A quantified version of a discredited Mark Twain quotation about fear of public speaking

Mark Twain allegedly once said that:

“There are two types of speakers: those that are nervous and those that are liars.”

 

On May 12, 2020 I blogged about that quote in a post titled Did Mark Twain really say there were just nervous speakers or liars? Both Garson O’Toole and I found no evidence that Twain said it.

 

Matt Abrahams made up a quantified version of the quote. It is based on a statistic from an article by Michael T. Motley titled Taking the Terror Out of Talk which appeared on pages 46 to 49 of Psychology Today back in January 1988. Motley opened by stating:

  

“Surveys show that what American fear most – more than snakes, heights, disease, financial problems or even death – is speaking before a group. This is surprising in a way, since even a dreadful speech isn’t as serious as illness, poverty or the grave. Yet about 85 percent of us feel uncomfortably anxious speaking in public.”

 

The latest version by Matt Abrahams is an article at Insights by Stanford Business on May 7, 2020 titled High-Stakes Communication: how to manage anxiety speaking in front of others. He claimed:

 

“Research tells us that 85% of people feel nervous in high-stake speaking situations. And quite frankly, I think the other 15% are lying.”

 

An earlier version appears in an interview presented by Nick Morgan in a Public Words blog post on March 8, 2016 that discusses the third edition of Matt’s book, How to speak up without freaking out. That one says:  

 

“Research tells us that 85% of people feel anxious when speaking in front of others, and I fully believe that the other 15% are lying. We can always create a situation that can make confident presenters nervous.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Folks is business schools often analyze situations using 2x2 tables. As shown above, Matt’s claim means that all the 85% who say they fear speaking are telling the truth, but all the 15% who say they do not fear speaking are lying. That seems an unlikely dichotomy. Why would only those who fear speaking be telling the truth?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 As shown above, to me it seems more likely that perhaps 20% of people always are lying - because they are sociopaths. The totals still are 85% and 15%.