Chapman releases results for eighth year of Study of American Fears

The survey found that the top three biggest fears among Americans for 2022, included corrupt government officials, loved ones getting a serious illness and Russia using nuclear weapons. Graphic by SUKHMAN SAHOTA, art director

In its eighth year of the Chapman University Study of American Fears, the study found that in their top 10 fears list released in late October, the fear of corrupt government officials still retains its title as the number one fear among Americans, with 62% of participants fearing the idea.

Other top fears include loved ones becoming seriously ill (60.2%), Russia using nuclear weapons (59.6%), loved ones dying (58.1%) and the U.S. getting involved in another world war (56%) followed. 

The final five fears on the list were polluted drinking water (54.5%), not having enough money for the future (53.7%), economic/financial collapse (53.7%), polluted oceans, rivers and lakes (52.5%) and biological warfare (51.5%).

According to survey results spanning from 2015 to 2022, the fear of corrupt government officials has remained as the top fear for survey respondents.

“This is a fear that everyone can have regardless of political affiliation,” Christopher Bader, the chair of Chapman’s sociology department, wrote in an email to The Panther. “Democrats think Republicans are corrupt, and Republicans think Democrats are corrupt.”

The survey, which first began in 2014, was conducted with the help of the Earl Babbie Research Center and the Ludie and David C. Henley Social Sciences Research Laboratory. Since its creation, the study has received a lot of coverage and has been the focus of a book titled “Fear Itself: The Causes and Consequences of Fear in America,” which was written by several Chapman professors, including Bader and associate political science professor Ann Gordon.

“Chapman conducts the survey for several reasons: first, we seek to understand how fears impact people’s lives,” Bader wrote. “Second, we want to give students a dataset that they can use in their theses and projects. Finally, we hope to spur greater research by others about the role of fear in daily life.”

According to Bader, several faculty members at Chapman, including himself and Ann Gordon, the director of the Babbie Research Center and the Henley Research Laboratory, noticed an increase in fear-based media and political campaigns. The decision to start conducting the survey came on the cusp of this, as well as the observation that there weren’t many studies focusing on the role of fear in people’s daily lives systematically or regularly.

When conducting the survey, the Babbie Research Center enlists the help of SSRS, a “ull-service survey and market research firm, to help administer the survey and record all of the results. The results are then sent over in the form of a codebook to fellows in the Henley Research Laboratory, who begin working with the data and analyzing it for interesting findings or patterns that they want to explore further.

This year, fellows looked at the fear of corrupt government officials, the fear of mass shootings and the fear of gun restrictions. Factors that can also be considered during analysis of the results include gender, race, party affiliation and income. As of Nov. 20, the analyses surrounding gender and party affiliation, which have been looked at since 2018, have not yet been posted.

In the 2020-21 survey, female respondents were more likely to state that they were afraid.

“Research generally finds women to both be more willing to admit their fears and more likely to express higher levels of fear of crime and victimization,” Bader said.

The same survey also found that Democrats’ fears tended to focus more on loved ones becoming seriously ill or dying, widespread civil unrest and environmental pollution, while Republicans’ fears were focused on corrupt government officials and economic/financial collapse.

“I think this directly aligns with key beliefs of each party. Democrats were much more likely to express concern about COVID-19 than Republicans, leading them to have higher levels of fear about health-related issues, (and they) were also the most upset and fearful of the events of Jan. 6,” Bader said.

“Republicans have long argued for small government and lowered taxes premised on the concern that large government will hurt the economy. Further, Trump continually argued that the entire government was corrupt. So I think generally, we are seeing the fears that represent the interests of each party, which is not surprising.”

Christian Grevin, an alumnus who graduated this spring with two bachelor degrees in political science and peace studies, started working in the Henley Research Laboratory in June 2021. For that year’s survey results, he focused on the potential impacts that the events of Jan. 6 had on those fears. This year, he focused on the Top 10 fears, and was tasked with categorizing them alphabetically and numerically based on the percentages of each fear.

Grevin noted that one thing he found interesting from this year’s survey was the question asking about fear of a nuclear attack from Russia, especially since it was the first time the question had ever been asked in these surveys.

“It ended up landing not only (in) the top 10, but in the top three fears among Americans,” Grevin said. “And when you take into consideration a lot of the coverage about Ukraine this past spring, it’s not surprising, but it is kind of interesting to think about the fact that this is the first time that question was ever introduced onto the survey and it immediately landed within the top three, which I found fascinating.”

Grevin also noted that since the survey’s creation, environmental concerns have been a major fear among Americans. Between 2017 and 2019, the fear of global warming and climate change consistently stayed near the bottom of the list, with 48%, 53% and 57.1% of Americans stating they were afraid of this in 2017, 2018 and 2019. 

Meanwhile, the fear of extinction of plant and animal species was also near the bottom of the list, with 54% and 59.1% of Americans stating this was a fear of theirs in 2018 and 2019.

In the 2020-21 survey, only one environmental concern made the list (polluted oceans, rivers and lakes), which Bader equates to the COVID-19 pandemic, the events of Jan. 6 and other current events happening during this time.

“I’m kind of interested to see (whether), as we create more distance from us and the pandemic, if potentially, we’ll start to see more environmental concerns come back into the Top 10, because at one point (in 2018), (around) five of the Top 10 had been environmental concerns, which is a lot,” Grevin told The Panther.

Previous years’ survey results can be accessed on the Division of American Fears Study webpage on Chapman’s website, under the “Past Survey Results” collapsible tab.