Perception of the Threat of Terrorism

Abstract

In light of the tense and ongoing security situation in Israel, one important issue that needs to be analyzed and understood is the perception of terrorism threats. Most studies focused mainly on the psychological implications of terrorist acts; this study examines the complexity of the manner in which the individual perceives the threat of terrorism. In all, 40 Israeli adults (22 women and 18 men) were interviewed using semistructured in-depth interviews. Qualitative analysis indicates that the components of the perception of terrorism that construct the evaluation and subjective perception of the participants are as follows: (a) perception of control, which is a feeling of loss of control and helplessness due to uncertainty, inability to predict threats, and the vagueness of the threat; (b) perception of vulnerability to the threat, such as a feeling of vulnerability to and potential victimization by terrorism; and (c) perception of fear of terrorism that includes responses of fear, anxiety, feeling of danger, and emotional distress. In addition, gender differences were found in the analysis. The findings of this study help gain a better understanding as to how people perceive the threat of terrorism. The findings also enable an understanding of the complexity of living under ongoing terrorism threats and may assist in understanding how citizens cope with and adjust to this threat.

Keywords

terrorism perception stress gender

Introduction

Terrorist attacks against civilian populations have become an everyday occurrence worldwide and are among the gravest global dangers facing modern society (Ganor, 2011; Raviv, Sadan, Raviv, Silberstein, & Diver, 2000). Terrorism has become a routine part of life for the inhabitants of Israel since the “Al-Aqsa” uprising in 2000. In addition to wars and other forms of political violence, Israeli citizens are exposed to various types of terrorism, even these days, including suicide bombings, stabbings, shootings, stone throwing, and car ramming attacks throughout the country. Terrorist organizations have also fired missiles and rockets at Israeli cities, including Tel-Aviv. These attacks have claimed the lives of more than 1,000 Israeli citizens, and have wounded thousands of others, since the “Al-Aqsa” uprising in 2000 (Israeli Security Agency, 2015).

In light of the tense and ongoing security situation in Israel, one important issue that needs to be analyzed and understood is the perception of terrorism threats.

The literature is rich in research that investigated the psychological effects of terrorism on civilians (Ben-David & Cohen-Louck, 2010; Canetti, Hall, Rapaport, & Wayne, 2013; Shechory-Bitton, 2013). However, there is little reference to the components of the perception of terrorism. This study was carried out to supplement the existing literature by presenting the manner in which terrorism is perceived by presenting the personal viewpoints of Israeli citizens.

Terrorism

Terrorism is defined as the intentional use, or threat of use, of violence against civilian targets, to attain political aim (Ganor, 2005). Terrorism is an extreme and unusual stress situation resulting from a chronic, unpredictable, uncontrollable, and deadly threat, which greatly influences everyday life, the quality of life, and the welfare of the individual (Gidron, Gal, & Zahavi, 1999; Saka & Cohen-Louck, 2014). Terrorism creates a feeling of fear, anxiety, personal lack of security, uncertainty, and helplessness (Romanov, Zussman, & Zussman, 2012; Wolf & Frankel, 2007). Terrorism is random, its targets are indiscriminate, and its victims are random people from all parts of society, of all ages and with no distinction between genders (Lowry & Lating, 2002).

Terrorists spread terror and horror such that even though their actions injure and harm the direct victims, their ultimate goal is to cause fear, anxiety, and helplessness among broader circles of the population, which lead to a feeling of potential victimization regardless of the probability for victimization (Altheide, 2006; Friedland & Merari, 1986).

Studies on terrorism have significantly increased due to the expansion of terrorism and the broad exposure that this issue has received in recent years. Some of the studies refer to the traumatic psychological effects of terrorism (e.g., Shechory-Bitton, 2013), while others refer to coping with these psychological effects (Ben-David & Cohen-Louck, 2010; Ben-Zur, Gil, & Shamshins, 2012; Gelkopf, Berger, Bleich, & Silver, 2012; Lahad & Leykin, 2010). Psychological effects of trauma are not limited to those who were directly exposed to terrorism. For instance, distress was identified among people who were significantly distant from the terrorist event’s focus (Canetti et al., 2013; Schlenger et al., 2002) and among people who exposed to terrorism through media coverage (Ben-Zur et al., 2012; Silver et al., 2013). The intensity of the response is not solely predicted by the extent of the exposure to the event but also by its subjective perception (Laufer & Solomon, 2009; Shalev, Tuval, Frenkiel-Fishman, Hadar, & Eth, 2006; Somer, Ruvio, Soref, & Sever, 2005). Therefore, the aim of this study is to gain a better understanding as to how people perceive this threat.

