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 fear appeal is successful when the individual believes that the benefits in risk reduction outweigh the expected cost of acting. To assess the efficacy of a fear appeal respondents would be asked about the likelihood and severity of harmful outcomes of risk involved. The proposed severity is considered under the conditions of the current behavior and then under the alternative behavior. The efficacy is perceived through the effectiveness of the respondents answer. The subjective expected utility theory is unlike other theories of fear appeal because it does not describe the emotional process involved in fear reduction. It is only used