![BBC | Getty](https://ifp.nyu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/1-284-1024x572.jpg)
BBC | Getty
Fatalism has been tricky to define. It’s generally thought of as a belief that outcomes cannot be changed and are determined by outside forces. For Oscar Esparza-Del Villar, a professor of psychology at the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, what some people call fatalism can be separated out from related factors like helplessness and a belief in divine control. The researchers found that of fatalism and these related factors, it’s the helplessness that influences health behaviours the most.