Adaptation and Validation of the Perceived Control in Unemployment Scale

Perceived control plays an important role in the understanding of people's experiences with unemployment and reemployment. Yet, no scale has been designed specifically to measure people's perceived control in an unemployment situation. In the current study, using two independent samples with 1,009 and 831 unemployed people in France and Luxembourg, respectively, we created and tested a three-dimensional Perceived Control in Unemployment Scale that was based on Levenson's (1973, 1981) theory. An exploratory factor analysis (Study 1) and a confirmatory factor analysis (Study 2) showed that the data were consistent with the theoretically postulated three-factor model. In addition, we established convergent and discriminant validity with several adaptive and non-adaptive dimensions in two independent samples of 141 unemployed people and 384 recently unemployed people in Luxembourg (Studies 3 and 4, respectively). Perceived control did not change over a period of 6 months of unemployment, yet the three types of perceived control measured at the beginning of unemployment predicted employment status 6 months later. Unemployed people with perceptions of internal control or control from powerful others found jobs more quickly, whereas the perception that chance was the controlling factor predicted longer unemployment.