The picture obtained from studies carried out in Israel is that terrorism has a significant effect on citizens. Many perceive terrorist attacks and their outcomes as uncontrollable (Dekel, 2004; Klar, Zakay, & Sharvit, 2002) and are not optimistic regarding the chances of becoming victims of terrorism (Klar et al., 2002). Many citizens experience feelings of being threatened, lack of personal security, and stress which is related to symptoms of trauma such as depression and anxiety (Brewin et al., 2008; Chipman, Palmieri, Canetti, Johnson, & Hobfoll, 2011).

Perception of Risk

For many people, perceptions of risk regarding events in their surroundings have been substituted by perceptions of risk regarding the possibility of becoming victims of terrorism (Roberts & Em, 2003). The perception of risk plays an important role in the person’s choice of how to cope and adjust. Risk perception is used to describe both attitudes toward and intuitive judgments about risk (Schütz, Wiedemann, & Gray, 2000). It is increasingly recognized that risk perception has real consequences on individuals’ feelings and behaviors that must be accounted for in risk-management frameworks (Lemyre et al., 2005). It can, for example, play a central role in shaping one’s adoption of preventive behavior (Loewenstein, Weber, Hsee, & Welch, 2001). Lerner and her colleagues found that Americans perceived their chance of being personally hurt in a terrorist attack to be 20.5% on average, and that heightened perceptions of terrorism threat subsequently predicted increased anxiety and preventive responses. They also found that fears surrounding terrorism may both elicit and arise from perceptions of control and uncertainty (Lerner, Gonzalez, Small, & Fischhoff, 2003). It is therefore important to understand the perception of the threat and its various aspects (Drabek, 1986; Nordin, Liden, Hansson, Rosenquist, & Berglund, 2002).

Perception of risk includes a cognitive evaluation of the degree of danger, which comprises an analytical and an emotional action (Loewenstein et al., 2001; Slovic, 2002) as well as reference to factors directly related to the risk itself, such as the real probability of victimization, lack of control, uncertainty, malicious intent, and so on (Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982). Nonetheless, the perception of risk also includes the subjective evaluation of the risk, which involves nonobjective variables such as intensification of the frequency of rare extreme events and beliefs regarding the causes of the threat (Kahneman et al., 1982; Short, 1984).

Perception of risk includes the perception of control over the risk, meaning people’s feeling of control over their environment allowing them to cope with external threats. Conversely, a situation can arise in which the external threat is perceived as uncontrollable, which causes paralyzing anxiety and a strong feeling of helplessness (Figley, 1986; Fischhoff, Gonzalez, Small, & Lerner, 2003; Seligman, 1975). Perception of risk also includes the perception of vulnerability to the risk, that is, the person’s belief as to the likelihood of becoming a victim, or the extent to which a person perceives himself or herself as vulnerable to risks (Fischhoff et al., 2003; Weinstein, 1993). The perception of vulnerability to a particular risk is influenced by the perception of control over this risk (Klar, Medding, & Sarel, 1996; Slovic, 2000). Understanding the ways in which people perceive their vulnerability to the risk of terrorism and the manner in which they try to protect themselves and their loved ones against this risk is important both theoretically and practically (Klar et al., 2002). This is due to the assumption that the perception of vulnerability is one of the cognitive variables which is related to motivations, intentions, and the behavior of taking care to reduce vulnerability, especially in the context of terrorism (Kirschenbaum, 2006; Klar et al., 2002).

Feelings of perfect nonvulnerability can exist in controllable events with absolute confidence in protection against serious events and disasters (Harris, 1996). However, during a profound and ongoing disaster, such as terrorism, when the event affects a broader circle than the victims themselves, the surreal perception of the events vaporizes the optimism, and the illusion of feeling absolutely safe and even comparative security disappears. The perception that “this will not happen to me” is replaced by “when will this happen to me” (Klar et al., 2002; Silver, Holman, McIntosh, Poulin, & Gil-Rivas, 2002). The aim of the present study was to examine the complexity of the manner in which the individual perceives the threat of terrorism from his or her personal viewpoint.

Method

Participants

The study included 40 participants, 22 women and 18 men. The participants’ ages ranged from 23 to 42. Of the participants, 30 were single and 10 were married. Nine were parents to children. The participants lived in different regions in Israel. Thirty-three lived in the center of Israel and seven lived in northern Israel. Eight of the participants were directly exposed to a terrorist attack and 18 knew a friend or acquaintance who was exposed to such an attack. The participants who were exposed to a terrorist attack witnessed the attack firsthand, but from far enough away to refrain from being physically involved or in danger.

Measure

The study was based on a qualitative paradigm and used semistructured in-depth interviews. The qualitative approach emphasizes subjectivity and the way people understand, reconstruct, analyze, and interpret their emotional world (Denzin, 1995), while the researcher maintains an objective stance toward the studied phenomenon (Lincoln & Guba, 2000).

