This article discusses relevant concepts of life course perspective which are not very much diffused in Brazil: primary and secondary control. The former refers to efforts to change the environment so that it fits individual's needs. The latter involves efforts to fit in with the environment. The original definitions are presented as a two-process model of control in contrast to one-process models such as learned helplessness. Furthermore, it discusses a conceptual revision, which modified and expanded these constructs as a bi-dimensional model that relates primary and secondary control to the concepts of selection and compensation. In process of arguing about those, suggestions are presented for thinking and expanding the theoretical and conceptual discussion of these constructs.
Personal control; sense of control; life-course; self-regulation; primary and secondary control