Fear were, in order: terrorist attacks, spiders, death, failure, war, criminal or gang violence, being alone, the future, and nuclear war. In an estimate of what people fear the most, book author Bill Tancer analyzed the most frequent online queries that involved the phrase, "fear of..." following the assumption that people tend to seek information on the issues that concern them the most. His top ten list of fears published 2008 consisted of flying, heights, clowns, intimacy, death, rejection, people, snakes, failure, and driving. According to surveys, some of the most common fears are of demons and ghosts, the existence of
Fear appeal process model (EPPM) is a theory that explains how cognitive and emotional mechanisms trigger distinct motivational and coping responses such as fear control and danger control responses. Fear control responses minimize fear through emotional coping that generates reassurance through denial of the threat or derogation of the persuasive message. Fear control is a process of denial that does not involve physically averting behavior to the perceived threat. Danger control is a cognitive process also oriented towards reducing the presented threat. However, unlike fear control response, danger control response may prompt protective action. Thus according to the extended parallel process model,