Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Public speaking isn’t still the number one fear - A pink Spoutly for Diane DiResta













My third Spoutly award for spouting nonsense goes to Diane DiResta for an October 10th blog post titled Change Your Words to Change Your Mind: Public Speaking Affirmations that began by claiming:  

“Public speaking is still the number one fear. This was originally publicized by the 1977 Book of Lists. It’s 2013 and I don’t need another list to prove the case. Fear of speaking tops the list of reasons people hire me.”

The Gallup poll reported on March 19, 2001 as Snakes Top List of Americans’ Fears is  an obvious refutation for her silly claim. A decade earlier there was an almost unknown set of lists from the Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study where public speaking ranked eighth or ninth.
 
On October 23, 2012 I blogged about how Either way you look at it, public speaking really is not our greatest fear. Public speaking only ranked first in six of nineteen surveys.

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