The American Racial Divide in Fear of the Police

We measured personal and altruistic fear of the police in a nationwide sample of Americans (N = 1,150), which included comparable numbers of Blacks (N = 517) and Whites (N = 492). Whites felt safe, but Blacks feared the police even more than crime, being afraid both for themselves and for others they cared about. The racial divide in fear was mediated by experiences with police mistreatment. In turn, fear mediated the effects of race and past mistreatment on support for defunding the police and intentions to have “the talk” with family youths about the need to distrust and avoid officers. About half of Blacks said they would rather be the victim of a serious crime than be questioned or searched by the police. The results show that when it comes to the police, Blacks and Whites live in different emotional worlds, one of fear and the other of felt safety.

Investigation of the correlation between childhood trauma, psychological well-being, and altruistic fear of crime of mothers with children aged three to six years

Childhood is the period during which physical and mental development is extremely rapid from the first years of life. Furthermore, many basic factors affecting the future lives of individuals start to be shaped. The child's future life, psychological well-being, and quality of life are negatively affected by the exposure to unwanted situations by the family or the environment during this period. As a matter of fact, behavior patterns exhibited by individuals during adulthood are thought to be correlated with childhood traumas. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between the altruistic fear of crime, psychological well-being, and childhood traumas among mothers with children aged three to six years. A cross-sectional correlation research design was used for this study. The sample of the study consisted of 214 volunteer mothers, whose children were attending a private preschool education institution in the city center of Gumushane province of Turkey during the 2019/2020 academic year. The research data were collected using "Personal Information Form", "Childhood Trauma Questionnaire", "Altruistic Fear of Crime Scale" and "Psychological Well-being Scale". Data were analyzed using t-test, ANOVA, and correlation analysis. The results of the research showed that the age of the mothers, birth order, presence of any family member receiving psychological support, and marital satisfaction caused significant differences. Furthermore, scores obtained from "Personal Information Form", "Childhood Trauma Questionnaire", "Altruistic Fear of Crime" and "Psychological Well-being Scale" were found to be significantly correlated.

Public Support for Policies to Reduce School Shootings: A Moral-Altruistic Model

Objectives: The recurring mass murder of students in schools has sparked an intense debate about how best to increase school safety. Because public opinion weighs heavily in this debate, we examine public views on how best to prevent school shootings. We theorize that three moral-altruistic factors are likely to be broadly relevant to public opinion on school safety policies: moral intuitions about harm, anger about school crime, and altruistic fear. Methods: We commissioned YouGov to survey 1,100 Americans to explore support for a range of gun control and school programming policies and willingness to pay for school target hardening. We test the ability of a moral-altruistic model to explain public opinion, while controlling for the major predictors of gun control attitudes found in the social sciences. Results: The public strongly supports policies that restrict who can access guns, expand school anti-bullying and counseling programs, and target-harden schools. While many factors influence attitudes toward gun-related policies specifically, moral-altruistic factors significantly increase support for all three types of school safety policies. Conclusions: The public favors a comprehensive policy response and is willing to pay for it. Support for prevention efforts reflects moral intuitions about harm, anger about school crime, and altruistic fear.

Pandemic Emotions: The Extent, Correlates, and Mental Health Consequences of Personal and Altruistic Fear of COVID-19

COVID-19 has had unprecedented effects on populations around the world. Given the political and moral context of the pandemic and the nation’s response to it, this study sought to assess the extent of American’s personal fear about the virus as well as their fear for others (altruistic fear), identify potential predictors of these fears, and examine the mental health impact of heightened COVID-19 fears. Overall, a majority of respondents worried about various aspects of the virus, from being exposed to dying and reported often worrying about others, including family, the elderly, and healthcare professionals. Building on the fear of crime literature, we find that certain individuals, including those who believe they are at a high risk of dying from the virus, those who closely follow news coverage of the pandemic, and those with strong moral foundations, are likely to experience elevated fear and, possibly, its consequences.

„A přišel ti naproti?“: dohled rodičů jako neviditelná bariéra prostorového chování jejich dcer ve vzdálených univerzitních městech

Research on perceptions of security has long focused on exploring fear for oneself, but fear for other person, so-called altruistic fear, which can contribute significantly to the overall perception of security, is equally important. Fear for others is also related to the need for surveillance and control over those for whom we worry. This article focuses on the importance of transferred, spatially absent parental control for the perception of fear for daughters who moved from a small municipality to a large, distant university city. Through semi-structured interviews with female first and second year college students, we examine how their feelings of safety and danger in the new environment transformed during their transition to university, how parents approached their leaving home and how they communicated with their daughters, and how the parents continued to supervise them despite the spatial divide. Our analysis shows the different forms that the relationship between parental control and their daughter’s fear can take, and how fear for oneself can be interwoven with fear for others.