The participants were told that the aim of the study is to investigate the manner in which they perceive the threat of terrorism. During the interview, questions were asked as follows: What do you feel when there are terrorist attacks? How do you describe the state of terrorism? What feelings do you feel during this period? What do you do when there is a terrorist attack? How does this period influence you? Analysis of the discourse was carried out according to the “Grounded Theory” (Strauss & Corbin, 1997), which emphasizes the creation of a theory out of field collected data. This theory is a method used to structure and concretize a theory on various issues associated with people’s lives (Strauss & Corbin, 1997), based on the analytical categories that emerge from the data analysis. Unlike ethnographic or phenomenological methods, Grounded Theory consists of systematic guidelines for collecting and analyzing qualitative data, later used to construct theories through categorical analyzing. This helps to understand the complexity of human perception, allowing researchers to construct a theory that is “grounded” in their data (Charmaz, 2014; Strauss & Corbin, 1997).

Procedure

The participants were selected based on the principles of purposive sampling, whereby participants are selected because of some characteristic and because they can teach us about the studied phenomenon (Patton, 1990). Purposive sampling tends to involve the snowballing method of targeting participants, where a number of participants are approached and later lead the researcher to additional participants, as was the case in the present study.

Since risk perception differentiates between people based on their age, place of residence (Rhodes & Pivik, 2011), and gender (Flynn, Slovic, & Mertz, 1994), and in light of the fact that the present study aims to explore how terrorism is perceived, both men and women from an adult age group were selected. Participants were also targeted from both northern and central Israel—areas in which many terrorist attacks were carried out at that time. The level of exposure to terrorism is also significant and may have an impact, and therefore the researcher ensured that the sample contain participants with a varying degree of exposure to terrorism (direct, indirect, and none). The sample also contained both parents and childless participants, as this attribute also has an impact on how a person perceives terrorism. The researcher interviewed prospective participants, seeking stories that are both similar and opposing, and only once a comprehensive picture of the studied phenomenon was obtained, was the final number—40 participants—determined.

The participants were told that the purpose of the study was to examine the way they perceive the threat of terrorism and were asked for their consent to take part in the study. There was no past acquaintance between the interviewers and the interviewees. The participants were told that the interviews would be anonymous and confidential, and would be used solely for the purpose of the study. The participants were given pseudonyms to guarantee anonymity. Prior to the interview, the participants gave their consent for the conversation to be recorded. Before and during interviews, the participants were given the opportunity to voice disturbing thoughts or to stop the interview at any point if and when the emotional burden became unbearable. The researcher remained in the room for some time after each interview, to ensure that the participant’s emotional state was stable.

In addition, written information was provided about organizations that provide therapy and support, and the interviewer’s telephone number was given in case the parents wanted to continue the conversation.

At the beginning of each interview, the participants were asked to introduce themselves in any way they saw fit. Most began by describing personal details such as name, age, and occupation. This was followed by a description of their experience and feelings due to the ongoing terrorism. Data were collected in 2004, a year in which many terrorist attacks took place, among them suicide bombings, shootings, car bombs, and incidents in which demolition charges and hand grenades were thrown at Israeli citizens. According to the Israeli Security Agency (2015), terrorist attacks in Israel that year killed 117 people and injured 663.

The study was approved by the university’s Ethics Committee.

Data Analysis

Data collection, analysis, and transcription were conducted by the researcher. Quotes were written as phrased by the participants. The data analysis in the present study was performed according to a thematic analysis in which the researcher focused on the issues that emerged from the participants’ stories. Such an analysis enables a look at human experience and reflects participants’ emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and opinions. The data analysis is therefore a process of arranging and structuring the information collected with the aim of interpreting it and understanding its meanings (Shkedi, 2003). Categorization is based on screening and performed by breaking the data down to understand its meaning. This classification is based on recurring themes or ones underscored by the participants. This process included comparing the different parts of the information to look for similarities, differences, and connections between them.

The first stage of the analysis is called the open coding phase. This is when the issues emerging from the data are revealed to the researcher, who begins a process of combining them until the full picture is formed during the next stages (Corbin & Strauss, 2014). At this phase, each interview was coded, and open coding performed. The analysis unit was a sentence or paragraph-long statement that provided context for what the participants were saying, for instance, “capability to cope with a terrorism situation,” “terrorism as unwatchable,” “terrorism as the unknown,” “a sense of true danger,” “a sense of ongoing fear,” “dreaming of terrorism.” The second stage of the analysis is called the axial coding phase, in which each interview was coded separately. During this phase, categories that emerged in the previous one were combined and improved. They were also more accurately defined using a title that expresses the central theme of several combined categories (Corbin & Strauss, 2014). Examples of categories: “loss of control,” “helplessness,” “potential victimization,” “circles of vulnerability,” “feeling of fear,” “feeling of stress.” The third stage of the analysis, the focused or selective coding phase, aims to strengthen the internal validity of the findings by adding to the amount of data belonging to each category, that is, accumulating data coded according to the existing categories. First, each interview was coded separately and searched for similarities and differences that may link the various interviews to the studied issue. During this process, the researcher arranges the main category and subcategories, the latter constituting the former’s characteristics (Corbin & Strauss, 2014). As a result of the focused coding, the following key categories were selected: “perception of control,” “perception of vulnerability,” and “perception of fear of terrorism.” These three constitute the parts comprising the study findings, as shown below.

