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Psychosomatic Medicine, Vol 44, Issue 1 93-108, Copyright © 1982 by American Psychosomatic Society

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Attribution of control, essays, and early medical school experience

R Gardner Jr

The research examines the workings of two mediating variables, attribution of control and social support, in a nonlinear model of stress research. Measuring in stressfully stimulating experience of being a first-year medical student, we found that a short instrument assessing locus of control in recent experience displayed stability and sensitivity to change in measuring two independent dimensions: internal and external loci of control. An independent variable, writing weekly essays for a faculty member who read them, commented on them supportively, and quickly returned them, interacted with time in producing changes in the student's attribution of control. The supported (essay) group became less internal and more external while demonstrating a lesser correlation with reported stress; and the nonwriting students augmented their perceptions of internal control but reported more correlated stress and less correlated reward. Miller's minimax theory of controllability derived from the experimental literature provided an explanation of these findings.




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Copyright © 1982 by the American Psychosomatic Society