4. TEST DEVELOPMENT: RELIGIOUS FEAR

Test Development Plan

A. Topic: Religious fear

B. Objective: to measure religious fear in subjects

C. Variables: a)religiosity and b)fear

D. Fields of item writing (to measure religious fear).(items can be positive, negative or neutral):

1. faith in God;

2. avoidance of bad consequences;

3. natural disaster;

4. accidents;

5. truths about death;

6. believe in luck;

7. group belongingness;

8. conformity towards religious norms;

9. identification with faith;

10. desire to control others;

11. immaturity in religious understanding;

12. fear of uncertainty;

13. inability to take independent decisions;

14. dependency on others;

15. Low Self control;

16. Fear of losing loved ones;

17. Fear of losing relationships;

18. Fear of loneliness;

19. Social restrictions and prerequisites;

20. Respect for different views;

21. Fear of losing resources(economic, social, physical);

22. Inability to face difficult situations or challenges in life;

23. Desire for external help;

24. High expectations\demands from others;

25. Low physical health;

26. Desire to please everyone;

27. Believe in miracles

28. Practically Impossible hopes

E. No of items: 21

1. Positive items: 11

2. Negative items: 10

3. Neutral items: 0

F. Test format: MCQ

G. Timeline

1.Test-construction decision ✅

2.Investigation into concept✅

3.Test-format decision✅

4.Item writing✅

5.Item review by expert✅

6.Data collection using draft test version 1

7.Item analysis of test

8.Creation of draft version 2 using the chosen items

9.Pilot testing of draft version 2

10.Determine validity and reliability of draft version 2

11.Exploratory factor analysis (EFA)

12.Creation of draft version 3 after EFA

13.Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of draft version 3

14.Creation of final test (version 4) after CFA

15.Construction of a manual

H. Expenditure

1. 25/03/2023: ₹100 - printing

I. Contribution

1. Ruchi: response marking

2. Priya: response scoring scheme (2,1,0)

3. Abhishek: data collection

J. DTV1

1. Data collection procedure

- self introduction

- explain purpose of test

- brief on privacy concern

- process of taking test

- solving confusions

- feedback

2. Doubtful items: 1, 2, 5, 18

3. Suggestions:

A) include employment status

B) include personality type: introvert, extrovert, ambivert

# STEPS 🪜:
1. TEST CONSTRUCTION DECISION : 09/11/2022
2. INVESTIGATION INTO CONCEPT: 09/11/2022 - 22/01/2023
3. TEST FORMAT DECISION: 10/11/2022
4. ITEM WRITING: 12/11/2022 - 15/11/2022
5. ITEM REVIEW BY EXPERT: 17/11/2022 - 22/01/2023
6. DATA COLLECTION USING DRAFT TEST VERSION 1: 25/03/2023 -
7. ITEM ANALYSIS OF TEST
8. CREATION OF DRAFT VERSION 2 USING THE CHOSEN ITEMS
9. PILOT TESTING OF DRAFT VERSION 2
10. DETERMINE VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY OF DRAFT VERSION 2
11. EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS (EFA)
12. CREATION OF DRAFT VERSION 3 AFTER EFA
13. CONFIRMATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS (CFA) OF DRAFT VERSION 3
14. CREATION OF FINAL TEST (VERSION 4)
15. CONSTRUCTION OF A MANUAL

1. TEST CONSTRUCTION DECISION
A. The topic of the test would be: "religious fear". The test would be known as the "religious fear test".
B. The objective:
(1) to measure the level of religious fear in the subject
C. the test does not intends to measure or define anti religious tendency

2. INVESTIGATION INTO THE CONCEPT
1. FEAR
Fear is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognizing a danger or threat.
Fear in human beings may occur in response to a certain stimulus occurring in the present, or in anticipation or expectation of a future threat perceived as a risk to oneself. The fear response arises from the perception of danger leading to confrontation with or escape from/avoiding the threat (also known as the fight-or-flight response), which in extreme cases of fear (horror and terror) can be a freeze response or paralysis.
In humans and other animals, fear is modulated by the process of cognition and learning. Thus, fear is judged as rational or appropriate and irrational or inappropriate. An irrational fear is called a phobia.
Fear is closely related to the emotion anxiety, which occurs as the result of threats that are perceived to be uncontrollable or unavoidable.[1] The fear response serves survival by engendering appropriate behavioral responses, so it has been preserved throughout evolution.[2] Sociological and organizational research also suggests that individuals' fears are not solely dependent on their nature but are also shaped by their social relations and culture, which guide their understanding of when and how much fear to feel.

