IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT AND TESTING FOR CONTROL LOCUS IN AN ALCOHOLIC SAMPLE

In response to a debate as to whether alcoholics as a group score in an internal or an external direction on Rotter''s I-E [internal-external locus of control] Scale, a projective, TAT [Thematic Apperception Test] measure of locus of control was proposed. A multivariate storytelling measure was used to test the hypothesis that alcoholics may resort to impression management when responding to questionnaires and that a projective device may yield different results regarding personality variables like locus of control. An internal score on the I-E was observed for 30 alcoholic subjects to shift to an external score on the Thematic Locus of Control (TLC). Spearman''s rho for I-E and TLC was 0.47 (P < 0.001). Six subjects had markedly incongruent ranks across instruments; 3 of these were extreme I-E internals who shifted to extreme TLC externals.