British survey done for hypnotherapist Joseph Clough found the top five phobias were heights, spiders, social situations, confined spaces and crowds. Flying was sixth, and speaking in public was seventh

Back on June 9, 2008  an article in the Daily Mail titled From Spiders to Open Spaces, the Fears That Make Millions of Us Shudder reported some results from a British survey of phobias in a sample of over a thousand people commissioned by celebrity hypnotherapist Joseph Clough. They mentioned that:

“The most prevalent is fear of heights, or acrophobia, affecting 28 per cent of those polled, followed by arachnophobia, or fear of spiders, which afflicts 22 per cent."

But, they didn’t mention percentages for the rest of the top ten. On June 15th, in an article titled Our Phobias Are Reaching New Heights, the Mirror News listed the top ten, but without showing percentages. 

A press release on June 1, 2010 at 10Yetis provided the percentages I’ve shown above in a bar chart. (Click on it to see a larger, clearer view). Dying was eighth, germs were ninth, strangers were tenth, and vomit was eleventh. But, they didn’t give a percentage for open spaces. Neither did other press coverage on the media page at Mr. Clough’s web site.   

This survey is another one to bring up when someone tells you that public speaking always comes first.