The article analyzes the psychological and socio-demographic factors that affect the understanding and experience of the terrorist threat. In empirical studies, held at the 698 residents of Saransk and Smolensk, shows: 1) women and young subjects, the indexes of experience a terrorist threat is higher than men and adults, and 2) predictors of the overall index are experiencing personal anxiety, machiavellianism and the ability to control the situation and 3) understanding the terrorist threat, disturbing the subjects focused on the emotional and irrational aspects of the attacks, and 4) Machiavellian people understand the attacks as universal manipulative ways to solve problems, achieve goals, 5) subjects with high ability to control behavior stress of planning the attacks and targeted actions of people involved in them.