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Notes -
How positive can we be about the correlation/causation here? For reasons described elsewhere in this thread, people who succeed attribute it to their own agency, while people who fail blame circumstances. The
cross-sectionalcohort studies I see with a quick search don't impress me with their rigor in dismissing that explanation of LoC/outcome correlations. They seem to assume that if a 4th grader has internal LoC and experiences better outcomes later, then internal LoC was the cause; as opposed to that 4th grader having developed an internal LoC by age 10 due to having more friends, a likeable personality, having demonstrated demonstrated competency in the past, etc. The studies might include a line about controlling for IQ, but that's about it.I dislike psychology as a field and this always sounded like one of those "just so" stories, to my biased ears.
EDIT: Scott wrote a lot about a related topic, the growth mindset, and my views against it are probably more eloquently argued by him.
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