Spheres of Control Inventory

The Spheres of Control inventory, or SOC-3, measures the degree to which people perceive control over three spheres of life – personal achievement, interpersonal relations and social & political institutions.

Someone might be high in personal control but low in interpersonal and socio-political control, for example.  Any other combination is possible, although Personal Control is usually higher than Interpersonal Control, which is usually higher than Socio-Political Control.

The self-administered questionnaire has been formulated by Delroy L. Paulhus.  It is in the Public Domain, available without permission, free to download and use as needed: SOC-3 Questionnaire by Delroy L. Paulhus

The Wikipedia entry for Delroy L. Paulhus notes he is a personality psychology researcher and professor. He received his doctorate from Columbia University and has worked at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, Davis. Currently, Paulhus is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses.

Research
Since graduating, he has published 130 books, chapters and research articles on a variety of domains such as response styles, self-enhancement, dark personalities, intelligence, social cognition, acculturation, person perception, culture, perceived control, interpersonal capabilities and flexibility, educational measurement, psychological defense, birth order, interpersonal circumplex, altruism, and free will. Novel contributions include the dark triad, everyday sadism, the over-claiming technique, a taxonomy of social desirability scales, spheres of control, and exemplars of intelligence