Both the control that people attribute to themselves over a situation (locus of control) and the control they attribute to themselves (self-control) have been proposed as aspects that can have an effect on internalizing problems in young people. There is little evidence of this relationship in the infantile-juvenile population in Latin America.
To establish whether there is a significant predictive relationship of locus of control and self-control over internalizing and externalizing problems in the infantile-juvenile population, both at a general level and dimension-specific. These include depression, anxiety, social anxiety, somatic complaints, and post-traumatic stress.
A cross-sectional-correlational study was carried out to establish if there was a possible predictive relationship in 3,664 schoolchildren of both primary (4th–6th grade) and secondary (7th–12th grade) in northern Chile, using the short version of the Nowicki-Strickland scale to measure locus of control, the Tangney scale to measure self-control, and the Child and Adolescent Evaluation System (SENA) to measure the dimensions of internalized problems.
(1) Greater self-control is associated with lower levels of internalizing and externalizing problems. (2) Higher external locus of control is associated with higher levels of internalizing and externalizing problems. (3) Self-control, locus of control, and gender can together significantly predict each of the internalizing and externalizing problems.