Alarmism
Alarmism is excessive or exaggerated alarm about a real or imagined threat, such as the increases in deaths from an infectious disease.[1] In the news media, alarmism can be a form of yellow journalism where reports sensationalise a story to exaggerate small risks.[2]
Alarmist personality
The alarmist person is subject to the cognitive distortion of catastrophizing – of always expecting the worst of possible futures.[3]
They may also be seeking to preserve feelings of omnipotence by generating anxiety and concern in others.[4]
False accusation
The charge of alarmism can of course be used to discredit a legitimate warning, as when Churchill was widely dismissed as an alarmist in the 1930s.[5]
See also
- 2009 flu pandemic
- 2012 phenomenon
- Cassandra complex
- Culture of fear (fear and anxiety in public discourse)
- False alarm
- Fear mongering
- Hypochondriasis (excessive fear of illness and physical harm)
- Mass hysteria (public fear in large populations)
- Moral panic (threat to societal values)
- Scaremongering (use of fear to influence the opinions)
- Sociology of disaster (a special branch of sociology)
- The Boy Who Cried Wolf (the fable of Aesop)
- The Sky Is Falling (the fable of Chicken Little)
References
- David Murray, Joel Schwartz (May 25, 2008), "Alarmism is an infectious disease", Society, 34 (4): 35–40, doi:10.1007/BF02912206
- "The Risk of Poor Coverage of Risk". Columbia Journalism Review.
- P. Gilbert, Overcoming Depression (1999) p. 88-90
- T. Pitt-Aikens, Loss of the Good Authority (1989) p. 99
- M. Makovsky, Churchill's Promised Land (2007) p. 140-1
External links
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