Fatalism and Well-Being Across Hispanic Cultures: The Social Fatalism Scales (SFS)

Fatalism has been a core construct in the study of psychological and social processes related to well-being and life quality in social sciences. The objective of the present research is to develop a new instrument, the Social Fatalism Scales (SFS), which allows us to study the influence of individualist and collectivist fatalism on well-being across Hispanic cultures. The parallel and exploratory factor analyses suggest a multidimensional structure composed by four factors (Study 1). Confirmatory factor analysis showed that this four-factor structure is adjusted perfectly to the data (Study 2). All the SFS presented an adequate reliability in the two examined samples. As expected, fatalism in an individualist culture (Spanish sample) negatively correlated with subjective well-being and social well-being indicators. However, in a collectivist sample (Colombian), fatalism was negatively related to social and psychological well-being but positively to subjective well-being. In collectivist cultures, social fatalism is manifested as a useful strategy to adapt to certain aspects of life.