Untitled ItemThe fear of war scale (FOWARS): development and initial validation

The emergence of the Ukraine-Russia war and its consequences has led to fears, worries, and anxiety among individuals worldwide, mostly, but not exclusively in the immediate neighbors of these fighting countries. The present study aims at developing the fear of war scale (FOWARS) so as to fill the gap in the literature that currently/presently lacks proper assessment tools for measuring the fear of war orwartime circumstances. The sample consists of N = 722 Hungarian speaking participants, mainly from Romania and Hungary,, addressed online for the survey. Exploratory factor analysis evinced a two-factor solution of the scale, and after the exclusion of cross loading items, the final version was confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. The 13-items fear of war scale (FOWARS) has robust psychometric properties and proves appropriate to assess the fear of war among the general population on two factors, namely emotional and physiological dimensions of fear. The scale is available in three different languages: English, Hungarian and Romanian<br>