Culture and Society
PUBLISHED
8
The latest edition of the "fear study" shows that the US has become increasingly afraid and nervous over the past decade – especially when it comes to political concerns.
As part of the Chapman University Survey of American Fears, political scientists and sociologists have been tracking the greatest fears of the American population for 10 years using online surveys.
According to the latest findings, the top fears of people in the US this year are:
- Corrupt government officials – 65.2 percent
- People I love becoming seriously ill – 58.4 percent
- Cyberterrorism – 58.3 percent
- People I love dying – 57.8 percent
- Russia using nuclear weapons – 55.8 percent
- Not having enough money for the future – 55.7 percent
- [TIED] US becoming involved in another world war – 55 percent
- [TIED] North Korea using nuclear weapons – 55 percent
- Terrorist attacks – 52.7 percent
- Biological warfare – 52.5 percent
Each year, the researchers asked over 1,000 people across the country about 85 fears, including everything from crime, war, natural disasters, personal tragedies, and financial woes, to ghosts, spiders, clowns, sharks, and public speaking.
Although government corruption is often at the top of Americans’ worries, the level of fear has dropped in the past couple of years. Corruption concerns started to rise in 2016, but peaked in 2020/2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, with 79.6 percent of respondents saying it was a problem.
“The fear of government corruption has consistently been one of the top fears expressed by Americans. What that tells us is there is a profound mistrust; that American citizens are worried about their government and afraid that powerful or resourceful interests may have undue influence over the government,” Steve Pfaff, professor of sociology at Chapman University, said in a statement.
Money troubles are another regular cause of unease, although it’s significant that the fear of major economic collapse has dropped out of the top 10 list after being the second top concern last year.
Fears are not always grounded in reality, however. This year’s findings suggest that people believe that violent crime is skyrocketing, although it’s actually going down by most metrics.
“The vast majority of our respondents said that crime rates are rising dramatically, and they’re just wrong. Serial killings have been going down. Stranger abductions of children have been going down. Murders by strangers have been going down. Sexual assaults by strangers have been going down,” explained Christopher Bader, chair and professor of sociology at Chapman University.
“We are so focused on serial killers, we give a lot of resources to the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit. By comparison, we are spending far too little on domestic violence programs, but you are far, far more likely to be a victim of domestic violence than to be a victim of a serial killer. To me, this is a case where our fears are directly hurting us. We are so focused on stranger danger that it leads us to spend resources in the wrong way,” he noted.
Overall, the survey indicates that a growing sense of fear, anxiety, and uncertainty is weaving itself more deeply into the fabric of American life.
“This year, all of our Top 10 fears were expressed by more than half of Americans, and many were high throughout the rest of the survey. This tells me Americans are becoming more afraid in general, about everything,” Bader said in the statement.