To ensure reliability, all the study data, including all quotes, categories, and subcategories, were given to two colleagues—qualitative researchers who specialize in the field of trauma, loss and qualitative paradigm—who were asked to examine the adequacy between the quotes and categories formed. This process allowed for the categories and subcategories to be revisited and restructured. An external review helps examine a study’s internal validity (Merriam, 1998).

Findings

Analysis of the participants’ discourse exposed a theme showing the manner in which they perceive the threat of terrorism. This theme includes several motifs indicating that the threat of terrorism is composed of several components that influence the manner in which individuals perceive and interpret the risk of terrorism. Results of the qualitative analysis indicate that the components of the perception of terrorism which construct the evaluation and subjective perception of the participants are as follows: (a) perception of control, which is a feeling of loss of control; (b) perception of vulnerability to the threat, comprising of a feeling of vulnerability to terrorism versus a feeling of lack of vulnerability and a feeling of personal security; and (c) perception of fear of terrorism, which includes responses of fear, anxiety, a feeling of danger, and emotional distress. (See Table 1 for demographic differences).

Table 1.

Demographic Table of Perception.

	Perception of Control		Perception of Vulnerability		Perception of Fear of Terrorism
	Loss of Control	Helplessness	Potential Victimization	Circles of Vulnerability	Feeling of Fear	Feeling of Stress
Men	✓	✓	Few men	Few men	Few men	×
Women	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Parents	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Not a parent	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Location: South Israel	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Location: Central Israel	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Age (23-42)	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Was exposed	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Was not exposed	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓

Note. ✓ = reported; × = was not reported.

Perception of Control

Loss of control

The majority of the participants described a feeling of lack of control over the situation. They explained that the unique characteristics of terrorism, as they describe them, make it hard for them to feel control over the threat:

I don’t think there’s anything you can do, it can happen anywhere, it could be at a Bar Mitzvah that a terrorist walks in and shoots people and it can be on the bus and it can be on the street when you’re standing at a stoplight and a terrorist comes along and shoots you, I think terrorism is an unavoidable situation. (Liran)

“The vagueness of the threat and the cloud of uncertainty that envelops it . . . .” As Liran described terrorism made her feel like:

It doesn’t matter what I do, I can still get hurt or die. It’s like when they mix the balls in the lottery draw, and each time they take one ball out, that’s how I see it, I wish it won’t be me, I mean not me personally or anyone I know, I wish it won’t be us. Everywhere it happens that’s how I see it—a ball is taken out and you say “I wish it won’t be us, don’t let it be anything to do with me” because it’s just like the lottery and you really have no control over it and every time it touches someone else, every time another ball is taken out and it’s scary, it’s really scary.

Yaron adds that terrorism manages to surprise and deceive us:

You can’t avoid it, it’s impossible, you can walk along and find yourself in a terrorism scene without knowing whether [the attack] will happen in a few seconds or minutes. I think terrorism manages to surprise and deceive us.

Yael goes one step further and characterizes terrorism as invincible:

I feel there is nothing I can do to stop it, it is simply invincible.

The participants stressed the impossibility of predicting the identity of the terrorist (since his identity changes all the time: man, woman, child, old person, soldier, etc.), and the uncertainty as to the place and time of the terrorist attack. As Tali said,

It can happen during the day and during the night, and in places where you least expect them . . . You do not know where it will come and when it will come.

Nira described it as “The experience of the boom on seven”:

In Jerusalem, the terrorist attacks were in sequences of blasts on seven. You get carried away by this. It happened according to the number of the bus line 1, 2, 3, . . . 6, boom, there are many boom, booms until 21.

Thus, a feeling of an uncontrollable threat is created, where self-protection and coping seem impossible. Nir also illustrates the unknown and unexpected:

You do not know where it will come from and when it will come. They surprise us every time. As a person who knows these things personally. Once, when they said terrorist you expected someone with the look of a terrorist, with a stubble, who screams Allah is great and runs with a knife in his hands like a person possessed. Today it is women, children, adults, and in any possible way you could think of . . . Like the terrorist attack that took place at the Ashdod harbor, where the terrorist hid in the (ship’s) hull. You don’t know where to expect it.

Helplessness

The discourse among some of the participants also exposed feelings that expressed helplessness. Kinneret said that even in a situation in which she suspects a potential terrorist, that is, even when there is a real threat to her life, she feels that there is nothing she can do:

A terrorist attack is a bizarre death. It is not something that you could mistake or prevent. When you are on the road you say that you cut someone off or you drove too fast and that is why such and such can happen to you. You can drive slower. The moment that you can prevent the situation, you can do it. But when you have no way of preventing it you are really helpless. For example, I often found myself standing next to a person who looks really suspicious, like a terrorist, and I said to myself, so what? Tell the bus driver to be careful and grab him? What can you do?

