Construction and Psychometric Characteristics of the “Tendency to Extreme Views” Test

Abstract

The need to provide preventive strategies for maintaining the stability of modern society actualizes the issue of psychodiagnostics of a person’s tendency to extreme views. At the same time, there is a shortage of questionnaires in Russian psychological science that allow obtaining information about social risk groups that differ in extreme beliefs and attitudes. To measure the propensity of a person to extreme views of a national, political and religious nature, the author’s test was designed and tested. The study involved 335 respondents aged 18 to 22 years, including 197 boys and 138 girls. Correlation analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, Cronbach’s coefficient α were used. t-criterion. The results of the approbation and psychometric analysis of the questionnaire are satisfactory, its verification using mathematical and statistical procedures shows compliance with the theoretical construct, indicators of internal consistency, substantive validity and retest reliability indicate the possibility of its use to measure the propensity to extreme views. The developed questionnaire can be useful in academic research and in preventing the spread of extreme views and ideas in modern society.