The school writes they "broke the fears into four categories: personal fears, natural disasters, paranormal fears, and drivers of fear behavior."

Respondents then ranked each situation with a number from 1 (not afraid) to 4 (very afraid).

The top ten are below.

  • Corruption of government officials: 58.0%
  • Cyber-terrorism: 44.8%
  • Corporate tracking of personal information: 44.6%
  • Terrorist attacks: 44.4%
  • Government tracking of personal information: 41.4%
  • Bio-warfare: 40.9%
  • Identity theft: 39.6%
  • Economic collapse: 39.2%
  • Running out of money in the future: 37.4%
  • Credit-card fraud: 36.9%

Tornados, snakes, drunk drivers, aging and needles also made the list. Click here to see the entire list.

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Rose Scott signals as Closer Look goes on air in the WABE studio. An Atlanta resident left WABE a $3 million donation, a boost after WABE lost $1.9 million in annual funding from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting. (Ben Gray / AJC file)

Credit: Ben Gray