Perception of Vulnerability to the Threat

In addition to the perception of control, the participants expressed their personal vulnerability and the vulnerability of their loved ones.

Potential victimization

The participants’ perception of the threat of terrorism as “ongoing,” as “harming Jews and Arabs, religious and non-religious, men and women, without distinction,” “that strikes during the day or at night, somewhere else every time” suggest a feeling of “potential victimization.” The interviews show that the feeling of vulnerability was experienced mainly by the women participants. The women described a feeling of real and imminent danger, and even a feeling of potential victimization in future terrorist attacks. They experienced the danger as real and as drawing near to them and to their loved ones. An example for this can be seen in Tali’s description of feeling that a terrorist attack is imminent:

The explosion occurred just a minute before I arrived at the Central Bus Station, and I arrive there every day . . . That is, tomorrow I could also be injured, a real potential victim . . . Once, I missed a terrorist attack. I came home from the army, got on a bus at the Tel-Aviv train station. I got off the train and on bus number 561, 567, I don’t remember which. My mother called me maybe five minutes afterwards in hysterics to see where I was. She said there has been a terrorist attack at the station which I had left just five minutes earlier. This means that if I had been delayed in the rest rooms or something like that, who knows what would have happened. And then I started thinking about what would have happened if.

Two terrorist attacks took place near Kinneret’s home. She described the manner in which the threat became real and tangible for her, in addition to the feeling of the imminence of terrorism:

Look, it turned out that in my neighborhood there were several terrorist attacks. Dizengoff Street is very close to my home. The terrorist attack at the Apropo Restaurant is near the elementary school which I attended and I remember this attack specifically because it was on a Friday and my sister and I were in the City Park which is very close to it and we heard the terrible explosion. It was really very close to home and this gave me a shock and I felt that it really gave me a jolt. Because, you know, this is such a quiet neighborhood. It is in the center of the city, but I did not think that it would come so close to home and specifically, to this street which is not such a crowded area and to my elementary school next to it. This really comes home to you and you begin to realize that their reach is everywhere and you too.

It can be seen that terrorism has succeeded in penetrating Kinneret’s territory. Her feeling of security, calmness, and tranquility were replaced by feelings of insecurity and real and tangible danger.

Circles of vulnerability

The female participants’ perception of vulnerability was expressed through the motif of “circles of vulnerability” (see Figure 1). Women perceive themselves and the people close to them as belonging to different “circles of vulnerability,” which represent different levels of vulnerability. A gradual shift exists in the words of the following female participants between different “circles of vulnerability.” The shift is from an external circle (which represents low level of threat) and to an internal circle (which represent higher vulnerability levels), and this happens when the threat becomes more real and tangible:

Initially, this was remote. In the beginning, they said that there was no chance that a terrorist attack would take place in Haifa, the city I live in, because this was relatively far away. And then it also came to Haifa. The terrorist attacks are drawing near and it is frightening that they will come even closer . . . You hear this around you. When there was an attack on a bus in Haifa, we had someone there who studied in our class, and another two from the school who studied in lower classes. This reaches you slowly, until a good friend of mine was injured in the terrorist attack in Haifa in “Mike’s Place.” (Liran)

It comes really close to you, to your home and to your friends and family. You say to yourself, wow, they really reach everywhere . . . I remember that in the terrorist attack in Kfar Sava, my friend was injured. He sat in the back of the bus and something fell to the floor. He bent down to pick it up and then the terrorist blew himself up. My friend therefore just got hit from the glass. My brother was in the same bus and luckily he got off one stop before the attack, so it was very close. There were several attacks near Kfar Sava. One took place at a synagogue, one at the mall, and one at a bus stop. You keep getting closer to it and in the end you get injured. (Dana)

Figure 1.

Circles of vulnerability.

The feeling that the circle of vulnerability is drawing nearer to the individual and to his or her surroundings was also expressed by some of the female participants in a real morbid feeling:

You leave the house to work in the morning and are not sure that you will come back. Not because of a traffic accident which is something else entirely, and not because you committed suicide or did something bad or that you will be murdered by the mob or be robbed as in other countries, such as the US. This is the fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is simply that you will not come home because you will be killed in a terrorist attack. (Nira)

The men did not express feelings of real and imminent death. It seems they felt a sense of danger only during periods in which terrorist attacks were frequent. Thus, their feeling of danger depended on the number of terrorist attacks. Contrary to the women participants who described a constant feeling of tangible danger, and even a feeling of certain danger and death, some of the men said that during periods when there were fewer terrorist attacks they think about it less. There were some men who stressed that they perceive terrorism as distant from them and their lives. This can be seen, for example, from the following participants:

I don’t take this into account. It seems to me to be something distant, which I never take into account when I go out or at all. (Nir)

