Dynamics Of Fear Research Articles

Mathematical insights into the [formula omitted] model with Allee and fear dynamics in the context of COVID-19

In this study, we introduce and investigate the SEIQRD COVID-19 model incorporating Allee and fear effects. Employing the next-generation matrix method, we derive the basic reproduction number, a crucial epidemiological metric. Our model exhibits two significant equilibrium points: one representing the disease-free state and the other representing the endemic state. Utilizing the Routh–Hurwitz criteria, we demonstrate that the disease-free equilibrium is locally asymptotically stable when the basic reproduction number (R0) is less than 1, while the endemic equilibrium attains local stability when R0 exceeds 1. Furthermore, we establish global stability for the endemic equilibrium through the application of Poincare–Bendixson properties and Dulac’s criteria. To complement our theoretical results, we conduct comprehensive simulation studies, validating the practical implications of our findings.

Adult Maltese Women's Understanding of How Childhood Domestic Violence Has Impacted Their Relationships with Their Parents and Siblings: A Grounded Theory Study.

Most of the literature that has looked at children's relationships with their parents in the domestic violence context has focused solely on the children's relationship with one parent or is studied from the perspective of one parent, usually the mother. Sibling relationships in the same context are also under-studied. This paper explores in more detail the complexity of children's relationships with their mothers, fathers, and siblings over time from the perspective of adult women and survivors of childhood domestic violence. Methods: A grounded theory methodology was used to analyse the interviews with 15 women aged twenty to forty-three years of age living in Malta. Results: the analysis showed that the domestic violence context remains significant in these important relationships for these women. The relationship with the father remains strongly influenced by the dynamics of fear, love, and retaliation, with cycles of cut-off and connection from the adult daughter's end. The relationship with the mother is complicated-feelings of love that are seen as having been limited and complicated by betrayal if there was abuse from the mother. Similarly, for the siblings, the roles of the early family of origin remain persistent and significant. However, in some of these relationships, there has been transformation, reconciliation, and forgiveness. The article offers implications for therapeutic practice for dealing with the complexity of these relationships and ideas for future research.

“Kung Flu”—The Dynamics of Fear, Popular Culture, and Authenticity in the Anatomy of Populist Communication

The article presents results of a study on the dynamics between Donald Trump’s use of terms that relate COVID-19 to China and news media publications concerning this use. Qualitative content analysis with elements of discourse analysis was conducted to 1) describe the case as a type of populist discourse on COVID-19, and 2) illustrate the following hypotheses with the help of empirical material: 1) News media and the dynamics of political communication based on the difference of friend and enemy help legitimizing populist claims and directing public attention toward them while feeding into a narrative of a diffuse category of threats that creates objects ofangstand thereby enhances social cohesion. 2) With resources derived from popular culture, populists exploit the culture of political correctness, which is facilitated through the ascription of authenticity. The hypotheses emerged in the course of organizing and preliminarily examining the data collected for an ongoing broader study on populist communication and its repercussions in different public spheres in view of the following assumptions: 1) Political communication is guided by the distinction of friend and enemy. 2) In populist communication, this distinction appears as the difference of ‘the people’ and allegedly corrupt elites, including news media. 3)Angstenhances social cohesion among the audiences of populist speakers directly or mediated by fear. 4) Populist communication is more likely to produce a type of fear that populists benefit from when it depicts the elite as a diffuse category composed of various interlinked enemies. Trump’s contextualized use of the following terms in the time period between March 13 and September 15, 2020, was examined: China flu, China plague, China virus, Chinese plague, Chinese flu, Chinese virus, Wuhan virus, and Kung flu. 38 speeches from Trump’s election campaign or rallies, 28 talks at presidential events or meetings, 47 interviews, 37 press conferences, 35 tweets and seven re-tweets as well as selected news media responses were subjected to analysis. The case has been successfully described as a type of populist discourse on COVID-19 and both hypotheses have been illustrated with empirical material.

Time‐frequency dynamics between fear connectedness of stocks and alternative assets

AbstractWe examine linkages between the time‐frequency dynamics of fear (VIX) connectedness across global stock markets and alternative asset markets. To this end, we utilize Diebold and Yilmaz, International Journal of Forecasting, 2012, 28, 57–66; Diebold and Yilmaz, Journal of Econometrics, 2014, 182, 119–134; and Baruník and Křehlík, Journal of Financial Econometrics, 2018, 16, 271–296 connectedness methods to measure the total, short‐, medium‐ and long‐term connectedness. We subsequently use the rolling‐window wavelet correlation framework of Polanco‐Martínez et al. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications, 2018, 490, 1211–1227 to investigate the dynamic relationship structure among global equity market fear and fear in alternative asset markets, namely oil (OVX), gold (GVZ), currency (EVZ), and bond (TYNVI). We find that OVX drives the underlying VIX connectedness of the global equity markets during stress periods. The results also suggest the prospects of a reverse hedge that is driven by GVZ when the demand for gold intensifies. Furthermore, there are structural shifts in EVZ following Brexit, highlighting a negative relationship with the VIX connectedness. Finally, we find that the VIX connectedness typically moves in the opposite direction to the TYNVI. These results are insightful in realizing vulnerable stock markets' behaviour and explaining investors' sentiments and their shifts over time in asset allocations.

The Dynamics of Fear at the Time of Covid-19: A Contextual Behavioral Science Perspective.

