If you were thinking about referring to a fears survey published in the 1977 Book of Lists that really came from a Bruskin survey way back in 1973, please stop. Why not update to one from 2014?
On March 27, 2014 YouGov plc posted an article by Peter Moore mistitled Argh! Snakes! America’s Top Phobias Revealed with the results of their fears survey just done in the U.S. on a sample of about 1000 adults. Those people were asked about the following 13 different fearful situations:
Being in a closed space
Blood
Clowns
Crowds
Darkness
Dogs
Flying in an airplane
Heights
Mice
Needles and getting shots
Public speaking
Snakes
Spiders
They were asked if they were:
A) Not afraid at all
B) Not really afraid
C) A little afraid
D) Very afraid
Back in October 2011 I blogged about the clinical definition for What’s the difference between a fear and a phobia? A phobia calls for more than being very afraid, so these really just are fears.
Results for Very Afraid are shown above in a bar chart. (Click on it to see a larger, clearer view). The top five fears are:
1. Snakes (32%)
2. Heights (24%)
3. Public speaking (20%)
4. Spiders (19%)
5. Being closed in a small space (15%)
The most common fear, snakes, was consistent with the 2001 and 1998 Gallup Polls. Note that public speaking came in third, contradicting the often seen claim that it always ranks first. To see if a difference is significant, we need to compare it with the margin of error, which for Snakes (991 people) and 95% confidence is 3.1.%. (95% confidence means there is only a 1 in 20 chance that the difference would be this large).
Results for A Little Afraid are shown above in a second bar chart. Now the top five fears are:
1. Public speaking (36%)
2. Heights (33%)
3. Snakes (32%)
4. Spiders (29%)
5. Being closed in a small space (27%)
We also can add the percentages for A Little Afraid to those for Very Afraid to produce impressively large percentages for Total Afraid, as shown above in a third bar chart. The top five fears are:
1. Snakes (64%)
2. Heights (57%)
3. Public speaking (56%)
4. Spiders (48%)
5. Being closed in a small space (42%)
Note that for the total the order is the same as for Very Afraid, and fear of public speaking drops back to third place.
Detailed results also were provided in an Acrobat .pdf file which you can download. They tabulated them with the following categories:
Gender (Female or Male)
Party ID (Democrat, Independent, Republican)
Race, which should be ethnicity (Black, Hispanic, White)
Age (18-29, 30-44-45-64,65+)
Family Income $ thousands (Under 40, 40-80, 80-100, 100+)
Region (Northeast, Midwest, South, West)
Today I’ll just discuss those for gender. The sample for Snakes 517 women and 474 men. To see if a difference is significant, we need to compare it with the margin of error, which for 474 and 95% confidence is 4.5%.
For Very Afraid, women and men have rather different fears, as shown above in a fourth bar chart (sorted by rank for women). For women the top five fears are:
1. Snakes (44%)
2. Heights (30%)
3. Spiders (25%)
4. Public speaking (24%)
5. Being closed in a small space (20%)
For men the top five fears [and difference re women] are:
1. Heights (19%) [-11] and Snakes (19%) [-25]
2. Public speaking (16%) [-8]
3. Spiders (13%) [-12]
4. Being closed in a small space (10%) [-10 ] and Flying (10%) [-8]
5. Needles (10%) [-2]
Heights came in first, followed by snakes. Note that public speaking came fourth for women and second for men, contradicting the often seen claim that it always ranks first. At least twice as many women as men were scared of snakes, mice, and being closed in a small space. The difference of 2% for needles isn’t significant, but the other six are.
For A Little Afraid, women and men also have rather different fears, as shown above in a fifth bar chart. For women the top five fears are:
1. Public speaking (38%)
2. Spiders (33%)
3. Heights (32%)
4. Being closed in a small space (31%)
5. Snakes (28%)
For men the top five fears [and difference re women] are:
1. Snakes (35%) [-7]
2. Public speaking [-5] and Heights [1] a tie (33%)
3. Spiders (25%) [-8]
4. Being closed in a small space (24%) [-7 ]
5. Flying on an airplane (22%) [-3 ]
More men than women were afraid of snakes. At least twice as many women as men were scared of mice.
For Total Afraid, women and men again have rather different fears, as shown above in a sixth bar chart. For women the top five fears are:
1. Snakes (72%)
2. Heights and Public speaking tied (64%)
3. Spiders (58%)
4. Being closed in a small space (51%)
5. Mice (45%)
For men the top five fears [and difference re women] are:
1. Snakes (54% [-18]
2. Heights (52%) [-10]
3. Public speaking (49%) [-13]
4. Spiders (38%) [-20]
5. Being closed in a small space (34%) [-17 ]
At least twice as many women as men were scared of mice. The largest gender difference was for Spiders [-20%].
An image of a viper is from Wikimedia Commons.
No comments:
Post a Comment