Not only does Yoni not feel danger or vulnerability, he even emphasizes the sense of security he is feeling:

I feel safe everywhere, no matter where I am, whether it’s an open space or a closed one or on the bus, the sense of security is everywhere. Half of the attacks happen in Jerusalem and when I go there it doesn’t feel like a terrorist attack is about to take place. (Yoni)

As Ami describes it, one can even see the reverse picture to the circles of vulnerability depicted by the women. Ami describes terrorism as getting further away from him:

When I plan to spend time in a crowded place I don’t think “what if something happens to me?” I think there are others who are more susceptible to terrorism, I don’t feel exposed or vulnerable, it’s not something that comes near me, but rather seems to be getting further away from me. (Ami)

Perception of Fear of Terrorism

Feelings of fear

Another component that was raised in the participants’ discourse dealt with feelings of fear related to terrorism. It appears that even participants who did not experience a terrorist attack lived in a shadow of fear and were affected by it. A large part of the women participants indicated emotional and cognitive responses similar to those of a person who was exposed to trauma. These include responses of fear, anxiety, and feelings of stress which are accompanied by a feeling of real danger. The feeling of constant fear can be seen, for example, in Yaffa’s response:

I feel that I am afraid all the time. The fact that I am not on a bus does not mean that I cannot be injured by another bus that stands near me or by some other terrorist who will decide to open fire. This does not stop me from being injured. The fear is always there, everywhere, even where you say well . . . what can I do? . . . I always make sure that the windows are closed at night or when leaving the house we close everything. Or, if I am alone at home, then everything must be closed, and this is not so as not to be burglarized, but rather because terrorist attacks are not necessarily mass attacks. So there is a feeling of loss of security in your own home as well, because there were cases, and it seems that nobody lives in a fortress.

The participants raised motifs of harm to their emotional well-being, which is expressed in fears and in the constant thought that runs through the individual’s head, of possibly becoming the next victim. Yael and Tamar illustrate a feeling of inner disquiet, stress, and pressure:

This is something that plays in my head all the time. When I am waiting for the bus, when I get on the bus, and everywhere. This situation has greatly influenced my daily life, generally, in my behavior and my personality. I am stressed twenty-four hours a day. Even if you are not aware of this, it somehow changes you from within and turns you into a more nervous person. People become more edgy towards each other. Terrorist attacks are unstable in nature. There are “hot” and “cold” periods and this causes people to also look like that. This causes changes in many ways. It is too stressful and emotionally charged. People are not relaxed and are not stable and because this is a very small country, everything is much more intense and significant. It is not right that I have to undergo a body search and stand in line every time I go to a shopping center, and if there are many people then not to stand too close. These are crazy things. You are used to it because it is your life, but when you really live somewhere else where such a situation does not exist then you see how normal people are supposed to live and they do not live like this all the time. (Yael)

Without a doubt this period of terrorism over the last six years is very hard. You look at life in a very fragile way, very uncertain in general, I mean, you leave your house to go to work in the morning and you’re not sure you’ll return, and not because of a road accident or because you may stumble into an act of murder by the mob or a robbery like in other countries. It’s the fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, it’s simply that you won’t come home because you’ll die in some terrorist attack. I find myself thinking about it all the time, it can drive you crazy, all these thoughts, even when I’m stuck in traffic and I’m thinking “it really isn’t all that complicated to carry out a terrorist attack here when everyone’s stuck in traffic,” and it doesn’t have to be an exploding car, it can be something else. (Tamar)

The discourse disclosed by the participants expresses a feeling of stress and emotional chaos, feelings which indicate an anomaly in the web of senses through which emotional perception takes place. The participants regard almost all everyday situations as having a potential for a terrorist attack, whether this is by traveling on a bus full of people or by driving in a car next to a bus. As mentioned above most of the participants who expressed feelings of fear were women. This can be seen from the sayings of Yifat and Orit, who used the word “fear” explicitly:

Sometimes there are warnings on the radio for Tel-Aviv and when there were roadblocks I wouldn’t travel, because this is very frightening . . . The fear accompanies us always. (Yifat)

It is a phobia to get on a bus and look to see whether somebody looks suspicious and whether there is a bag that does not belong to anyone. Then yes, there is the fear. (Orit)

In contradistinction, only a minority of the men expressed feelings of fear, whereas most of them did not explicitly express such feelings. However, undercurrents of motifs that express fear and danger could be observed. Most of the men tended not to use emotional terminology. They used terms such as disquiet and a sense of vigilance or that they think about this. Raz, Tomer and Itay demonstrate this:

For example, when I wanted to travel to the Sinai before there were the terrorist attacks, this crossed my mind, and when I wanted to travel to Thailand then I also thought about it . . . For example if I am found in a city such as Jerusalem or Kfar Saba then I think about it more. (Raz)

