This book is a cumulation of a research program that began in the sum-
mer of 1978, when I was a doctoral student at the University of
Missouri. What started as a graduate student' s curiosity about
individual differ- ences in need for personal control led to a
personality scale, a few pub- lications, some additional questions, and
additional research. For reasons I no longer recall, I named this
personality trait desire for control. One study led to another, and
questions by students and colleagues often spurred me to apply desire
for control to new areas and new questions. At the same time,
researchers around the globe began using the scale and sending me
reprints of articles and copies of papers describing work they had done
on desire for contro!. In the past decade or so, I have talked or
corresponded with dozens of students who have used the scale in their
doctoral dissertation and master's thesis research. I have heard of or
seen translations of the Desirability of Control Scale into German,
Polish, Japanese, and French. There is also a children's version of the
scale. I estirnate that there have now been more than a hundred studies
conducted on desire for contro!.