Children’s Desire for Control

Abstract

The Children’s Desire for Control scale is a specialized psychological scale designed to quantify the extent to which children and youth exhibit a need for personal autonomy and self-determination. Specifically, the instrument measures two distinct, yet related, psychological constructs: the inherent desire for control and the subsequent endorsement of potentially aggressive strategies used to achieve or maintain that control in social and familial settings. Developed by Guerra, Crawshaw, and Huesmann, this 16-item measure utilizes a Likert-type response format to generate a Total Desire for Control score, providing insight into motivational factors underlying behavior in youth.

Keywords

Children’s Desire for Control, Desire for control, Aggressive strategies, Youth violence, Self-determination, Psychological assessment, Psychometrics, Social behavior.

Authors

Guerra NG, Crawshaw VB, Huesmann LR.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Children’s Desire for Control (CDC) scale is to systematically assess an individual child’s preference for independent decision-making and leadership roles versus a preference for being directed or following orders from peers or adults. This measure is crucial in research contexts focused on developmental psychology and behavioral studies, particularly those examining the etiology of antisocial behavior and aggression.

By quantifying the intensity of the desire for control, researchers can better understand how this motivational factor interacts with environmental variables and cognitive processes (such as social information processing) to predict externalizing behaviors or adjustment difficulties in children.

Construct

The scale measures the psychological construct of perceived desire for control (DC). This construct encompasses the internal motivation to influence one’s environment and outcomes, often manifesting as a preference for leadership, autonomy, and resistance to external authority. Furthermore, the scale uniquely captures the endorsement of strategies—which may include aggressive strategies—as means of obtaining or maintaining control.

The resulting Total Desire for Control scale score reflects the combined intensity of this internal drive and the willingness to employ direct, sometimes confrontational, methods to satisfy that desire. High scores indicate increased desire for self-control and autonomy, while low scores suggest a willingness to be controlled by others.

Validity

Since the Children’s Desire for Control scale was cited as an unpublished instrument, detailed psychometric data regarding its validity (e.g., construct, concurrent, or predictive validity) are not provided within the available source material. However, its inclusion in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) compendium, Measuring Violence-Related Attitudes, Behaviors, and Influences Among Youths, suggests that the measure was deemed relevant and useful for assessing factors related to youth aggression and violence prevention research at the time of publication.

Researchers utilizing this measure typically rely on its clear face validity, as the items directly address preferences for leadership and resistance to instruction. Further research would be required to establish comprehensive empirical validity evidence, particularly concerning its ability to predict future aggressive behaviors independently of other factors.

Reliability

Specific internal consistency estimates (such as Cronbach’s alpha) or test-retest reliability coefficients for the CDC scale were not included in the provided documentation, likely due to its status as an unpublished research instrument. Reliability data would typically be derived from the original study by Guerra, Crawshaw, and Huesmann (1993) to confirm the measure’s stability and consistency across samples and time points. Users of the scale should seek out subsequent published research that has employed the CDC scale to find available reliability coefficients.

Factor Analysis

Information regarding the specific factor structure of the Children’s Desire for Control scale is not available in the source content. While the scale is described as producing a single “Total Desire for Control scale,” a formal factor analysis (e.g., Exploratory or Confirmatory Factor Analysis) would determine whether the 16 items load onto a single factor (unidimensional) or if they separate into distinct sub-factors, such as “Desire for Autonomy” versus “Endorsement of Aggressive Control Tactics.” Given the dual nature of the construct mentioned in the description, a multi-factor solution might be theoretically expected.

Instrument

Test Type: Attitudinal Self-Report Psychological scale

Format: 16 items responded to on a 4-point Likert scale.

Language Available: English (implied by item content).

Population Group: Children and Youth.

Age Group: Typically used with school-age children (late childhood/early adolescence), consistent with violence prevention research focusing on youth.

Population Details: The original research focused on urban children.

Test Methodology: Respondents rate the extent to which each statement is true for them using the following response categories:

• Not at all true = 1
• Not very true = 2
• Sort of true = 3
• Very true = 4

Scoring produces a Total Desire for Control scale score by averaging the responses to the 16 items. Items signifying a desire to be controlled by others are reverse scored (4, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, and 16). The final average score ranges from 1 to 4, where a maximum score of 4 indicates increased desire for self-control and a minimum score of 1 indicates decreased desire for self-control.

Keywords

Control motivation, Autonomy in children, Behavioral measure, Reverse scoring, Social dominance, Youth research, Aggression, Developmental psychology.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: N/A (Not provided in source)

Affiliation Email addresses: N/A (Not provided in source)

Correspondence Address: N/A (Original work was an unpublished manuscript from the University of Illinois)

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 1993 (Year of unpublished manuscript).

Permissions & Fee: The measure was included in a publicly available government compendium of assessment tools for research purposes. Users should cite the original authors (Guerra, Crawshaw, & Huesmann) and the compendium source. No specific fee information is provided, suggesting it is likely available for non-commercial research use.

The instrument is documented in the publication Measuring Violence-Related Attitudes, Behaviors, and Influences Among Youths: A Compendium of Assessment Tools (pages 138-139). The original PDF can be downloaded here: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/YV_Compendium.pdf.

Reference’s

Guerra NG, Crawshaw VB, Huesmann LR. Sense of control and aggression in urban children. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois, 1993. (Unpublished).

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Measuring Violence-Related Attitudes, Behaviors, and Influences Among Youths: A Compendium of Assessment Tools. Atlanta, GA: CDC, 1999. Available online: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/YV_Compendium.pdf.

Items of the Children`s Desire for Control

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

1. I’d rather give orders than receive orders.
2. When it comes to watching TV‚ I want to choose the shows I watch.
3. It’s important to me that I can have my friends over whenever I want.
4. I like to be the boss when I am with my friends.
5. If people at home would listen to me more‚ things would be better.
6. I like it when my parents let me decide what to do.
7. My parents should decide what I get to eat for snacks.
8. My parents should check my homework to make sure it’s done.
9. I like it when my parents tell me what clothes to wear.
10. I like it when the gym teacher picks the teams for the games.
11. It’s okay when other people boss me around.
12. I like it when other kids tell me what to do.
13. I’d rather be a follower than a leader.
14. My friends usually know what’s best for me.
15. I’d rather do my own homework and make mistakes than listen to someone else’s ideas.
16. I try to avoid situations where someone else tells me what to do.