2. PSYCHOLOGICAL SIGNS
Many physiological changes in the body are associated with fear, summarized as the fight-or-flight response. An innate response for coping with danger, it works by accelerating the breathing rate (hyperventilation), heart rate, vasoconstriction of the peripheral blood vessels leading to blood pooling, increasing muscle tension including the muscles attached to each hair follicle to contract and causing "goosebumps", or more clinically, piloerection (making a cold person warmer or a frightened animal look more impressive), sweating, increased blood glucose (hyperglycemia), increased serum calcium, increase in white blood cells called neutrophilic leukocytes, alertness leading to sleep disturbance and "butterflies in the stomach" (dyspepsia). This primitive mechanism may help an organism survive by either running away or fighting the danger.[4] With the series of physiological changes, the consciousness realizes an emotion of fear.

3. CAUSES
An influential categorization of stimuli causing fear was proposed by Gray; namely, intensity, novelty, special evolutionary dangers, stimuli arising during social interaction, and conditioned stimuli. Another categorization was proposed by Archer, who, besides conditioned fear stimuli, categorized fear-evoking (as well as aggression-evoking) stimuli into three groups; namely, pain, novelty, and frustration, although he also described “looming,” which refers to an object rapidly moving towards the visual sensors of a subject, and can be categorized as “intensity.” Russell described a more functional categorization of fear-evoking stimuli, in which for instance novelty is a variable affecting more than one category:
1) Predator stimuli (including movement, suddenness, proximity, but also learned and innate predator stimuli);
2) Physical environmental dangers (including intensity and heights);
3) Stimuli associated with increased risk of predation and other dangers (including novelty, openness, illumination, and being alone);
4) Stimuli stemming from conspecifics (including novelty, movement, and spacing behavior);
5) Species-predictable fear stimuli and experience (special evolutionary dangers); and
6) Fear stimuli that are not species predictable (conditioned fear stimuli).

4. NATURE
Although many fears are learned, the capacity to fear is part of human nature. Many studies have found that certain fears (e.g. animals, heights) are much more common than others (e.g. flowers, clouds). These fears are also easier to induce in the laboratory. This phenomenon is known as preparedness. Because early humans that were quick to fear dangerous situations were more likely to survive and reproduce; preparedness is theorized to be a genetic effect that is the result of natural selection.

5. FEAR CONDITIONING
Animals and humans innovate specific fears as a result of learning. This has been studied in psychology as fear conditioning, beginning with John B. Watson's Little Albert experiment in 1920, which was inspired after observing a child with an irrational fear of dogs. In this study, an 11-month-old boy was conditioned to fear a white rat in the laboratory. The fear became generalized to include other white, furry objects, such as a rabbit, dog, and even a Santa Claus mask with white cotton balls in the beard.

6. COMMON TRIGGERS:
A. Phobias
B. Uncertainty
Many people are scared of the "unknown". The irrational fear can branch out to many areas such as the hereafter, the next ten years or even tomorrow. Chronic irrational fear has deleterious effects since the elicitor stimulus is commonly absent or perceived from delusions. Such fear can create comorbidity with the anxiety disorder umbrella.[20] Being scared may cause people to experience anticipatory fear of what may lie ahead rather than planning and evaluating for the same.

7. BEHAVIOR
Although fear behavior varies from species to species, it is often divided into two main categories; namely, avoidance/flight and immobility.
The decision as to which particular fear behavior to perform is determined by the level of fear as well as the specific context, such as environmental characteristics (escape route present, distance to refuge), the presence of a discrete and localized threat, the distance between threat and subject, threat characteristics (speed, size, directness of approach), the characteristics of the subject under threat (size, physical condition, speed, degree of crypsis, protective morphological structures), social conditions (group size), and the amount of experience with the type of the threat.

