Do fears of terrorism predict trust in government?
| Pages | 57-68 |
| Published date | 29 January 2010 |
| Date | 29 January 2010 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.5042/jacpr.2010.0005 |
| Author | Samuel Sinclair,Alice LoCicero |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Sociology |
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10.5042/jacpr.2010.0005
Introduction
In the years leading up to the 11 September
2001 terrorist attacks on New York and
Washington DC, trust in government had
declined significantly (Chanley et al, 2000;
Chanley, 2002). However, the 9/11 terrorist
attacks required recognition of a significant
threat to national security, and trust in
government ‘rose to a level not seen since the
mid-1960s#HANLEYP !SMANY
have argued (Nye, 1997; Chanley et al, 2000;
Alford, 2001; Chanley, 2002), concern over
threats to national security has historically been
associated with greater trust in government,
explaining in large part why there was a spike
in this trust subsequent to 9/11.
Several studies have examined aspects of
this relationship using national survey data
INRELATIONTOTHE 5NITED3TATESCOLOURCODED
terror alert system, which includes five levels:
green (low risk of attack), blue (guarded,
general risk of attack), yellow (elevated risk
of attack), orange (high risk of attack) and
red (severe risk of attack). Prior to the 2004
presidential election, Davis an d Silver (2004)
FOUNDTHATWHILERAISING THEGOVERNMENTS
terror alert level to orange (high) led to an
increase in how concerned people were about
another attack, there was no relationship
between terror alerts and presidential approval.
Davis and Silver (2004) also found that the
relationship between concern or fear about
further terrorism and approval of (former) US
President George W Bush was not constant.
Shortly after 9/11, greater fear was associated
with greater approval. However, by April 2004,
this relationship had flipped such that greater
Do fears of terrorism
predict trust in government?
Samuel Justin Sinclair, PhD
Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, US
Alice LoCicero PhD, ABPP, MBA
Endicott College, Massachusetts, US
ABS TR AC T
Since 9/11, 2001, protection from terrorism has become a poignant issue in the political
spectrum, and some have argued that fears of terrorism have been manipulated for political
purposes. Contributing to a growing body of research, this study sought to test whether
terrorism fears, and/or the impact of terror alerts, predicted overall trust in government
in a sample of university undergraduates who completed the Perceptions of Terrorism
Questionnaire Short-Form (PTQ-SF). Two psychological theories offer plausible explanations
for this relationship: attachment theory and evolutionary psychology theory. Results indicate
that both general terrorism fears and the impact of terror alerts specifically, are statistically
significant predictors of trust in government, using separate hierarchical regression models
after controlling for other factors. The implications and limitations of this study are
discussed, as are directions for further research.
KEY WORDS
Terrorism; terrorism fears; trust in government; Perceptions of Terrorism Questionnaire;
terrorism catastrophising.
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