Development Of A Measure Of Attitudes Toward Terrorism: A Factor Analysis Study

Abstract

The current study investigated people's attitudes toward terrorism and developed a scale to measure Attitudes Toward Terrorism (ATT) .The scale is based on different factors that framed in eight factors. Data of the study were collected from 158 participants from different nationalities. Factor analysis was used to determine the number of factors. Four factors were found by using exploratory factor analysis: “fear of terrorism," " personal causations to terrorism," " societal influences of terrorism," and "Perspectives of Terrorism." The scale and each subscale showed sufficient score of reliability and high validity. There was no significant difference between the U.S. and the international groups in the attitudes toward terrorism. The study suggests that terrorism is the consequence of many complicated sources.