Development and Validation of Fear of Victimization Scale among Minorities of Pakistan

Abstract

The current study's aims to create and validate the Fear of Victimization among Minorities (FVAM) Scale within Pakistan's sociocultural framework. The fear of victimization adversely affects the mental health, social functionality, and overall well-being of  religious minorities in Pakistan. The lack of culturally sensitive measures has led to the development of reliable and valid tool to measure the lived experience of religious minority. This required the generation of items, expert opinion, and validation using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses as part of a scale building process. The final version of the scale with twenty-one items included four factors: Perceived Discrimination and Social Inequality, Perceived Insecurity and Threat Perception, Perceived Vulnerability and Social Isolation, and Perceived Identity-based Insecurity.  Good internal consistency (Cronbach's α =.87), and split-half reliability (Spearman-Brown and Guttman coefficients =.84) all supported the scale's psychometric soundness. Another quality was test-retest reliability(r =.84, n =50). Convergent and discriminant validity were established with the aid of the Perceived Stress Scale and the Psychological Wellbeing Scale. Scale validity was demonstrated by the results, which showed a significant positive association between FVAM and PSS (r =.95, p <.001) and a strong negative connection with PWB (r = −.97, p <.001). The FVAM scale proves to be a reliable-valid and culturally sensitive tool that contributes to assessing fear of victimization of religious minorities and has its implications on research, policy and psychological interventions.