Once in a while there’s hope for quiet, but it passes quickly, these periods, there’s a terrorist attack here and a terrorist attack there, it’s true that the terrorist attack in Sinai (an attack that took place in Egypt at a place where young Israelis like to vacation) broke this because it was outside the state, but it was only Israelis, and then there was the terrorist attack at the Carmel Market (Tel Aviv) and in Jerusalem. And aside from the terrorist attacks, in the north too, Hezbollah is always trying to do something, there’s always something, if no one is killed then someone is injured or there are attempts, it certainly causes a sense of mental disquiet. (Tomer)

There are many terrorist attacks so the way I do it today I am much more alert, much more vigil, I try to be alert about people, objects, I don’t trust anyone, I already naturally canvas the way security people do. The matter of canvassing, of being sensitive, examining people from head to toe, and that’s it, I think that’s totally natural behavior in light of the situation. (Itay)

They also say that they do not feel real fear. As reported by the following participants:

Real fear? I do not have real fear because if I were to be afraid all the time I would not travel by bus and would not go to the university and would not come home and would not go out and would not do anything. (Ami)

There’s no paranoia or fear, it doesn’t scare me. (Israel)

There’s no fear or anything like that. It doesn’t even cross my mind, I live a normal life. (Ariel)

Feelings of stress

The participants also revealed motifs that indicate mental distress. They explained that the sights seen in the media caused them to have recurring dreams and thoughts. For example, according to Yaffa and Mina:

I would remain crying, I was shocked. I took it very hard. This began for me when Rabin (the former prime minister of Israel) was assassinated, then I began to be more sensitive. Then the terrorist attacks began. This was terribly hard for me. I think about this and cannot disengage myself and it goes through my head and I constantly reconstruct the things and sights shown on television . . . During periods of recurring terrorist attacks, I would dream that I was injured or that something is happening or that I know of someone to whom it happened. It does not go unnoticed. Rather, it permeates inside and reappears anew every time. (Yaffa)

During times that are more loaded with terrorism, I sometimes dream of myself getting injured or that something happens or that I know of something that happened, it penetrates somewhere, like, in the subconscious, it comes even if outwardly you show that you’re not afraid, I’m one hundred percent certain that one hundred percent of people have this fear of terrorism harboring inside them or that the person himself will get hurt or that someone else they know will get hurt because there’s no such thing not to be afraid, and even if someone declares “what do I care?” and “I go wherever I want” so, it’s true, I do that too, but I don’t deny the fear. (Mina)

Discussion

This study deals in the manner in which the participants perceive the threat of terrorism and has identified the variables comprising this perception. The contents of the participants’ discourse revealed that the perception of terrorism is composed of three main factors: (a) Perception of control, which is a feeling of loss of control and helplessness due to uncertainty, inability to predict threats, and the vagueness of the threat; (b) Perception of vulnerability to the threat, such as a feeling of vulnerability to and potential victimization by terrorism; (c) Perception of fear of terrorism that includes responses of fear, anxiety, feeling of danger, and emotional distress (see Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Model of the perception of the threat of terrorism.

The perception of control emerged from most of the interviews, as participants described a lack of control and even feeling helpless. The unique characteristics of the threat, including its being unpredictable, unfamiliar, and uncertain, appears to have increased the participants’ feeling of lack of control, as other studies have found (Lee, Dallaire, & Lemyre, 2009). They felt that because they cannot know the enemy or predict his plots, they lose their personal ability to cope with it. This finding is in agreement with previous studies (e.g., Dekel, 2004; Klar et al., 2002), which found that Israeli citizens perceive terrorist attacks and their consequences as beyond their personal control and do not believe that they are immune to the possibility of being injured by terrorism.

Studies have shown that perceived control is important, and that it affects mental aspects similarly to the effect of real control (Endler, Speer, Johnson, & Flett, 2000; Schwarzer, 2014). Studies which examined situations of terrorism and stress situations in general found that people who felt in control under a threat coped better and were less influenced by the stress factors than those who felt a lack of control. Events that are perceived as uncontrollable are more likely to lead to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and a link was found between the individual’s feeling of control and their feeling of mental and physical well-being (Ferguson & Goodwin, 2010; Gidron, Kaplan, Velt, & Shalem, 2004; Hall, Chipperfield, Perry, Ruthig, & Goetz, 2006).

