Spitting Bullets: Anger’s Long-Ignored Role in Reactions to Terror: An Examination of College Students’ Fear and Anger Responses to Terrorism

Abstract

This study seeks to capture the responses of regular Americans to explore if the role of anger in responses to terror attacks, with the goal of answering two related questions: 1) Is anger an essential emotion in public reactions to terror attacks? and 2) What are the ramifications of including anger in a model of public reactions to terrorism? This paper argues that many of the negative aspects of responses to terrorism come from the anger that terrorism invokes in victim populations. Anger elicits the desire for revenge in the victim population as well as distrust of the terrorists' co-ethnics. Angry responses tend to be quick and harsh; anger is rarely described as a particular or deliberate emotion.