An effort to differentiate fearful and anxious public sentiments

What is it about?

This research in the novel domain of cyber threats adds to the current bid to differentiate between fear and anxiety. Fear and anxiety are often synonymous in spoken English, but they showed different abilities to motivate political behaviors in the present study. A cyber breach was used to elicit fearful and anxious responses in participants. Although both groups of participants opted for safety measures, fearful participants preferred avoidance strategies (e.g. disengaging from social media, online purchases) whereas anxious participants favored hypervigilance (e.g. keeping an eye on the news) and even government surveillance.

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Why is it important?

The American congressional debate around cybersecurity and the public uproar against the NSA’s mass surveillance may be the harbinger of a protracted discussion of how to keep ourselves safe in cyberspace. Competing cybersecurity solutions should be debated based on rational logic rather than being hijacked by emotions. Both fear and anxiety are common reactions to cyber threats. If fear were to take hold, economic participation would suffer and tarnish commercialism. If anxiety were to take the rein, surveillance policies would win out in the public’s mind and decrease freedom. The difference between the two paths is not minute by any account; neither is the functional difference between fear and anxiety.

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