8. MECHANISM
Species-specific defense reactions (SSDRs) or avoidance learning in nature is the specific tendency to avoid certain threats or stimuli, it is how animals survive in the wild. Humans and animals both share these species-specific defense reactions, such as the flight-or-fight, which also include pseudo-aggression, fake or intimidating aggression and freeze response to threats, which is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system. These SSDRs are learned very quickly through social interactions between others of the same species, other species, and interaction with the environment.[34] These acquired sets of reactions or responses are not easily forgotten. The animal that survives is the animal that already knows what to fear and how to avoid this threat. An example in humans is the reaction to the sight of a snake, many jump backwards before cognitively realizing what they are jumping away from, and in some cases, it is a stick rather than a snake.
Species-specific defense responses are created out of fear, and are essential for survival.[43] Rats that lack the gene stathmin show no avoidance learning, or a lack of fear, and will often walk directly up to cats and be eaten.[44] Animals use these SSDRs to continue living, to help increase their chance of fitness, by surviving long enough to procreate. Humans and animals alike have created fear to know what should be avoided, and this fear can be learned through association with others in the community, or learned through personal experience with a creature, species, or situations that should be avoided. SSDRs are an evolutionary adaptation that has been seen in many species throughout the world including rats, chimpanzees, prairie dogs, and even humans, an adaptation created to help individual creatures survive in a hostile world.

9.NEUROCIRCUITRY IN MAMMALS
A. The thalamus collects sensory data from the senses
B. Sensory cortex receives data from the thalamus and interprets it
C. Sensory cortex organizes information for dissemination to the hypothalamus (fight or flight), amygdalae (fear), hippocampus (memory)
The brain structures that are the center of most neurobiological events associated with fear are the two amygdalae, located behind the pituitary gland. Each amygdala is part of a circuitry of fear learning.[2] They are essential for proper adaptation to stress and specific modulation of emotional learning memory. In the presence of a threatening stimulus, the amygdalae generate the secretion of hormones that influence fear and aggression. Once a response to the stimulus in the form of fear or aggression commences, the amygdalae may elicit the release of hormones into the body to put the person into a state of alertness, in which they are ready to move, run, fight, etc. This defensive response is generally referred to in physiology as the fight-or-flight response regulated by the hypothalamus, part of the limbic system. Once the person is in safe mode, meaning that there are no longer any potential threats surrounding them, the amygdalae will send this information to the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) where it is stored for similar future situations, which is known as memory consolidation.

10.COGNITIVE-CONSISTENCY THEORY
it has been proposed that fear behavior is caused by an inconsistency between a preferred, or expected, situation and the actually perceived situation, and functions to remove the inconsistent stimulus from the perceptual field, for instance by fleeing or hiding, thereby resolving the inconsistency.

11. MANAGEMENT
A. Pharmaceutical
B. Psychological
C. Literary
There are other methods for treating or coping with one's fear, such as writing down rational thoughts regarding fears. Journal entries are a healthy method of expressing one's fears without compromising safety or causing uncertainty. Another suggestion is a fear ladder. To create a fear ladder, one must write down all of their fears and score them on a scale of one to ten. Next, the person addresses their phobia, starting with the lowest number.
D. Religious
Finding solace in religion is another method to cope with one's fear. Having something to answer your questions regarding your fears, such as, what happens after death or if there is an afterlife, can help mitigate one's fear of death because there is no room for uncertainty as their questions are answered. Religion offers a method of being able to understand and make sense of one's fears rather than ignore them.

12. INCAPABILITY
People who have damage to their amygdalae, which can be caused by a rare genetic disease known as Urbach–Wiethe disease, are unable to experience fear. The disease destroys both amygdalae in late childhood. Since the discovery of the disease, there have only been 400 recorded cases. A lack of fear can allow someone to get into a dangerous situation they otherwise would have avoided.

