More Americans are afraid of public speaking than of being judged, but they are only slightly afraid of public speaking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have read many articles about the fear of public speaking. Some say it comes from the fear of being judged. For example, an article by Ashley Stahl at SoFi on April 15, 2021 titled 5 Steps to overcome your fear of public speaking says:

 

“….Before large speaking engagements of my own, I have often wondered, where does all this fear come from? And is it really as simple as being afraid of speaking in public?

Upon reflection, I realized it’s not actually about the fear of public speaking itself; it’s about a fear of being judged, humiliated, or being ostracized from a group of friends.”

 

Articles often say that, based on a survey, some percentage of people fear public speaking. (The one at SoFi says incorrectly that it is 77% of the U.S. population). However, I don’t recall seeing any give a percentage for the fear of being judged.

 

But the 2015 Chapman Survey of American Fears had asked in detail about being judged. All their surveys can be found via the home page for The Division on the Study of American Fears. If you go to the FAQ page, you can find all the data from the 2015 survey (Wave 2) in a .pdf file.

 

Their October 13, 2015 blog post titled America’s Top Fears 2015 lists a half dozen fears near the bottom of the list under the Fear Domain titled Judgment of Others (Weight, Appearance, Age, Race, Gender, Dress). But they forgot to include just Being Judged by Others. Three other related fears (Dismissed by Others, Ridicule, Gossip) are under another Fear Domain titled Daily Life. Those three related fears were relabeled to summarize: Dismissed by Others is Not being taken seriously, Ridicule is Being laughed at, and Gossip is Others talking about you behind your back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All of those fears are shown above via a bar chart for their valid percentages, and compared with the fear of public speaking, 28.4%. The highest other fear is 12.5% for Not being taken seriously (aka Dismissed), followed by 11.4% for Being judged for your weight, 10.6% for Being laughed at (aka Ridicule) and 9.8% for Being judged by others.

 

That Chapman survey asked about four levels of fear: Very Afraid, Afraid, Slightly Afraid, and Not Afraid. Raw data include a percentage labeled System for people who answered Don’t Know. The valid percent column in the data tables come from rescaling as 100x(Raw percent)/(Raw Percent – System) to put them on a zero to 100 percent scale. The blog post lists the valid percent for the sum of Very Afraid and Afraid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another bar chart shows the valid percentages for the grand sum of Very Afraid, Afraid, and Slightly Afraid. Public speaking at 60% was first, followed by 37.2% for Not being taken seriously (aka Dismissed), 34.9% for Being judged by others, 31.9% for Being laughed at (aka Ridicule) and 31.4% for Being judged for your weight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is another useful way to describe the Chapman data - via Fear Scores. Instead of percentages we can put results on a scale where 1 = Not Afraid, 2 = Slightly Afraid, 3 = Afraid, and 4 = Very Afraid. Psychologists call these fear survey schedules. On October 30, 2015 I blogged about how to do this with the Chapman data in a post titled According to the 2015 Chapman Survey of American Fears, adults are less than Afraid of federal government Corruption and only Slightly Afraid of Public Speaking. Results are shown above on yet another bar chart. Public speaking has a Fear Score of 2.022 (barely above Slightly Afraid), followed by even lower scores of 1.538 for Not being taken seriously (aka Dismissed), 1.476 for Being judged by others, 1.47 for Being judged for your weight, and 1.459 for Being laughed at (aka Ridicule).

 

The image of a judge was adapted from a Pearson Scott Foresman line drawing at Wikimedia Commons.