On March 9, 2024 the BBC radio program More or Less had a nine-minute show titled Is public speaking really our biggest fear? Matt Abrahams asked them this question:
“As someone who teaches communication, we often say that speaking in public is people’s number one fear. But I’m not convinced the research really backs this up. I’d love to hear you do a deep dive into our greatest fears.”
They didn’t clearly explain how there are two distinct questions, with different answers for number one. The more often asked question is about how many – what is the most common fear (a percentage). But a second is about how much – what is the largest fear (a Fear Score on a scale from none to terrified).
Their approach was summarized as:
“For over 50 years it’s been widely reported that speaking before a group is people’s number one fear. But is it really true? With the help of Dr Karen Kangas Dwyer, a former Professor in the School of Communication at the University of Nebraska-Omaha and Dr Christopher Bader, Professor of Sociology at Chapman University, Tim Harford tracks the source of the claim back to the 1970’s and explores whether it was true then, and whether it’s true today.”
The abstract for the 2012 magazine article by Dwyer and Davidson, Is Public Speaking Really Feared More Than Death? she discussed, which found death rather than speaking was the biggest fear for students, said:
“The purpose of this study was to investigate the genesis of the 1973 R. H. Bruskin Associate's American Fears study appearing in the London Sunday Times and often reported in communication textbooks as ‘people fear public speaking more than death,’ and to replicate the study among college students who read the textbooks. Participants in a multi-section communication course (N = 815) completed the survey during the first week of class by selecting their fears from a list of fears, ranking their top fears, and completing the 6 public speaking context items of the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension–24 items. This study found that public speaking was selected more often as a common fear than any other fear, including death. However, when students were asked to select a top fear, students selected death most often. These findings help authors and instructors aptly quote the 1973 Bruskin Associate's findings, which were confirmed by this study.”
I blogged about that article on May 17, 2012 in a post titled More university students in the U.S. fear public speaking than fear death, but death is their top fear. And October 27, 2009 I blogged about The 14 Worst Human Fears in the 1977 Book of Lists: where did this data really come from?
Christopher Bader is one of the principal investigators for the Chapman Survey of American Fears. In the show he changed the question back to about the most common fear – which is what they have reported in their web articles (the percentage who were Very Afraid plus Afraid). That is not Public Speaking, which he said has never appeared in their Top Ten.
But data in the nine Chapman Surveys also can be used to calculate Fear Scores for U.S. adults. On October 30, 2015 I first blogged about how 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. And on October 29, 2017 I blogged about What do Americans fear most? Fear Scores from the 2017 Chapman Survey of American Fears. More recently, on December 6, 2021, I blogged about how Most Americans are not terrified of public speaking.
And on October 20, 2023 I posted about how Corrupt Government Officials (60.1%) was the most common fear in the ninth 2023 Chapman Survey of American Fears. Public speaking only was ranked # 53 (28.7%). As shown above Corrupt Government Officials also had the highest Fear Score – so it was the biggest fear.
All eight times since it appeared on their fears list in 2015 Corrupt Government Officials has topped the list of percentages in the Chapman surveys. (In 2014 they asked another way, and the top fear was Identity Theft/Credit Card Fraud. As shown above in a table, it also was number one for its Fear Score and way outranked Public Speaking.
On November 10, 2015 I also blogged about another set of Fear Scores in a post titled YouGov survey done in 2014 found U.S. adults were less than A Little Afraid of public speaking. Snakes had the highest fear score (2.80), heights was second (2.63), and public speaking was third (2.55).
It’s rather curious that Matt Abrahams decided to finally ask More or Less for an answer. His Think Fast Talk Smart site incorrectly claims:
“….The Book of Lists has repeatedly reported that the fear of speaking in public is the most frequent answer to the question ‘What scares you most?’ ”
And he has also said:
“Research tells us that 85% of people feel anxious when speaking in front of others, and I fully believe that the other 15% are lying.
I blogged about that on September 29, 2020 in a post titled A quantified version of a discredited Mark Twain quotation about fear of public speaking.
The #1 foam finger was adapted from this 1971 image at Wikimedia Commons.
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