Stranger Danger and the Epidemic of Fear On the Psychology of Recent Western Reactions to Others

This book explores the psychological dimensions of the fear of strangers and relates this to recent political and sociological developments. The book helps readers understand how our psychological tendencies and cultural habits work in relation to other individuals and other cultures. People do not live in the real world, but in their own representations of the real world. These representations are subject to a range of biases and fallacies and to a 'selective articulation' of certain facts and relationships. They make certain things stand out as self-evident and make other things disappear from view. Psychology and the social sciences have identified myriad ways through which our perceptions may become distorted, particularly our perceptions of different cultures. Some of our fears and irritations about different cultures, our frustrations, and aggression, turn out to be entirely disproportionate.