By Claudine Chamberlain
ABCNEWS.com
With two gruesome workplace
shootings in less than two weeks, you
can be forgiven if you start to
wonder just which of your
cubicle-mates might suddenly become a killer.
But unless you're a cop, security guard or cab driver,
your chances of being done in on the job are pretty
remote - about one in 457,000. And stop giving your
co-workers the hairy eyeball, because the odds that you'll
be killed by one of them are less than one in 2 million.
Most Americans, says sociologist Barry Glassner, fear
things that don't really threaten them. They worry about
pedophiles on the Internet, killer kids in the local high
school, terrorist bombs on airplanes and razor blades
hidden in Halloween candy.
Stranger Dangers
"People are spending a lot of energy, time and money on
perceived dangers that are very unlikely," he says. "And
when that happens, they don't spend those resources on
things that are real threats."
Parents who worry excessively about strangers
abducting and molesting their children, for example, may
be less attuned to the possibility of sexual abuse by a
family member, which is actually far more likely.
Consider, too, the tremendous efforts that went into
beefing up school security around the country after the
shootings in Littleton, Colo.
"It's so unlikely that a child is going to be shot at
school," Glassner says. "We know what the big dangers
to teens are. They're binge drinking, car accidents and
unprotected sex. Each of those is a danger that parents
and teens can actually reduce, and to focus on those and
work to reduce those dangers is much more likely to have
a payoff than if we fixate on the irrational things."
Fearmongers Among Us
Glassner, a professor at the University of Southern
California, recently published a book called The Culture
of Fear in which he debunks many of the most common
irrational fears. (See slide show.) Some are tied to
current
events - school shootings and workplace violence
among them - and others, such as air travel anxiety and
the fear of minorities, are sadly perennial.
While it's easy, and certainly fair, to blame the news
media for sensationalizing acts of violence and too quickly
labeling them as "trends," there are other culprits in
creating a culture of fear. Politicians, says Glassner,
often
resort to scare tactics to get votes or to pass
legislation.
And companies make millions of dollars each year on
products that exploit irrational fears - from car alarms to
antibacterial soaps.
But the same news stories that exaggerate acts of
violence may also overstate the public's reaction to them,
says Kevin Ferraro, a sociologist at Purdue University and
author of Fear of Crime. Ferraro specializes in issues that
concern the elderly, and a few years ago became curious
about widespread depictions of senior citizens as terrified
of crime.
Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Crook?
When Ferraro dug further, he found that most surveys
only asked one or two questions and used that scant
information to make sweeping generalizations. In his own
studies, which asked in-depth questions about the types of
crime people were most afraid of, he found that most
fears match up with reality pretty well.
For seniors, Ferraro says, "My sense was that crime
wasn't their main concern, even in rough neighborhoods.
The people with the most fear of violent crime were in the
18-35 age category. And those are the people with the
highest rates of victimization."
Although some people are simply more likely to be
worrywarts than others, he notes, "people by and large
are in touch with what are the legitimate concerns in their
life." Younger people aren't afraid of mail fraud, while
older people are less afraid of things like rape.
But for people who do tend to get overly anxious at
scary stories in the press, or frightening statements by
politicians, Glassner has some advice.
Be suspicious when a small number of events, even if
they're dramatic, are dubbed "trends" or "an epidemic."
Watch out for stories that substitute heart-wrenching tales
of crime, disease or other misfortune for credible
scientific
data. And be skeptical of "experts" quoted in the media;
sometimes they have very little real expertise.
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