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

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Abstract

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.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Andrew Luttrell and one anonymous reviewer for their comments on earlier drafts of the paper. This research was supported by Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness—Government of Spain (PSI2012-37808) and Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (C03070610).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Psychology, Facultad de Medicina de Ciudad Real, Universidad de Castilla la Mancha, Camino de Moledores S/N, 13071, Ciudad Real, Spain

    Darío Díaz & Miriam Bajo

  2. Department of Social Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Amalio Blanco

  3. Department of Psychology, Universidad a Distancia de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Maria Stavraki

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  1. Darío Díaz
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  2. Amalio Blanco
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  3. Miriam Bajo
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  4. Maria Stavraki
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Correspondence to Darío Díaz.

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Díaz, D., Blanco, A., Bajo, M. et al. Fatalism and Well-Being Across Hispanic Cultures: The Social Fatalism Scales (SFS). Soc Indic Res 124, 929–945 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0825-1

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