The Paradox of Informational Regulation of Anxiety During the War in Ukraine: An Infodemiological Test of Phantom Anxiety Theory

The aim of this paper was to develop the theory of phantom anxiety. Phantom anxiety is conceptualized as a regulatory mechanism arising from evolutionary mismatch. The theory yields a paradoxical prediction: the fewer direct threat objects, the greater the relative share of “anxiety” labeling processes and information-seeking behaviors in the anxiety domain; conversely, the emergence of a genuine, tangible threat is expected to reduce the relative share of metalevel labeling when most exposed to threat.This prediction was tested using the full-scale invasion of Ukraine (February 24, 2022) as a natural quasi-experiment. Google Trends data were utilized as an indicator of collective attention and labeling practices. A nationwide spike in interest in the Topic “Anxiety” and a front–hinterland reorganization were observed, with the largest relative increase in regions characterized by the lowest exposure to military actions, and smallest in the most threatened regions (TV ≈ 0.25; ρ ≈ −0.54). The pre-invasion front–distance gradient was reversed after the invasion (Spearman’s ρ from −0.649 to 0.608). The pattern was event-like and absent for sixteen control topics; analyses did not support simple explanations involving substitution by instrumental topics, decreased interest in health, technical failures, or migration. The results align with a perspective in which phantom anxiety functions as a regulatory mechanism organizing attention and labeling under high-safety conditions, and they offer an interpretive framework for the “prosperity paradox”, i.e., persistence of a high demand for anxiety regulation despite limited conventional threats.