Happiness studies, sometimes also called positive psychology, is very trendy in university social-science departments these days. But lately, “fear studies” would seem to be more appropriate. (more after the break)
As it happens, Daniel Treisman, a political scientist at UCLA, has just produced a paper that would fall under that description. He identifies “clear geographic patterns” in the distribution of fear in Europe—and to a lesser extent in Asia.
The study drew on six surveys, conducted by various groups between 2000 and 2005, which touched on such subjects as nuclear conflicts and accidents, terrorism, organized crime, medical accidents, genetically modified food, avian flu, and mad-cow disease.
In general, countries that were afraid of one thing were afraid of all of them. In Europe, several Mediterranean nations—Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, and Malta—registered the highest levels of fear. They were followed by the former Communist countries. In contrast, the Netherlands, Finland, and Austria were least fearful.
Three in four Portuguese expressed fear of world war, for example, compared with only 28% of Fins. And 82% of Greeks said they were afraid of genetically modified food, compared with 43% of the Dutch. (Fears of nuclear accidents were unusually consistent, and unusually high, the lowest incidence being 64%.)
And the actual rate of occurence of certain events by region—medical errors, outbreaks of mad-cow—played little to no role in shaping psychological states of mind.
A narrower range of questions was asked in Asia (nothing about nuclear accidents). Asians tended to be more worried about their home and work situations than Europeans, less so about international affairs. This partly rebuts a view offered by some other scholars that Asians worry less than Europeans.
In general, levels of economic development appeared to be irrelevant. Religious tradition played some part in whether a country was fearful or not. But the most robust determinant of a nation’s fear factor, the study found, was the proportion of citizens who believe in hell.
And belief in hell could be distinguished from belief in heaven: Ireland, for instance, displays very high levels of belief in hell, but an even greater belief in heaven, which evidently gives the Irish a rosier view of life and pulls them down in the European fear rankings.
“Mapping the ‘emotional climates’ of the world—and explaining their origins—remains an important challenge for social scientists,” Treisman concludes.
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