress, pressure and depression, and affect individual's behavior directly or individually. When perceived control act to individual's cognition, emotion and behavior, the action mode can be direct, indirect and act together. The path model include: The main effects model argues that individuals with a strong sense of control will, even in the absence of stressors, maintain a higher level of well-being. The moderator or stress-buffering model argues that control can dampen or mitigate the effects of potential stressors, but only if a stressor is present. A third model treats control as mediator between a predictor variable and a health-related outcome. There are some related realm with perceived control in current research : Perceived control and health. Perceived control can affect individual's health state, both physical and mental, directly or individually. It may be the most important variable relates to mental health and well-being, and the perception of a loss of control has concerned a an extensive obstacle scope. Thereby, perceived control can be thought of an important subject of medical psychology. But it seems not absolutely the more perceived control the better for people. Perceived control and aging. For its special property, research on old people has received a great deal of attention. A strong perceived control is essential for the maintenance of health and well-being in late life. In general, the old people is expected that his or her level of perceived control is lower than young man. Researchers try to improving the old individual's adaptation and health of physical and...