A YouGov survey on ten things that Britons fear or have a phobia of

 

There is an interesting article by Peter Raven at YouGov UK on February 27, 2023 titled What do Britons say they have a phobia of? It describes results from a survey of about 2000 adults done on January 19 and 20 which asked about the following ten things (in alphabetical order):

 

Clowns

Dogs

Enclosed spaces

Flying

Going to the Dentist

Heights

Needles

Public speaking

Snakes

Spiders

 

One set of questions was about phobias:

 

“For the following question by phobia we mean an overwhelming and debilitating fear of an object, place, situation, feeling or animal … Which, if any, of the following would you say you have a phobia of?”

 

Another set was about fears, and asked about four levels: Very scared, Somewhat scared, Not really scared, and Not scared at all (plus Don’t know). All the detailed results are listed in tables that can be downloaded via a .pdf file.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Results for phobias are shown above in a horizontal bar chart. The five most common are heights (23%), spiders (21%), public speaking (15%), snakes (14%), and enclosed spaces (13%).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Results for phobias by gender are shown in a second horizontal bar chart. There are some large differences. Spiders are feared by 26% of females, but only 16% of males. Heights are feared by 24% of females and a similar 22% of males. Enclosed spaces are feared by 17% of females, but only 10% of males. Public speaking also is feared by 17% of females but only 13% of males. And snakes also are feared by 17% of females but only 11% of males.

 

In the YouGov article they showed a single graphic with three horizontal bar charts for phobias – the usual blue for Males, but red for all Britons (instead of Females) and purple for Females. On March 10, 2023 I blogged about their Comically poor color coding of bar charts in a survey of ten fears and phobias.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Results for fears (the sum for Very Scared and Somewhat Scared) are shown in a third bar chart. The five most common are public speaking (39%) heights (37%), snakes (33%), spiders (24%), and enclosed spaces (22%).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Results by gender for fears (the sum for Very Scared and Somewhat Scared) are shown in a fourth bar chart. There are some large differences again. Public speaking is feared by 48% of females but only 30% of males. Heights are feared by 44% of females and again 30% of males. Snakes are feared by 40% of females, but only 28% of males. Spiders are feared by 33% of females, but just 15% of males. Enclosed spaces are feared by 30% of females, but again only 15% of males.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second graphic in the YouGov article (with a set of stacked bar charts) is shown above. As I discussed previously, it has a confusing color shift from red to purple.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But worse yet, it is quite misleading. It presents overstuffed and then rescaled numbers. As shown above, for Heights, the real data is for Very scared, Somewhat scared, Not really scared, Not scared at all, and Don’t know – which should add to almost a hundred percent. The 23% for Phobia does not belong in that stacked chart – it is from a different question. When included and rescaled it alters and falsifies the data from what is in the tables. For example, the percentage for Very scared drops from 32 to 25, and that for Somewhat scared from 35 to 27.

 

The article text claims:

 

“Including the aforementioned 23% who say they have a phobia of heights, half of Britons (52%) say they have some form of fear of being up high, with the further 29% being either ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ scared of heights.”

 

That fear of being up high really isn’t 29%, it is 37% (5% plus 32%).

 

The third misleading graphic in the article claims to show the effect of gender on the sum of a phobia and very plus somewhat scared. It also is peculiarly color coded with pink for males (labeled as men) and purple for females (labeled as women).  Let’s again look at results for heights. The graphic shows 46% for men and 57% for women. Subtracting the phobia results of 22% for men and 24% for women leaves a claimed sum of 24% for men and 33% for women. But for men the table instead shows 3% for Very scared and 27% for Somewhat scared – a sum of 30% (not 24%!). And for women the table instead shows 6% for Very scared and 38% for Somewhat scared – a sum of 44% (not 33%!). Putting it another way, while the graphic shows 46% for men and 57% for women those silly sums should be 52% for men and 68% for women.  Like the second graphic, the third graphic presents overstuffed and then rescaled numbers.