Bursting the silly claim that 98% of people fear public speaking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On December 20, 2016 I blogged about Bursting the overblown claim that 95% of Americans fear public speaking at some level. On February 7, 2017 I also blogged about Bursting a hilariously overblown claim that 99% of the world fears public speaking. But, as shown above there are three others who relatively recently have claimed (without citing any sources) that 98% fear speaking, and only the remaining 2% do not.

 

At LinkedIn Pulse on March 22, 2017 Dawn Kiddie has an article titled Overcoming the worlds Number 1 Fear… which says:

 

“Most people (98% in fact), fear public speaking more than DEATH, making this the Number 1 Fear in the world, It even has a scary name name... Glossophobia!”

 

At Medium on June 25, 2019 Claire Burn has another article titled Effective Public speaking: Tips to Write a Spellbinding Presentation! which says:

 

“ ‘Public Speaking’. Two words that strike fear into the heart of 98% of the human population. And if you’re part of the 2% that are NOT uncomfortable with these words, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but… you’re probably a superhero.”

 

At Speaker Nation on October 22, 2020 there is an article titled 13 Steps to Successful Public Speaking which concludes by stating:

 

“We hope that by giving you this framework you can see that public speaking is not the fear-inducing, complicated monster that 98% of the population is terrified of, but rather a fun and powerful way to share ideas and spread your message around the world.” 

 

Even worse, in Eran Katz’s 2010 book titled Where Did Noah Park the Ark? Ancient memory techniques for remembering practically anything (which you can find at Google Books) he claims on page 180 that:

 

“During one of his comedy routines, Jerry Seinfeld talked about an American survey that asked people what they are most afraid of. Ninety-eight percent replied that public speaking scared them the most. The rest opted for death.”

 

But that quantified version of a well-known joke is complete rubbish. The original just has ranks. I had discussed it on March 2, 2013 in a blog post titled I read it in a book, so it must be true.

 

How does the claim that only 2% do not fear public speaking compare with real survey data on U.S. adults? Results from the annual Chapman Survey of American Fears were reported from 2014 to 2019. They asked about four levels of fear: Very Afraid, Afraid, Slightly Afraid, and Not Afraid. (A small percentage replied Don’t Know. Also, for 2014 they asked similarly about Somewhat Afraid rather than Slightly Afraid). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mean percentages from those six surveys are shown above in a bar chart. Just 10.4% were Very Afraid, 16.1% were Afraid, and 33.9% were Slightly Afraid. 38% were Not Afraid, which is nineteen times larger than the claimed 2% discussed above. Note that in their press releases Chapman reported just the sum for Very Afraid plus Afraid, which has a mean of 26.5% and is 3.7 times less than the claimed 98%. And, even if we add the 33.9% for Slightly Afraid the grand mean for that Sum of All Fears is only 60.4%, or 37.6% below the claimed 98%. On September 19, 2019 I blogged about how Fear of public speaking doesn’t happen to everybody – or all the time. For that post I didn’t have the 2019 Chapman data, but got similar results.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Detailed results from all six surveys are shown above in a larger bar chart. For Not Afraid there is the widest range, from 34.1% to 41.9%.