13. SOCIETY AND CULTURE
Fear of death
The fear of the end of life and its existence is, in other words, the fear of death. Historically, attempts were made to reduce this fear by performing rituals which have helped collect the cultural ideas that we now have in the present.[citation needed] These rituals also helped preserve the cultural ideas. The results and methods of human existence had been changing at the same time that social formation was changing.

When people are faced with their own thoughts of death, they either accept that they are dying or will die because they have lived a full life or they will experience fear. A theory was developed in response to this, which is called the terror management theory. The theory states that a person's cultural worldviews (religion, values, etc.) will mitigate the terror associated with the fear of death through avoidance. To help manage their terror, they find solace in their death-denying beliefs, such as their religion.Another way people cope with their death related fears is pushing any thoughts of death into the future or by avoiding these thoughts all together through distractions. Although there are methods for one coping with the terror associated with their fear of death, not everyone suffers from these same uncertainties. People who believe they have lived life to the "fullest" typically do not fear death.

Death anxiety is multidimensional; it covers "fears related to one's own death, the death of others, fear of the unknown after death, fear of obliteration, and fear of the dying process, which includes fear of a slow death and a painful death".

The Yale philosopher Shelly Kagan examined fear of death in a 2007 Yale open course by examining the following questions: Is fear of death a reasonable appropriate response? What conditions are required and what are appropriate conditions for feeling fear of death? What is meant by fear, and how much fear is appropriate? According to Kagan for fear in general to make sense, three conditions should be met:
A. the object of fear needs to be "something bad"
B. there needs to be a non-negligible chance that the bad state of affairs will happen
C. there needs to be some uncertainty about the bad state of affairs

The amount of fear should be appropriate to the size of "the bad". If the three conditions are not met, fear is an inappropriate emotion. He argues, that death does not meet the first two criteria, even if death is a "deprivation of good things" and even if one believes in a painful afterlife. Because death is certain, it also does not meet the third criterion, but he grants that the unpredictability of when one dies may be cause to a sense of fear.

In a 2003 study of 167 women and 121 men, aged 65–87, low self-efficacy predicted fear of the unknown after death and fear of dying for women and men better than demographics, social support, and physical health. Fear of death was measured by a "Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale" which included the 8 subscales Fear of Dying, Fear of the Dead, Fear of Being Destroyed, Fear for Significant Others, Fear of the Unknown, Fear of Conscious Death, Fear for the Body After Death, and Fear of Premature Death. In hierarchical multiple regression analysis, the most potent predictors of death fears were low "spiritual health efficacy", defined as beliefs relating to one's perceived ability to generate spiritually based faith and innerstrength, and low "instrumental efficacy", defined as beliefs relating to one's perceived ability to manage activities of daily living.

Psychologists have tested the hypotheses that fear of death motivates religious commitment, and that assurances about an afterlife alleviate the fear, with equivocal results. Religiosity can be related to fear of death when the afterlife is portrayed as time of punishment. "Intrinsic religiosity", as opposed to mere "formal religious involvement", has been found to be negatively correlated with death anxiety.[110] In a 1976 study of people of various Christian denominations, those who were most firm in their faith, who attended religious services weekly, were the least afraid of dying. The survey found a negative correlation between fear of death and "religious concern".

In a 2006 study of white, Christian men and women the hypothesis was tested that traditional, church-centered religiousness and de-institutionalized spiritual seeking are ways of approaching fear of death in old age. Both religiousness and spirituality were related to positive psychosocial functioning, but only church-centered religiousness protected subjects against the fear of death.

*Religion and death
From a theological perspective, the word fear encompasses more than simple fear. Robert B. Strimple says that fear includes the "... convergence of awe, reverence, adoration...". Some translations of the Bible, such as the New International Version, sometimes replace the word fear with reverence.
Fear in religion can be seen throughout the years, including in the Crusades. Pope Urban II allowed for Christian mercenary troops to be sent on a mission in order to recover the Holy Lands from the Muslims. The message was misinterpreted and as a result, innocent people were slaughtered. Although the Crusades were meant to stay between the Muslims and the Christians, the hate spread onto the Jewish culture. Jewish people who feared for their lives gave in to the forced conversion of Christianity because they believed this would secure their safety. Other Jewish people feared betraying their God by conceding to a conversion, and instead, secured their own fate, which was death.

