Spirituality and Locus of Control—A Rapid Literature Review

摘要

Locus of control is an important psychological construct that identifies the extent to which people believe that internal or external forces influence their lives. Within the field of spirituality, there is a developing interest in locus of control as it may apply to people's understanding of their illness. This paper aims to provide a review of locus of control research in the field of spirituality. We performed an extensive literature search to find papers with titles and/or abstracts that included the key terms spiritual and/or spirituality and locus of control. Only papers in English and those spanning the 10-year period, 2006-2016, were included. This paper highlights current gaps in knowledge, understanding, and reporting of spirituality locus of control research. Locus of control has been measured in populations in relation to belief in God or spiritual health beliefs; there is no research that explores specific spiritual locus of control. Moreover, the emerging body of work focusing on spiritual health beliefs relies heavily on religious and Christian language rather than encompassing broader understandings of spirituality. Few studies provide working definitions of spirituality, and there is little differentiation in some between understandings of spirituality and religion.