A YouGov survey of U.S. adults found their most common fears were snakes, heights, spiders, public speaking, and disease

 

On June 16, 2022 there is an article by Taylor Orth at YouGovAmerica titled Three in 10 Americans fear snakes – and most who do fear them a great deal. It describes results from a survey of 1000 U.S. adults done between June 8 and June 13. They asked whether people feared any of three-dozen situations. Detailed results are provided via separate .pdf files. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall results are shown above in a bar chart. Snakes (30%) were the most common fear, followed by Heights (28%), Spiders (24%), Public Speaking (23%) and Disease (21%). Then came Crowded Spaces and Enclosed Spaces (both 17%), I Have No Fears (16%), Insects (15%), and Fire (13%). The 23% for Public Speaking is less than a third of the 74% claimed in an August 2020 article, which I blogged about in a post titled Toastmaster magazine is spreading nonsense from John Bowe about how common the fear of public speaking is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The effect of gender is shown above via separate bar charts for females and males. There are sizable differences, with the largest for Snakes – feared by 39% of females and 19% of males. Public Speaking was feared by 26% of females versus 20% of males. A fourth bar chart shows the difference between females and males.     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A fifth bar chart shows how the fear of public speaking varies based on age, race, political party, family income, and census region. There is a consistent drop with age from 26% for age 18 to 29, 24% for age 30 to 44, 23% for age 45 to 64, and just 18% for age 65+.

 

This is the second U.S. fears survey done by YouGov. On April 14, 2022 I blogged about the first in a post titled YouGov survey of U.S. adults found they were most commonly very afraid of snakes, heights, public speaking, spiders, and being closed in a small space. The earlier survey asked about four levels (Very Afraid, A Little Afraid, Not Really Afraid, and Not Afraid At All) for just 13 fears.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A sixth bar chart compares those results for the highest level, Very Afraid, with those in the present one. In the present survey they also asked about three fear levels (for those who said they had a fear): A Great Deal, A Moderate Amount, and A Little. The YouGov article has a stacked bar chart showing that data.