On measurement instruments for fatalism

In this chapter, fatalism is conceptualized as a set of health beliefs that encompass the dimensions of predetermination, luck, and pessimism. It is argued that such fatalistic beliefs can be extended from health issues to organizational context as well. A recently developed fatalism scale is assessed, as well as other existing instruments using three criteria: (a) item content, (b) associations among the items, and (c) associations between the items and external variables. Available empirical evidence shows that the new scale is uni-dimensional, and demonstrates good construct validity as well as scale reliability. Implications for procrastination are discussed.