Predictors Of Fear Research Articles

Female Victims of Spousal Violence: Factors Influencing Their Level of Fearfulness

This study employed data from the 1985 National Family Violence Survey to explore the predictors of fear about future abuse among 356 married or cohabiting women whose partners had previously abused them. We found that fear was higher among women whose partners had initiated the violence or who had subjected them to forced sex, or women who felt that their own use of violence would result in disastrous consequences for them. Unexpectedly, having enlisted the help of shelters, lawyers, or therapists was related to greater fear. Accounting for fear at more than one point in time may explain these findings. One of the more insidious aspects of family violence is the climate of fear that is created for those who are victimized by it. Regardless of whether the violence has been relatively minor, or more severe, relatively infrequent or more routine, the fear that it will reoccur is an ever-present reality. Because of their relative inability to ef fectively defend themselves against assault, women who have been the victims of past assaults are more likely than their male counterparts to feel fearful about their continued safety in a violent home. Despite a plethora of research on family violence in the last two decades or so, very few studies have focused on fearfulness as an outcome in its own right. However, this topic should command our attention for two reasons. First, pervasive fear is stressful and, therefore, psychologically debilitating. Second, although a certain amount of fear often motivates victims to take steps to reduce or end the violence, excessive fear may instead immobilize the victim. Fearful of retribution from their batterers, women may expose themselves to greater danger by failing to take the appropriate actions. This study explored the factors that affect the fear of future assault among a sample of women from the 1985 National Family Violence Survey who had been abused at least once by their intimate partners. Specifically, drawing upon selfefficacy theory, we tested a set of hypotheses concerning the impact on fearfulness of six different factors: whether forced sexual relations occurred in conjunction with the physical assault; whether the husband or the wife was the initiator of violence; the socioeconomic resources of the wife; the immediate actions taken by the wife; the longterm help sought by the wife; and the degree to which her own use of violence (whether defensive or not) would have negative consequences for her. The study included both married women and unmarried women currently living with an intimate partner. Following others' terminology (DeMaris & Longmore, in press; Straus & Gelles, 1986), we have used the terms husband and wife throughout the article to indicate an intimate partner, regardless of official marital status. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND The Consequences of Fearfulness Several previous studies of family violence attest to the negative consequences of fear. Persistent fearfulness is synonymous with heightened anxiety, itself a form of mental disorder (Langner, 1962). However, whereas anxiety disorders often have no external referent, fear of future violence involves anxiety about a very real possibility in an abused woman's life: being battered by an intimate partner. Fear can also lead to feelings of victimization on a par with those felt by victims of violent crimes. Indeed, the trauma of a woman assaulted by an intimate partner may even be more severe than if she were attacked by a stranger (Frieze & Browne, 1988). Additional pressure from children and relatives to make the marriage work can add to the stress of living with an abusive partner (Stets & Straus, 1990). Fear has also been found to have an effect on the types of actions a battered woman engages in to stop her partner's assaults (Browne, 1987). Whether or not she leaves an abusive relationship may depend upon her level of fear. A woman can be afraid that if she does not leave her abuser, the violence will continue. …

Victimization and fear: Assessing the role of offender and offence

The relationship between victimization and fear of crime has been the topic of considerable research by social scientists. The results to date have been informative, but at times conflicting and/or confusing. Some have argued that measurement issues have been at the root of the conflicts and confusion. This article attempts to address some of the complexities of the victimization-fear relationship among women by examining how different types of offenders, and different types of offences, produce two different types of fear. Conducting secondary analysis on data from the Canadian Violence Against Women Survey, the findings reveal that victimizations involving certain offenders and offences are better predictors of fear than others.

Predictors of fear of falling in dizzy and nondizzy elderly.

