Spouting Nonsense: a bogus statistic in an article saying to Communicate Like Your Life Depends On It

At Medium on December 10, 2019 there is a long article by Greg Cheek titled Communicate Like Your Life Depends On It. That title set a very high standard which he did not live up to. In his thirteenth section titled Stage Fright, Communication Apprehension, and Plain Nervousness Greg claimed:

“In a recent Gallup poll, Americans were asked to list their greatest fears. Forty percent identified speaking before a group as a top fear, exceeded only by fifty-one percent who said they were afraid of snakes. In comparison, only twenty-eight percent said they were afraid of dying. In most polls, speechmaking and speaking in front of a group of people is tops in provoking anxiety (stage fright).”

On March 24, 2018 I had blogged about how to be careful and Don’t trust superficial research. In that post I discussed another silly claim that the 2001 Gallup poll had asked about greatest fears – which it really had not. The Gallup poll was discussed in a well-known March 19, 2001 article by Geoffrey Brewer titled Snakes Top List of Americans’ Fears. It just asked about fears for 13 situations, and as shown above in a bar chart, dying never was mentioned. 2001 also was nineteen years ago, which is not exactly recent. So, where had that bogus 28% for dying come from? Not from Gallup, who last researched about fear of dying in a Mirror of America survey in November 1990 - and found 23%. 

On March 3, 2020 I blogged about how An obscure UK survey from 2005 found public speaking was the most common fear. The 28% for dying came from a YouGov survey as shown in a second bar chart. It was four years later than the Gallup poll, and done in Great Britain rather than the U.S. Obviously Mr. Cheek never bothered to check the Gallup article.

How had he gotten so confused? Greg apparently read secondhand or thirdhand information about a section from the first chapter in the tenth edition (2009) of Stephen E. Lucas’s book The Art of Public Speaking.  On page 9, he states that:

“If you are worrying about stage fright, you may feel better knowing that you are not alone. A 2001 Gallup Poll asked Americans to list their greatest fears. Forty percent identified speaking before a group as their top fear, exceeded only by the 51 percent who said they were afraid of snakes. A 2005 survey produced similar results, with 42 percent of respondents being terrified by the prospect of speaking in public. In comparison, only 28 percent said they were afraid of dying. (Reference #6).”

Reference #6 on page N-1 is to two different articles:

“Geoffrey Brewer, ‘Snakes Top List of Americans’ Fears,’ Gallup News Service, February 2001; Alex Blyth, ‘How to Get the Most Out of Public Speaking Training,’ Training Magazine (June 14, 2006), p.7”

For careless and superficial research resulting in his spouting nonsense, I award Greg Cheek a Spoutly.