Vague, unidentifiable threats like terrorism prove harder for victims to comprehend or counter

Evidence

The same factors that make terrorism a source of concern and interest for indirect audiences make it a source of personal anxiety for direct audiences, whose feelings of invulnerability are diminished. The reactions of direct audiences to terrorism can usefully be compared to those of the victims of aerial bombing (see Hutchinson, 1972; Janis, 1951). Extreme anxiety, disorientation, feelings of helplessness and defenselessness, and demoralization can characterize reactions to terrorism, which is the type of indefinite and unidentifiable threat that classical studies indicate as difficult to understand or to act against (see Lowenthal, 1946, pp. 2–5, May, 1940, pp. 191–195; Riezler, 1950, pp. 129, 131; Sullivan, 1941, p 282). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4172

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the earlier chapters in this book on threat perception and fear-driven political behavior, and to psychological theories of helplessness against ambiguous threats. — connects to: Terrorism becomes the pretext for demanding automated certainty machines — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1228; Culture cannot fully repress death terror, driving people to localize threats in fetishized evil. — Jeff Greenberg and Spee Kosloff, Terror Management Theory: Implications…, 54