Handbook of Personal Security

The issue of psychological security within an increasingly unstable, interconnected world has become a defining challenge of modern individual and cultural life. The terror attacks of September 11, 2001 and the global financial crisis that unfolded in 2008 have intensified a sense of global and personal insecurity. This concern with psychological insecurity is reflected in contemporary culture, politics, the business world, consumer behavior, the arts, and other areas.

Within this context, the psychological sciences have kept pace, vigorously investigating these issues. This handbook features the latest theory and research examining cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses to security threats. It expands the conceptual focus from specific security threats to the broader range of antecedents, processes, and consequences of psychological security/insecurity.

The chapters are organized into four content areas: personal security in individual contexts, personal security in interpersonal contexts, personal security with cultural and health contexts, and interdisciplinary analyses of personal security. They represent a new and vibrant area of research unified by the common goal of understanding the factors that shape a sense of personal security. Together, these provocative chapters provide specific starting points that will shape future theory, policy, and practice on this dominant social issue of the 21st Century and, more importantly, offer opportunities to connect social and personality psychology to its scientific kin.

Patrick J. Carroll is currently an Associate Professor of Psychology at The Ohio State University-Lima. After receiving his PhD from the University of Florida, he was a National Institute of Mental Health Postdoctoral Fellow at The Ohio State University. His research focuses on the social revision of identity and the ultimate consequences of those identity revisions for mental health and well-being. In addition to his published articles, Carroll co-edited the 2010 Handbook of the Uncertain Self. He has also served as an editorial consultant for several journals as well as co-associate editor for a 2006 special issue of Basic and Applied Social Psychology on Security in the aftermath of 9/11.

Robert M. Arkin is a Professor of Psychology at The Ohio State University. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. His research concerns the self in social interaction, with special emphasis on the uncertain self (self-doubt; self-handicapping and overachievement; personal security and insecurity). He is also editor of the 2011 book Most Underappreciated: 50 Prominent Social Psychologists Describe Their Most Unloved Work, and Handbook of the Uncertain Self. In addition to his many articles, Arkin has served in an editing role for several important journals in his discipline, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and Basic and Applied Social Psychology.

Aaron L. Wichman is an Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences at Western Kentucky University. He earned his Ph.D and did post-doctoral work at the Ohio State University. His publications span a variety of topics, ranging from responses to psychological threat, uncertainty, and optimism and pessimism, to statistics. His research focuses on how people respond to different types of psychological threats and the many applications of the threat response/coping process.