What Are We Afraid Of?

Lets face it.  One of our biggest motivators is fear.  Fear is not our only motivator, of course, but we’d
have to admit it is a pretty big one.  And our classic response options to fear are – fight, flight, or freeze.

So, when we look at the world what do we see and what do we fear?  All of us will have differing answers, but some that come to mind on the global scale might be terrorism, war, climate change, biodiversity loss, inequality, corporate corruption, or refugee crises.  Closer to home it may be domestic violence, homelessness, or drug/alcohol abuse. 

In 1974 the authors of the ground-breaking book/study Limits to Growth,¹ noted a correlation between what people were concerned with and their proximity to it geographically and in time.  The further away the issue, the less concerned people tended to be.  The more into the future the issue, the less concerned we can be.  Even things that may affect our children adversely in their lifetimes often are of less concern than something happening next week, or in our street.

We can also be more concerned about something if it happens suddenly, rather than if it unfolds over a long period of time.  For example, our fear is amplified by a gunman firing at random in a street, yet our fear of climate change is diminished.  One happens suddenly and occurs over a short space of time.  The other unfolds over many years and continues on over a long period of time.  See the diagram below.

 

It is little wonder then that public policy debates relating to community safety tend to focus on those events that happen suddenly, with little attention given to the safety that is threatened by events that unfold over a long period of time.

The psychology involved here is undoubtedly complex.  I am not a psychologist and hence, I have no insight into how to work with this.  If any reader is aware of any research into this conundrum, then please share it.

Notes:

1. Meadows, Meadows, Randers, Behrens III, Limits to Growth, Universe Books, New York, 1972