The Psychology of Terrorism Fears

The psychology of terrorism, in its most basic form, is about fear. Although academics continue to debate the meaning of terrorism, the end result for victims of terrorism is very often fear and terror. Many studying the effects of terrorism have focused more exclusively on discrete psychopathological constructs, most of which are clinically based. Ironically, these paradigms fail to acknowledge the primacy of basic fear in the context of terrorism, as well as how fear affects people in both positive and negative ways-above and beyond whether one meets criteria for a clinical disorder.