An American’s yearly chance of being killed by a terrorist attack sits at roughly 1 in 3.5 million. Yet, over 40 percent of Americans consistently believe that they or their family members are likely to be a terror victim. Can these inflated estimates of the risks of terrorism be brought closer to reality? With trillions of dollars spent on the “War on Terror,” this question is not just theoretically but practically important. In order to investigate, we use an experimental approach assessing whether people update their beliefs about terrorism when given factual information about the relative risks it presents. We find that public fear of terrorism and demand for countering it can be sharply reduced with better information, dropping essentially to pre-9/11 levels after the treatment and staying that way two weeks later. These results suggest that countering the indirect costs of terrorism may largely require providing more context and perspective.

美国人每年死于恐怖袭击的几率约为 350 万分之一。然而，超过 40% 的美国人始终认为他们或他们的家人可能是恐怖活动的受害者。这些对恐怖主义风险的夸大估计能否更接近现实？由于在“反恐战争”上花费了数万亿美元，这个问题不仅在理论上而且在实践上都很重要。为了进行调查，我们使用了一种实验方法来评估人们在获得有关恐怖主义所带来的相对风险的事实信息时是否会更新他们对恐怖主义的看法。我们发现，通过更好的信息，公众对恐怖主义的恐惧和打击恐怖主义的需求可以急剧减少，在治疗后基本上下降到 9/11 之前的水平，并在两周后保持这种状态。