Over the past two decades theorists and researchers have given increasing attention to the effects, both beneficial and harmful, of various control related motivations and beliefs. People's notions of how much personal control they have or desire to have over important events in their lives have been used to explain a host of performance and adaptational outcomes, including motivational and performance deficits associated with learned helplessness (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978) and depression (Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989), adaptation to aging (Baltes & Baltes, 1986; Rodin,...