Fear of commitment of self-help, Harvard psychologist Deborah DePaulo has written books such as "Singleism" on the stigmatization of single people. The use of the term "fear" or "phobia" imparts an inherent linguistic bias. It recasts specific lifestyle decisions (such as bachelorhood vs. marriage, or a conscious decision to remain childfree by choice) implicitly as generalised, irrational phobias while failing to identify, describe or address an individual's specific motives. For instance, the men's rights movement, citing high divorce rates and expensive alimony and legal costs, would speak not in terms of "fear of commitment" but of "marriage strike" to reflect their position that
Fear of crime the risk of crime is real, a specific level of 'fear' might actually be 'functional': worry about crime might stimulate precaution which then makes people feel safer and lowers their risk of crime. The fear of crime is a very important feature in criminology. Perhaps the biggest influence on fear of crime is public concern about neighbourhood disorder, social cohesion and collective efficacy. The incidence and risk of crime has become linked with perceived problems of social stability, moral consensus, and the collective informal control processes that underpin the social order of a neighborhood. Such 'day-to-day' issues ('young people hanging