According to the participants’ discourse, the perception of the threat of terrorism is influenced not only by the perception of control that they have over the threat but also by the manner in which they perceive their personal vulnerability and the vulnerability of their loved ones. The narrative of the perception of vulnerability, which is expressed in a feeling of potential victimization by threats of terrorism and in a feeling that they are found within “circles of vulnerability,” was found to be a narrative influenced by gender. Most of the women perceived the threat of terrorism as composed of “circles of vulnerability,” which affect their chances of becoming victims, whereas the men did not express a feeling of real and imminent danger at all. The women regarded themselves and their loved ones as being in the center of the circle of vulnerability, and therefore experienced the threat of terrorism not as an essentially vague threat, but rather as real, and as such concealing an ongoing existential danger. They described a process in which the longer the threat continues, the more they perceive themselves and their loved ones as moving from an outer circle that represents a low level of threat to the inner circle which expresses a high level of vulnerability to the threat. Thus, the longer the threat persisted, the more real it became for them. The women evaluated the threat of terrorism as threatening, and as endangering not only themselves, but also their love ones. Thus, their perception of risk is generalized to more people compared to the men, who perceive the threat of terrorism in one dimension, as a threat that is relevant only for them. They did not tend to include other people in their perception of the threat, and their perception of the risk is therefore lower than that of the women.

Another interesting difference that was found between men and women is the difference in the perception of fear of terrorism. Based on the interviews, it is difficult to point to different levels of fear among men and women. However, the men expressed their feelings differently from women. The men tended to use cognitive and situational concepts such as “alertness” or “emotional disquiet” for describing their situation, and tried not to use emotional expressions such as fear. In contrast, women exposed their feelings of fear and stress which are the emotional aspects of their perception of fear.

The differences in the response may stem from differences in social norms which are known in the professional literature, where men are “coached” not to express feelings of stress and fear in response to the threat of terrorism and to control their feelings and thoughts (Kimhi & Shamai, 2006). In addition, they are taught to appreciate physical abilities such as fighting, protecting others and being able to escape. Men may therefore have difficulties in admitting, even to themselves, that they are not good enough as protectors, and it is possible that this leads them to prefer not to report on fear. The women’s social role, on the other hand, as caring and cultivating the family enables them to expose the feelings of fear, which they experience (Bateman & Edwards, 2002; Davidson & Freudenburg, 1996).

The narrative that deals in the perception of fear of terrorism expresses a feeling of stress. This is a narrative that was mainly expressed by the women. They articulated feelings of stress, constant fear and even responses which may indicate mental distress, such as reconstruction of the sights to which they were exposed through the television, troublesome dreams, and thoughts.

It is not surprising that the perception of vulnerability and the feeling of fear are higher among the women than among the men, because in other studies, it was also found that women are more vulnerable and demonstrate higher levels of negative psychological responses to traumatic events in general (Breslau, 2001; Laufer & Shechory, 2008; Olff, Langeland, Draijer, & Gersons, 2007), and to terrorism in particular (Bleich, Gelkopf, & Solomon, 2003; Cohen-Louck & Ben-David, 2017; Zeidner, 2007). Prior studies that indicated a difference in the perception of risk between men and women actually found that women feel an emotional burden during periods of stress such as wars and terrorism, and attributed this burden to the heavy weight of their responsibility for their children under extreme and unfamiliar circumstances, and to their tendency to be more sensitive than men to the needs and feelings of those around them (Ben-David & Cohen-Louck, 2010; Dekel, 2004; Shechory-Bitton, 2014). Women are not only more sensitive to risk, but they also perceive certain situations as more dangerous. Furthermore, the present study and others show that men tend to perceive risk personally, in that for them vulnerability is a personal and private feeling, whereas women evaluate risk to include not only themselves but also environmental and circular aspects (Smith, Perrin, Yule, & Rabe-Hesketh, 2001). Women’s perception of risk is generalized to many more people than the men’s. This may be why they suffer from a higher level of fear of terrorism. It is possible that women do not fear more than men, but rather fear for more people.

The present study indicates that the threat of terrorism is composed of several factors, where men and women perceive terrorism differently. The findings of this study help gain a better understanding as to how people perceive the threat of terrorism. The findings also enable an understanding of the complexity of living under ongoing terrorism threats and may assist in understanding how citizens cope with and adjust to this threat. It appears that although only a small part of participants were objectively exposed to terrorism, they all expressed their subjective perception of that threat and in case there is a need in treatment it should be appropriate and compatible with the individual’s perception.

Limitations and Further Research

This study used a small sample size which is an appropriate size for qualitative research, especially for learning about perception. The number of participants was only determined after a comprehensive picture of the studied phenomena was obtained. However, the findings cannot be generalized to the general population. In addition, the age group included in the study is relatively narrow, and despite the attempt to reach older participants, older age groups are not sufficiently represented. The age group should therefore be expanded in a follow-up study.

Nevertheless, this study may have uncovered a certain phenomenon or frame of reference. The knowledge acquired in this study might be used as a basis for developing a measurement instrument, such as a structured questionnaire, that might be used in studying the phenomenon with a large sample. Follow-up research using quantitative research should examine the relationship between the way people perceive terrorism and different psychological symptoms such as posttraumatic stress or posttraumatic growth and well-being.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

Keren Cohen-Louck, PhD, is a lecturer in the Department of Criminology at Ariel University, Israel. Her main research interests are terrorism- the psychological implications and coping with terrorism and the terrorists characteristics.

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