Functional Fear? Explaining (Mis)alignment among Objective Victimization Risk, Subjective Perceived Risk, and Worry

• In Event: Perspectives on Online & Offline Victimization: Research using the 2021 Reactions to Crime Survey

Abstract

Scholars believe that people are more capable of appropriate precautionary action when their levels of worry or anxiety about victimization and cognitive perceptions of risk are aligned with their actual or objective victimization risk. In contrast, significant misalignment between someone’s worry, perceived risk, and their actual risk, either results in worry or thoughts about risk that are unjustified by evident threat or leads those facing real threat to have insufficient worry and/or perceived risk. We provide theory that addresses the balance versus imbalance between actual victimization experiences, perceived risk of future victimization, and worry about future victimization, and we test our hypotheses within two analyses using a sample of 1,500 U.S. homeowners. Our statistical method employs an item response theory (IRT) approach to measurement in a multilevel regression framework (Osgood & Schreck, 2007). In our first analysis, IRT is used to create two dependent variables: overall victimization risk and a tendency to experience an imbalance of subjective risk. In our second analysis, we focus on subjective risk overall and a tendency towards an imbalance between emotional worry and cognitive perceptions of risk.

Authors

• Chris J. Schreck, Rochester Institute of Technology

• Pamela Wilcox, Pennsylvania State University

• Joanna D. Frazier, University of Iowa