*Manipulation
Fear may be politically and culturally manipulated to persuade citizenry of ideas which would otherwise be widely rejected or dissuade citizenry from ideas which would otherwise be widely supported. In contexts of disasters, nation-states manage the fear not only to provide their citizens with an explanation about the event or blaming some minorities, but also to adjust their previous beliefs.
Fear can alter how a person thinks or reacts to situations because fear has the power to inhibit one's rational way of thinking. As a result, people who do not experience fear, are able to use fear as a tool to manipulate others. People who are experiencing fear, seek preservation through safety and can be manipulated by a person who is there to provide that safety that is being sought after. "When we're afraid, a manipulator can talk us out of the truth we see right in front of us. Words become more real than reality" By this, a manipulator is able to use our fear to manipulate us out the truth and instead make us believe and trust in their truth. Politicians are notorious for using fear to manipulate the people into supporting their policies.

*Fiction and mythology
Fear is found and reflected in mythology and folklore as well as in works of fiction such as novels and films.
Works of dystopian and (post)apocalyptic fiction convey the fears and anxieties of societies.
The fear of the world's end is about as old as civilization itself. In a 1967 study, Frank Kermode suggests that the failure of religious prophecies led to a shift in how society apprehends this ancient mode. Scientific and critical thought supplanting religious and mythical thought as well as a public emancipation may be the cause of eschatology becoming replaced by more realistic scenarios. Such might constructively provoke discussion and steps to be taken to prevent depicted catastrophes.

14. THEORIES
A. Thanatophobia
The term thanatophobia stems from the Greek representation of death, known as Thanatos. Sigmund Freud hypothesized that people express a fear of death as a disguise for a deeper source of concern. He asserted the unconscious does not deal with the passage of time or with negations, which do not calculate the amount of time left in one's life. Under the assumption people do not believe in their own deaths, Freud speculated it was not death people feared. He postulated one does not fear death itself, because one has never died. He suspected death related fears stem from unresolved childhood conflicts.

B. Terror management theory
Ernest Becker based terror management theory (TMT) on existential views which added a new dimension to previous death anxiety theories. This theory ascertains that death anxiety is not only real, but also people's most profound source of concern. He explained the anxiety as so intense that it can generate fears and phobias of everyday life—fears of being alone or in a confined space. Based on the theory, many of people's daily behavior consist of attempts to deny death and to keep their anxiety under strict regulation.
This theory suggests that as an individual develops mortality salience, or becomes more aware of the inevitability of death, they will instinctively try to suppress it out of fear. The method of suppression usually leads to mainstreaming towards cultural beliefs, leaning for external support rather than treading alone. This behavior may range from simply thinking about death to the development of severe phobias and desperate behavior.

Religiosity can play a role in death anxiety through the concept of fear. There are two major claims concerning the interplay of fear and religion: that fear motivates religious belief, and that religious belief mitigates fear. From these, Ernest Becker and Bronislaw Malinowski developed what is called "Terror Management Theory." According to Terror Management Theory, humans are aware of their own mortality which, in turn, produces intense existential anxiety. To cope with and ease the produced existential anxiety, humans will pursue either literal or symbolic immortality. Religion often falls under the category of literal immortality, but at times, depending on the religion, can also provide both forms of immortality. Through Terror Management Theory, and other death-focused theories, there is a distinct pattern that develops indicating that those who are either very low or very high in religiosity experience much lower levels of death anxiety, meanwhile those with a very moderate amount of religiosity experience the highest levels of death anxiety. One of the major reasons that religiosity plays such a large role in Terror Management Theory, as well as in similar theories, is the increase in existential deathanxiety that people experience. Existential death anxiety is the belief that everything ceases after death; nothing continues on in any sense. Seeing how people deeply fear such an absolute elimination of the self, they begin to gravitate toward religion which offers an escape from such a fate. According to one specific meta-analysis study that was performed in 2016, it was shown that lower rates of death anxiety and general fear about dying was experienced by those who went day-to-day living their religion and abiding by its practices, compared to those who merely label themselves as a member of a given religion without living in accord to its doctrines and prescribed practices.

