chasmodai

We all know that our behavior has consequences. If you don't get out of bed in the morning, you don't make it to work. If you don't make it to work, you lose your job. If you lose your job, you could end up homeless.

Be rude to your friends, and you'll have no friends. Drink alcohol and drive a car, and you could go to jail.

The consequences that people experience can vary depending on things like privilege and circumstance. For example, for years, there was little to no consequence to behaviors like sexual harassment and rape, but thankfully that's changing.

But what if you had so much privilege and wealth that there was virtually no consequence for anything you do? What if you could just settle lawsuits out of court, hire the best attorneys, and pretty much do whatever you please?

In psychology, locus of control refers to the idea that some people have a strong external locus of control, meaning a belief that one's behavior and experiences are determined by luck, circumstances, people, and other external factors. Internal locus of control means that they attribute their success to their own effort.

The problem with this idea is that no one has complete control over their circumstances, so two people can work equally hard and have completely different outcomes. No one's outcomes are completely determined by external or internal factors. A person with a naturally high IQ will typically do better in school than a person with a lower IQ, if they both put in the same amount of effort.

When I use the term " internal VS external structure," I am thinking about this in terms of behavioral control as it differs from locus of control in the field of psychology. I'm referring to the real consequences and real circumstances that motivate us to modify our own behavior. A person with very little self discipline and very little self control might need a very controlled environment with a great deal of structure, such as a prison, a group home, or the military. Public schools tend to have a great deal of external structure, because each day is strictly scheduled and each student is expected to be at their assigned place on time, doing exactly what the instructor directs them to do. Places like prisons, group homes, public schools, and the military help individuals achieve greater success than they would in an environment with little structure. This is not meant to be a bad thing. Most of us do better with a certain amount of external structure in our lives.

People with little self discipline or self control may not thrive in an environment that isn't heavily structured, unless they have a great deal of privilege and wealth to insulate them from the consequences of their actions. Even then, this can be a tragedy because of the potential loss of potential and damage to the person's character. Being wealthy might help a person find an attractive person to marry, but one can't buy a happy marriage. Being wealthy might help a person fund a presidential campaign, but that won't make a person an effective president.

I think that many of us might benefit from examining how much external structure exists in our lives, versus how much we need, and how we might greater improve our own self determination. Things like having defined personal values that we live by, (walking our talk,) personal goals, credos, etc., can provide us with an internal structure to help us be more successful.