Is everyone afraid (or nervous or anxious) when speaking in public?

 

Of course not! But every so often someone tries to tell us that. For example, a blog post on January 18, 2021 by Peter George at PeterGeorgePublicSpeaking titled How to tame your nerves when speaking in public says that:

 

“Every presenter - novice and veteran alike - gets nervous when speaking in front of others.”    

 

Similarly, another blog post on January 30, 2021 by Maurice DeCastro at Mindful Presenter titled Public speaking: 5 ways mindfulness can help claims:

 

“Everyone feels some level of anxiety when presenting and speaking in public. Many people feel extremely nervous; even to the point of experiencing panic attacks.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s look at some survey results to check these claims. There is a Chapman Survey of American Fears which is done annually. You can find results for six of them from 2014 to 2019. They asked “How afraid are you of public speaking?” with a choice of four levels: Not Afraid, Slightly Afraid, Afraid, Very Afraid. Results for Not Afraid are shown above in a table. 34.1%  to 41.4% were Not Afraid, with a mean of 38.0%. So roughly two out of five adults had no fear whatsoever.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Results for Very Afraid are shown in another table. Just 8.8%  to 12.8% were Very Afraid, with a mean of 10.4 %. So roughly one out of ten adults were very afraid. That’s not very many people.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How did  both coaches, Mr. George and Mr. DeCastro, instead decide everyone was afraid? Perhaps it is due to selection bias. As shown above in a Venn diagram, if only some of those with a fear ask for coaching, then selection bias will lead to a false impression. (Way back on August 26, 2011 I blogged about Selection bias and presented a different Venn diagram). On September 19, 2019 I also blogged about how Fear of public speaking doesn’t happen to everybody - or all the time.