Study Reveals Fear and Insecurity as Predominant Emotions in Large Cities
The lack of public safety is a common problem in São Paulo and other large cities. Individually, insecurity causes a feeling of social fear, which influences not only social ties, but also the behavior of individuals who act in society. According to Maria Fernanda Tourinho Peres, professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at the School of Medicine (FM) and coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Studies on Violence and Health ( Lieves ), both at the University of São Paulo, fear of violence is caused by the invasion and disruption of people’s integrity, be it moral, psychological, physical, private, sexual or any other.
Social fears can differ according to the specificities of each individual, such as class, gender or ethnicity — one example that the expert brings up is precisely the issue of gender, in which women fear, in general, an invasion in the sexual sphere much more than men. As a consequence, she warns: “Living in violent environments, whether you are a direct or indirect victim of this violence, is associated with psychiatric and depressive conditions, in addition to anxiety, phobic and post-traumatic stress disorders. This is already consistent in the literature”.
Social consequences
Marcos César Alvarez, professor in the Department of Sociology at the School of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences (FFLCH) and coordinator of the Center for the Study of Violence ( NEV ), both at USP, explains that individual experience, combined with the geographic factors of each location, such as the urban environment and lack of infrastructure, changes the perception of fear. Despite this, he understands that people’s representations and perceptions also impact their feelings of insecurity, and not just their practical and concrete experience, which affects the relationship of trust in society.
The effects of social insecurity range from economic problems — many people stop buying more expensive products to avoid being exposed — to issues related to values and social relations. “A society like ours has long been accustomed to high levels of violence, crime and punishment. We live with this as if it were normal, so it seems to me that the essential thing is to denaturalize these issues a little, to think and act differently about it,” he says.
For him, the lack of security also prevents the guarantee of other social rights. This leads to a search for certain answers in criminal factions, instead of trusting and addressing their problems to state institutions and authorities, or even through social movements. The professor concludes: “Sometimes you don’t need to have concrete experience. If someone has heard everyone in their neighborhood say that it is impossible to trust the police and institutions, that it is very expensive to go to court and that it will lead to nothing, all of this will make up their experience. The idea of trust is fundamental, it is a central element for society to be able to address its problems and issues, and vice versa.”
In this social context, Alvarez states that better security indicators do not necessarily mean that the feeling of insecurity will decrease. “The responses may feed fear and insecurity rather than create a more peaceful society that is capable of minimally controlling violence,” he reports.
Behavior changes
Maria Fernanda states that some studies show that feelings of insecurity and fear produce adaptive strategies for behavioral changes in people. “Avoidance behaviors, for example, avoiding walking in certain places, leaving the house alone at certain times, looking at your cell phone on the street, changing your route in certain situations,” she adds.
The professor explains that these behavioral changes generate a relationship of distrust between individuals in society, since each person can be a potential aggressor. This reduces contact between people, compromises their social ties and community life, in addition to generating a distancing from community life and public spaces.