COVID-19 is the relevant disease caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmitted via close contact between persons. On March 12th, 2020, WHO announced COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, in view of its worldwide escalation. As the pandemic disease explodes, a parallel outbreak of fear and worry is also spreading. We react to fear symbolically, by arbitrarily relating it to other objects and events through derived verbal relations, so language may alter the way we experience events and consequently affects how we are functionally or dysfunctionally oriented to the world around us. In this paper we will outline the different human learning processes connected to fear responding, from the simplest type to the more complex cognitive ones, approaching them from the point of view of contextual behavioral science, a modern form of behavioral thinking. We will outline a model of intervention to foster psychological flexibility and more functional value-based actions. We will argue that in a pandemic and in the post-pandemic phase it could be a key for adapting to new and changed circumstances.

Fear dynamics in public places: a case study of urban shopping centers

PurposeThis study aims to examine the relationships among some important factors and perceived personal safety in public places, using Nigerian urban shopping centers as case studies. Following the evidence from previous studies, the present study hypothesizes that individual characteristics influence perceived personal safety in shopping centers, and users’ perceived safety is affected by the shopping centers’ environmental attributes.Design/methodology/approachTwo shopping centers were selected as cases for the study. Systematic sampling technique was used to select participants. Respondents were asked to answer closed-ended questions pertaining to environmental-design satisfaction, socio-economic and demographic characteristics and shopping center use. In total, 784 users participated in the survey. However, only 440 users properly completed the interview: 219 from Aleshinloye and 221 from Gbagi. Environmental design, socio-economic and demographic characteristics and shopping center use are independent variables, whereas perceived safety is a dependent variable. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, factor analysis and Man–Whitney U and Kruskal–Wallis tests.FindingsResults show that fear of crime is the most important factor, explaining 28.16 per cent of the total variance in perceived safety. Nevertheless, findings show that demographic factors have a significant impact on perceived safety as well. There is also a strong association between perceived safety and the use of shopping centers, as Aleshinloye, which is perceived safer, has been more frequently used than Gbagi. Furthermore, environmental design appears as a significant factor for perceived safety in shopping centers, as users of Aleshinloye’s facilities have a better perceived safety from crime, better way-finding ability and more environmental-design satisfaction than users of Gbagi.Practical implicationsThe study recommends the provisions of design or security precautions that prevent the fear of crime and improve way-finding capacity and environmental-design satisfaction in urban shopping facilities. Specifically, it is important to have environmental security precautions such as closed circuit televisions, good and functional lighting and private security staff, especially for women and the elderly, in urban commercial centers as these precautions could enhance their sense of personal safety.Originality/valuePrevious studies on shopping centers’ security have mainly concentrated on the relationship between fear of crime, perceived safety and associated factors. No studies to date have explored how way-finding ability affects perceived safety of users of shopping centers. This study contributes to the existing literature, revealing way-finding anxiety to be another important dimension of perceived safety in urban shopping centers.

Toward a Theory of Terror

The vocabulary of fear-terror has been confused and confusing throughout its expression in the classical and modern languages, whether in literature, in aesthetics, or in political science. As such, it is unlikely ever to be tamed by the rigors of philosophy, with its aspiration to definitive meanings and exact differences. The more open conventions of theory present a better model for this task of description and analysis. A historical account of the unstable associations of terror reveals how limiting and how aggressively polemical the post-9/11 anglophone attributions of terror have been in disavowing its long-standing identification with the power of the state (rather than of nonstate agents), its identity and nonidentity with terrorism, and its supple relation to other terms (most critically, horror) that were very deliberately not deployed by the media and political establishment in modeling a national response to 9/11, and that might have worked against the reification of a unitary terror as the exclusive property of the enemy-other. English novels of the 1790s (Gothic novels) and the 1890s (Marsh, The Beetle) offer a comparatively flexible language for registering the affective dynamics of fear and terror, and as such can serve as a measure of the purposive impoverishment of the currently prevailing rhetoric.

Between God and the apple: divinity, violence and desire in A.L. Kennedy's Original bliss

This article investigates how female sexuality and desire can be refigured beyond dynamics of fear and subjugation. By offering a close reading of A.L. Kennedy's novel Original bliss through the theories of Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray, this work highlights the relationship between violence and Western religious notions of divinity, sexuality and the female body. Kennedy's novel portrays, in violent detail, that the way in which the religious dimension has been conceptualised and articulated enforces negative views of female sexuality and justifies violence against the body. Rather than merely confronting the religious denigration of feminine sexuality, however, Kennedy's novel also attempts to refigure the connection between eroticism and divinity, and points toward the possibility of renewed relationships that cultivate ‘horizontal transcendence’ between women and men.

Fear and Privatization

Supporters of public education fear attempts to privatize schools, while the private sector has always struggled against the monopolistic power of the public schools that educates almost 90% of all K-12 students. This trepidation has recently been intensified by the creation of a “third sector” that includes charter schools, voucher programs, and the increased diversity of private education. This article looks at the dynamics of fear as shaped by increased competition among public, private, and privatized schools. In fact, both public schools and their private school counterparts, fear privatization of education because it draws students and resources away from traditional schools. And recently, the opening of new “religious charter schools” has crossed the lines between church and state, and between private and public education. Thus, the politics of education have become somewhat more confused and unnerving as the distinctions between public and private education are virtually disappearing.

Fear In Prison

It is widely accepted that prisoners are at risk of victimization from their fellow prisoners. However, little is known about the psychological consequences of exposure to such risk. In particular, what is the relationship between prisoners' feelings of anxiety and their observations or experiences of victimization? How is the level of incivility in penal institutions related to perceptions of safety? The findings from a survey of 1,182 inmates shed some light on the dynamics of fear in prison. Most prisoners reported feeling safe most of the time, although a small number of prison locations consistently were rated as unsafe. Prisoners with direct experience of victimization were more fearful than those without. An attempt is made to outline possible explanations for these and other findings.