Fear Survey Schedule: factor structure, gender differences and age differences

Manojlović, Natalija . (2010). Fear Survey Schedule: factor structure, gender differences and age differences. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Psychology. [mentor Lauri Korajlija, Anita].

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the factor structure of the Croatian version of Fear Survey Schedule - III (FSS-III; Wolpe & Lang, 1969) and to investigate gender and age differences in subjects’ results on this instrument. 1168 participants were tested, including 600 university students from Zagreb and Karlovac and 568 members of general adult population. Principal components analysis revealed hierarchical structure, with five lower-order factors and one higher-order factor. The contents of Croatian lower-order factors have shown a close correspondence to the five-factor model sugested by Arrindell (2003). The model comprises Harmless animals fears, Social fears, Fears of bodily injury–illness–death, Agoraphobic fears, Fears of sexual and aggressive scenes. The first factor in Croatian analysis includes both groups of items - harmless animals fears and fears of aggressive scenes. Internal consistency reliability was satisfying for the whole FSS such as for each of five factors. A two-way analysis of variance performed on the overall result showed significant main effects for gender and age. Women showed higher results in total FSS score, souch as in all five subscales. Age differences showed total result to be increased after age of 41, same as for the harmless animals and aggressive scenes fears, agoraphobic fears and fears of sexual scenes.

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