Lay beliefs about fatalism: Development of a General Fatalism Scale (GFAT)

The growing body of research on the role of fatalism on the psychology of various health-related behaviors has witnessed various conceptualization and assessment efforts. The importance of the topic for its implications for behavioral change necessitates the need for better conceptualization and measurement of fatalism. The present study aimed to develop a reliable and valid self-report measure in Turkish for assessing lay beliefs about general fatalism (GFAT) in a predominantly Muslim and collectivistic culture. To this end, a scale development study was conducted 361 adult participants (Mage = 32.49, SDage = 12.97) recruited via snowball sampling in social media platforms. The exploratory factor analyses conducted on the 62 GFAT items revealed a seven-factor structure with 58 items, explaining 59.89% of the total variance. The obtained multi-dimensional factor structure was represented with destiny, functionality, helplessness, uncontrollability, valuation, luck, and submission subscales. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of the GFAT subscales ranged between .74 and .95, demonstrating the internal consistency of the scale. The meaningful and significant correlations of the subscales with external control orientation, just world belief, and religiosity measures evidenced the construct validity of the scale. Overall, findings demonstrate that the GFAT Scale is a reliable and valid self-report measure for assessing individual differences in lay beliefs about fatalism. The developed scale can be used to measure the multifaceted construct of fatalism in future studies aimed at understanding its influence on the psychology of behavioral change, with implications for increasing the functioning of individuals and communities with respect to social and practical problems