Adolescents' perceived control : domain specificity, expectations, and appraisal

Perceived control is conceptualized as the agentic representation that persons construct for themselves. Two questions were addressed. First, to what extent is perceived control specific to particular domains? Second, how many dimensions are involved in perceived control, and if there is more than one, are two of these components of perceived control expectation and appraisal? These questions were investigated with the data from the Berne Adolescence Longitudinal Study. 3425 adolescents aged between 14 and 20 years completed questionnaires either once or three times either in 1986, 1988, or 1990. The nine situations representing the adolescents' life context showed two major domains, the personal-social domain, and the societal domain. Confirmatory factor analyses (LISREL) revealed a two-factor structure of perceived control: an expectancy component and an appraisal component. This pattern was replicated over time, with both cross-sectional and longitudinal samples.