Fear of falling may constitute an independent risk factor for disability, leading older people to unnecessarily restrict their activity. Sixty older adults with chronic dizziness and 66 healthy controls were studied to help clarify the interrelationships among demographic factors, psychological status, physical health, and fear of falling. Chronic dizziness was strongly associated with fear of falling; among dizzy patients, nearly half (47%) expressed fear of falling, in comparison with 3% of controls. In participants with dizziness, 3 factors predicted fear of falling: an activity of daily living score, the revised Symptom Checklist 90 Depression (Derogatis, 1983) score, and stability when standing with feet together. These results support the concept that fear of falling is multiply determined and that psychological factors play a major role in influencing the symptoms and responses in many older patients with dizziness.

Fear of crime and perceived risk amonc older widowed women

Two theories are utilized to identify potential predictors of fear of crime. Respondents (TV = 300) were older urban, widowed females, a group recognized as particularly vulnerable to fear of crime. Measures consisted of respondents' characteristics, their neighborhood's characteristics, their perceptions about crime, and their victimization experiences. A logistic analysis provided only limited support for two theories on fear of crime. Further exploratory analyses revealed that the theories were more applicable to widows' perceptions of neighborhood crime rate than of crime fear itself. It is concluded that future research on older women should focus on perceived losses resulting from crime, which may lead to a better understanding of reactions (e.g., fear) to perceived risk.

Fear of crime: An assessment of related factors

This study examines the relationship between fear of crime and victimization, gender, age, and selected social factors. Data for the study were obtained from a random sample (n = 1,835) of respondents 15 years of age and over. Separate multiple regression techniques were utilized to assess the effects of predictor variables on fear of crime. The findings revealed that victimization was the most powerful predictor of fear of crime for the total sample and for each subsample. Other significant predictor variables include gender, age and race.

Predictors of Fear of Academic Success among University Students

55 Australian university students completed the Fear of Academic Success Consequences Scale as well as separate measures of nine hypothesized predictors of fear of academic success, namely, age, sex, school and university academic performance, estimates of future academic success, independence from the views and opinions of others, academic motivation, and rated importance of doing well academically. All scale-predictor correlations were nonsignificant, except for age and external control. The results suggest the scale does not possess high construct validity among these students.

Undergraduate and graduate students' attitudes towards AIDS.

Among 219 respondents, undergraduate or graduate status did not emerge as a good predictor of empathy towards aids victims, fear of aids, or knowledge of AIDS. Knowledge about aids was a better predictor of fear than age, race, or sex. Greater knowledge was associated with greater empathy.

A Comparative Analysis of Factors Related to Fear of Crime in the United States (Texas) and the Federal Republic of Germany (Baden-Württemberg)

A predesigned comparative victimological survey was carried out in the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany. One of the central purposes of this research was to address the issue of whether the same factors are operative in both societies as predictors of fear of crime. Two questions predicated on the standard fear of crime indicator were employed as dependent variables: fear of walking alone within one mile (one kilometer) of one's home at night; and, fear of walking alone within one block (100 meters) of one's home at night. Regarding the first dependent variable, four independent variables were found to be operative in both societies, in the same order of significance: sex; community size; perception of the crime problem; and, perceived effectiveness of local police. These four variables accounted for 20.2% of the variation in the United States and 24.4% of the variation in the Federal Republic of Germany. Moreover, they served to correctly classify 70.72% of the cases in the United States...

Fear of Crime in the United States: A Multivariate Analysis

Fear of crime in the United States has become a problem as serious as crime itself. Many commentators have pointed out that fear is greatly out of proportion to the objective probability of being victimized. But to date, few multivariate analyses of fear of crime have been undertaken. The present research moves in this direction by combining and analyzing two national samples from 1973 and 1974 in regard to fear (n = 2,700). We employed five variables central to the victimization literature-sex, race, age, socioeconomic status, and community size. Multivariate Nominal Scale Analysis (MNA) was employed to assess the independent ability of each variable to predict respondents who indicated a fear of crime (42 %) and those who did not (58 %/6). Findings indicated that sex and city size are strong predictors of fear. Age and race were somewhat less important than has generally been supposed and the socioeconomic variables, income and education, had small effects. Merely on the basis of this system of explanatory variables, however, it was possible to classify correctly almost 72 percent of the entire sample in regard to fear. Implications of this high explanatory power as well as limitations of the analysis are presented and discussed.