Pacing and Locus of Control in Quality Control Inspection

Subjects performed a simulated quality control inspection task requiring rapid visual scanning of electrical schematics to detect defects. Self-paced subjects could press a button to delay the progression of circuits, while machine-paced subjects, who could not control task timing, served as a yoked-control group. All subjects were given Rotter's (1966) Locus of Control Scale. The personality variable was found to interact with the pacing variable: self-paced internals had a higher criterion than self-paced externals, and thus made fewer false alarms; machine-paced internals had a lower criterion and made more false alarms than machine-paced externals. The results indicate that locus of control may be related to response bias or criterion in a detection task, and that this personality variable may be useful in selecting quality control inspectors.