These Are Americans’ Biggest Fears in 2024, as the Country Is ‘Becoming More Afraid’

Americans are afraid, very afraid.

Fear is playing a bigger role in American life than at any time in recent history, according to the results of a new survey from Chapman University. Americans are afraid of more things, and they’re more afraid of those things than they have been in the past, the researchers suggest.

At the top of the list of fears in 2024? Corrupt government officials, cyberterrorism and loved ones becoming seriously ill or dying. Other fears include world powers deploying nuclear weapons, terrorist attacks, biological warfare and not having enough money for the future.

Every year for the past decade, sociologists at Chapman University have polled more than 1,000 Americans to find out what scares them the most. They ask about 85 fears, ranging from spiders and ghosts to public speaking and tornadoes. The results of the “American Fears” survey are released just before Halloween—and, this year, just before a presidential election.

Overall, the 2024 findings suggest Americans are “in the grasp of deep, paralyzing dread,” writes Andre Mouchard for the Orange County Register.

“This year, all of our top [ten] fears were expressed by more than half of Americans, and many were high throughout the rest of the survey,” says Christopher Bader, a Chapman University sociologist who worked on the survey, in a statement. “This tells me Americans are becoming more afraid in general, about everything.”

Many of this year’s top fears are related to war and terrorism. That’s no surprise, given the ongoing Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas conflicts, the researchers say. This year, as in years past, the results of the survey reflect current events.

More than 58 percent of respondents reported being afraid or very afraid of cyberterrorism—an increase of more than 9 percentage points from last year—while 52.7 percent were scared of a terrorist attack. More than half of respondents expressed fears about Russia, North Korea and Iran using nuclear weapons. Similarly, a majority of respondents were also afraid of biological warfare, as well as America getting involved in another world war.

The fear of government corruption is also no surprise—this concern has topped the university’s list every year since 2015. But with more than 65 percent of respondents reporting fear of corrupt government officials this year, political fears appear to have gotten worse. More than half of participants were afraid of the outcome of the upcoming presidential election, and 49.2 percent were concerned about widespread civil unrest. Nearly 41 percent were afraid of widespread voter fraud.

The responses suggest Americans have a “profound mistrust” in their government, says Steve Pfaff, another Chapman University sociologist involved with the survey, in the statement. “American citizens are worried about their government and afraid that powerful or resourceful interests may have undue influence over the government.”

Some of Americans’ fears are being stoked by traditional media and social media companies, which use algorithms to serve up content that readers will be interested in, according to the researchers. And, often, what readers are interested in is bad news.

“The media gives us what we want: something to fear, the scary thing, the dark thing,” Bader told the New York Times’ Matt Richtel in January. “That’s what’s going to attract our attention. Also, we have a huge confirmation bias. If you’re afraid of Trump or Hunter Biden, you’ll be attracted to information that reinforces the fear.”

Still, he added: “If the media is playing to our inherent natures, is that our fault or the media’s fault?”

The study’s leaders also point out that some of our fears are unfounded—or, at the very least, not aligned with reality. When the researchers began their survey in 2014, their goal was, in part, to see whether Americans’ fears surrounding crime matched up with the actual crime rates in the country, wrote Lorraine Boissoneault for Smithsonian magazine in 2017. (That first year, the top fear was “walking alone at night.”) Those early results showed almost exactly what the team expected—that respondents perceived crime to be a bigger problem than it is.

This year, many Americans reported fears of being the victim of crimes like murder by a stranger (33.3 percent), sexual assault by a stranger (29.5 percent) or abduction and kidnapping (27.3 percent). And yet, the incidence of these and other violent crimes has been declining. That mismatch can have real-world implications, researchers say.

“We are so focused on serial killers, we give a lot of resources to the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit,” Bader, who has a background in criminology, says in a statement. “By comparison, we are spending far too little on domestic violence programs, but you are far, far more likely to be a victim of domestic violence than to be a victim of a serial killer. To me, this is a case where our fears are directly hurting us.”

Environment-related problems also have people worried. Pollution of drinking water, global warming/climate change and extinction of plant and animal species scare 52.4 percent, 47.7 percent and 45.6 percent of Americans, respectively.

What are Americans the least afraid of in 2024? At the very bottom of the list, just 8.7 percent of respondents reported being afraid or very afraid of Muslims. The survey has tracked anti-Muslim prejudice in past years, a belief that Ed Day, a sociologist at Chapman University who worked on the research, said “should be disturbing,” in a 2016 statement. Despite its low spot on the list, rights groups warn of a recent spike in Islamophobia in the United States, pointing to incidents such as the October 2023 killing of a 6-year-old Muslim boy.

Other low-ranking fears were blood (9.3 percent) and ghosts (10.6 percent). Some sicknesses also appeared near the bottom of the list. While the idea of a new pandemic or epidemic scared 41.2 percent of respondents, just 20.5 percent said they were afraid of getting Covid-19.

Sarah Kuta | READ MORE

Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.