A recent post on LinkedIn incorrectly claimed that no credible study has ever demonstrated people fear public speaking more than death

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A couple weeks ago there was a post at LinkedIn from Robert Owen of Mission Viejo, California about Debunking the myth of public speaking fear:

 

“The claim that people fear public speaking more than death is a myth. It traces back to a misunderstanding of a 1973 market research survey known as The Bruskin Report. In that study, 2,543 American adults were asked a simple question: ‘What are you afraid of?’ They selected answers from a list. Forty-one percent chose ‘speaking before a group.’ Nineteen percent chose ‘death.’ The survey didn’t rank these fears. After the 1977 Book of Lists published the results, the idea that people fear public speaking more than death spread like wildfire. Here’s the bottom line: No credible study has ever demonstrated that people fear public speaking more than death.”

 

Percentage results for all fourteen fears in the Bruskin survey were as follows (death was really seventh):

 

Speaking before a group  40.6%

Heights                                 32,0%

Insects and bugs                 22.1%

Financial problems             22.0%

Deep water                          21.5%

Sickness                                18.8%

Death                                    18.7%

Flying                                     18.3%

Loneliness                             13.6%

Dogs                                       11.2%

Driving/riding in a car           8.8%

Darkness                                  7.9%

Elevators                                  7.6%

Escalators                                 4.8%

 

This blog discussed them on October 27, 2009 in my most popular post titled The 14 Worst Human Fears in the 1977 Book of Lists: where did this data really come from?

 

Robert is wrong. I can easily name three surveys which found people fear public speaking more than death. (There may be more. Before you can say there is ‘no credible study,’ you would have to do a lot of research.)

 

First, we need to note there are two distinctly different questions. One is how many people fear public speaking, which can be answered by a percentage such as in the Bruskin survey. The other is how much do people fear public speaking, which only can be answered using a fear survey schedule to find a Fear Score on a scale such as from one to four or even ten (as shown above).

 

Back on October 10, 2012 I blogged about how In a 1965 study of university students, fear of public speaking ranked sixth for men and seventh for women. Fear of speaking before a group outranked death, but the death of a loved one came first. And on October 29, 2017 I blogged about What do Americans fear most? Fear Scores from the 2017 Chapman Survey of American Fears. Fear Scores were 2.425 for People I Love Dying, 1.909 for Public Speaking, and 1.852 for Dying. And on September 23, 2025 I blogged about how Public speaking was the most common and greatest fear found by a Croatian survey of ten fears published in April 2023.