Psychological determinants of fear of crime: A comparison of general and situational prediction models

Abstract

Prior research into fear of criminal victimization has identified cognitive and affective variables relating to general perceived risk of victimization, and fear of victimization in specific situational contexts. These factors include availability of recall, vividness, perceived competence, and negative affect (i.e. anxiety). Two questionnaire studies were undertaken to examine the role of the study variables in fear of crime in terms of perception of general crime risk, as well as fear of victimization in high-risk situations. Availability of direct, vicarious and media-supplied crime experiences, vividness, perceived competence and trait anxiety were found to account for a significant proportion of observed variance in reported general fear of crime, for both male and female subjects. Sex differences were observed in terms of the significance of individual predictors. The results of the second study yielded significant findings for females only with availability of direct crime experiences and vividness of recall as the only significant predictors. The results of both studies were discussed with respect to the literature relating to fear of crime and risk perception.