The developmental analysis of control beliefs serves at least three purposes – a theoretical one and two practical ones: (1) Understanding how control beliefs develop may provide insight into how they function. This is the so-called genetic approach (Baldwin, 1894; Lawler, 1978; Leont'ev, 1959; Piaget, 1947). (2) Knowledge of the developmental level at which a person is functioning fosters understanding of otherwise strange behavior. (3) Knowledge about normative developmental paths provides guidelines for the promotion of further development.

This chapter is about control beliefs and thus only indirectly about control. I distinguish among controlling (i.e., the actual regulation of a process), control (i.e., the potential to control or to regulate a process if necessary), and control belief (i.e., the subjective representation of one's capabilities to exercise control; Flammer, 1990). The focus of this contribution is on control beliefs as a mental or cognitive construct. Control beliefs are important for at least two reasons: (1) They are prerequisites for the planning, initiation, and regulation of goal-orientated actions and (2) they are part of the self-concept, where they determine to a large extent feelings of self-esteem, causing such emotional states as pride, shame, and depression. Control and control beliefs are mostly domain-specific; nevertheless there is some generality as shown in cross-domain correlations of individual differences in control beliefs.

Control beliefs are conceptualized as a composite of contingency beliefs and competence beliefs. Contingency beliefs are beliefs about the probability with which a certain action will lead to a certain outcome; competence beliefs refer to the ability to produce these actions oneself.