And of, course, we are most afraid of things that would be terrible if they did happen, regardless of how unlikely or even virtually impossible they may be. This is another time when anxious people confuse the difference between stakes and odds. So if the stakes are high (like death, humiliation, or jail), then it really doesn’t seem to matter how unlikely it might be. And, of course, the media tend to focus on those events that are awful, dramatic, and traumatic.
