Previous studies on common fears have been vague and have not met requirements for using factor analysis. To avoid some of these problems, a broader age range and a separate analysis of males and females were designed for a sample of 545 individuals, ages 15-89, who responded to 133 fear-scale items. "Death of a loved one" was the greatest fear for both sexes. Items with a mean of three or more on the seven-point scale were factor analyzed. The items meeting the criteria for the female sample resulted in five "fear" factors including: (1) social rejection; (2) unpredictable danger; (3) aggression; (4) small animals; and (5) death of self or loved one. The items analyzed for males resulted in two "fear" factors similar to the first two "fear" factors analyzed for women, i.e., social rejection and unpredictable danger. The findings suggest that these results may be closer than those of previous studies to the structure of the cognitive component of fears in the general population. (Author/JAC)