The Development and Validation of a Measure of Fear of Charm Within the Nigerian Population

The fear of charm is a commonplace in the sociopolitical and economic life of many Nigerians. Notably, researchers are yet to develop a measure that will assess fear of charm in Nigeria and within the African population in general. In this regard, this paper reports the development of the Fear of Charm Scale (FCS) among Nigerian adults and demonstrates its reliability and validity evidences. The development of the FCS entails item generation, content validity, determining its underlying factor structure, internal consistency and construct validity. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses indicated three-factor structures for the FCS. The scale demonstrated good psychometric properties in terms of adequate reliability, convergence and discriminant validity. By using the FCS, social science researchers can now reliably and validly measure the construct of fear of charm and assess its influence on other psychological variables such as self-efficacy, psychotic symptoms, work performance, psychological well-being etc.