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Fear across America in a Post-9/11 World

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The Impact of 9/11 on Psychology and Education

Part of the book series: The Day that Changed Everything? ((911))

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Abstract

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, produced a cascade of detrimental effects that continue to have national and international ramifications. The impact of the attacks has insidiously and profoundly compromised multiple facets of life. The psychological effects of the attacks have been the focus of empirical research and scholarly consideration. The results, and their interpretation, shed light on the immediate impact of the terrorist attacks, as well as their continuing repercussions. From our perspective, the major enduring psychological changes affecting a large proportion of citizens of the United States as a result of the 9/11 attacks consist of changes in perception, both of themselves as individuals and of the country as a whole. Many Americans shifted from a perception of personal security to one of insecurity, from a perception of the country as invincible to a perception of the country as vulnerable, from a perception of war and carnage as something that happens somewhere else to a perception that war and carnage can happen here, and from a perception of a mostly predictable future to one of a future that is uncertain.1

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Notes

  1. Paul R. Kimmel and Chris E. Stout, Collateral Damage: The Psychological Consequences of America’s War on Terrorism (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Endicott College, USA

    Alice LoCicero (Associate Professor and chair of Social Science) & Allen J. Brown (Associate Professor of Psychology and Criminal lustice and Director of the Center on Workplace and School Violence)

  2. Massachusetts General Hospital and Instructor, Harvard Medical School, USA

    Samuel J. Sinclair (Staff Psychologist)

Authors
  1. Alice LoCicero
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  2. Allen J. Brown
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  3. Samuel J. Sinclair
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. White Plains, New York, USA

    Matthew J. Morgan

Copyright information

© 2009 Matthew J. Morgan

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LoCicero, A., Brown, A.J., Sinclair, S.J. (2009). Fear across America in a Post-9/11 World. In: Morgan, M.J. (eds) The Impact of 9/11 on Psychology and Education. The Day that Changed Everything?. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230101593_8

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