More and more potential air passengers are afraid to fly. For different reasons.
Dutch psychologist Lucas van Gerven of the University of Leiden studied the behavior of 5 people who find it difficult to board an aircraft. His conclusions: men are afraid because they are not driving a vehicle, which means they cannot control the situation if something goes wrong. Women, on the other hand, are afraid of captures, crashes – situations in which unpredictable and uncontrollable emotions appear.
Thus, men and women also differ in the reasons for fear. The very same fear of flying is becoming widespread in our time: according to the newspaper La Stampa, which published the results of van Gerwen’s research, 40% of our contemporaries experience it.