A 2009 study on death anxiety in the context of religion showed that Christians scored lower for death anxiety than non-religious individuals, which supports the main tenets of terror management theory, that people pursue religion to avoid anxiety about death by finding comfort in the ideas about afterlife and immortality. Interestingly, the study also found that Muslims scored much higher than Christians and non-religious individuals for death anxiety. These findings do not support terror management theory, the belief in an afterlife for muslims in the study caused more anxiety than those with no belief in an afterlife. This finding highlights a need for further examination into TMT in the context of different religions/sects as well as the impact of varying beliefs about afterlife on levels of death anxiety.

15. PERSONAL MEANINGS OF DEATH
Humans develop meanings and associate them with objects and events in their environment which can provoke certain emotions. People tend to develop personal meanings of death which could be either positive or negative. If the formed meanings about death are positive, then the consequences of those meanings can be comforting (for example, ideas of a rippling effect left on those still alive). If the formed meanings about death are negative, they can cause emotional turmoil. Depending on the certain meaning one has associated with death, positive or negative, the consequences will vary accordingly. The meaning that individuals place on death is generally specific to them; whether negative or positive, and can be difficult to understand as an outside observer. However, through a Phenomenological perspective, therapists can come to understand their individual perspective and assist them in framing that meaning of death in a healthy way.

16. A 2019 study further examined the aspect of religiosity and how it relates to death and existential anxiety through the application of supernatural agency. According to this particular study, existential anxiety relates to death anxiety through a mild level of preoccupation that is experienced concerning the impact of one's own life or existence in relation to its unforeseen end. It is mentioned how supernatural agency exists independently on a different dimensional plane than the individual and, as a result, is seen as something that cannot be directly controlled. Oftentimes, supernatural agency is equated with the desires of a higher power such as God or other major cosmic forces. The inability for one to control supernatural agency triggers various psychological aspects that induce intense periods of experienced death or existential anxiety. One of the psychological effects of supernatural agency that is triggered is an increased likelihood to attribute supernatural agency toward causality when dealing with natural phenomena. Seeing how people have their own innate form of agency, the attribution of supernatural agency to human actions and decisions can be difficult. However, when it comes to natural causes and consequences where no other form of agency exists, it becomes much easier to make a supernatural attribution of causality.

17. DEATH ACCEPTANCE AND DEATH ANXIETY
Researchers have also conducted surveys on how being able to accept one's inevitable death could have a positive effect on one's psychological well-being, or on one's level of individual distress. A research study conducted in 1974 attempted to set up a new type of scale to measure people's death acceptance, rather than their death anxiety. After administering a questionnaire with questions regarding the acceptance of death, the researchers found there was a low-negative correlation between acceptance of one's own death and anxiety about death; meaning that the more the participants accepted their own death, the less anxiety they felt. While those who accept the fact of their own death will still feel some anxiety about it, this acceptance could allow them to form a more positive perspective on it.
A more recent longitudinal study asked cancer patients at different stages to fill out different questionnaires in order to rate their levels of death acceptance, general anxiety, demoralization, etc. The same surveys administered to the same people one year later showed that higher levels of death acceptance could predict lower levels of death anxiety in the participants.

3. TEST FORMAT DECISION
A. The format of the test shall be "Objective Type Multiple Choice Question"
B. Language of the test shall be Hindi
C. Number of Items:20
D. There will be a three point scale for marking the scores. Subject will be given 0 marks for choosing negative option, 1 marks for choosing in-between option, and 2 marks for choosing postive option.

4. ITEM WRITING

5. ITEM REVIEW BY EXPERT
Professors from the department were duely consulted for their review of the items. Some of the suggestions received are:
1. Language of the items should be less provoking

After considering the suggestions of professors and, after detailed discussions on the subject, thereafter, it was concluded that the process shall continue with the same items as initially laid down.

6. DATA COLLECTION USING DRAFT TEST VERSION 1