A steamroller, lying, and a fear of public speaking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a humorous LinkedIn post by Sue Keogh about British public speaking coach (and former stand-up comic) Jon Torrens where he claims:

 

“78% of people would rather be run over by a steamroller than be forced to do public speaking, and the other 22% are lying. Or so it says here, in a survey I’ve just made up.”

Where did he get that combination of three items? The 1988 comedy film A Fish Called Wanda has a Steamroller Showdown Scene between stutterer Ken Pile (Michael Palin) and Otto West (Kevin Kline).

 

And Mark Abrahams has repeatedly talked about how 85% of people fear public speaking and the other 15% are lying. See my September 29, 2020 blog post titled A quantified version of a discredited Mark Twain quotation about fear of public speaking.

 

The steamroller image came from here at Wikimedia Commons.

   

 

Two more silly claims that 95% of the world population fears public speaking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I get extremely irritated when I read claims that almost everyone fears public speaking. At Facebook on June 1, 2026 there is a post from Manish Gupta which states that:

 

“Around 95% of the world’s population has the fear of Public Speaking. It also means that only 5% have the courage to stand up in front of a crowd. Do you want to join the 5% brigade? Do you want to be a part of the select few who walk around confidently with this skill? Do you want to master this one skill which can do wonders in your life? If yes, then do call us right away!”

 

Also, in a 2022 book by Peter J. Copeland titled How to Overcome Work Stress: An Office Survival Guide it is claimed that:

 

“In fact, statistics show that some degree of fear/nervousness in public speaking affects about 95% of all speakers.”

 

But those assertions are without any backing, just ipse dixits.

 

On December 1, 2024 I blogged about Does 95% of the population experience public speaking fear? And my answer was no. There are no surveys covering the whole world. And back on December 20, 2016 I blogged about Bursting the overblown claim that 95% of Americans fear public speaking at some level. On October 23, 2025 I posted on how In the eleventh Chapman Survey of American Fears for 2025, public speaking only was ranked #46 of 67 fears at 33.7%. Detailed results from that survey are:

 

Grand Sum for Very Afraid,

Afraid, and Slightly Afraid  68.5%

Sum for Very Afraid

and Afraid                             33.7% 

Very Afraid                            15.5%

Afraid                                     18.1%

Slightly Afraid                       34.9%   

Not Afraid                             31.4%

Web Blank (Don’t Know)      0.1%

 

That Grand Sum is more than 25% lower than the 95% Mr. Gupta claimed. According to the Wikipedia page on Demographics of the United States the 2025 estimated population is 341,784,857. 21.5% are under 18, so 78.5% are over, for an adult population of about 268,300,000 adults. 33.7% of that is about 90,417,000 people who significantly fear public speaking. Or, using the Grand Sum, about 68.5% or 183,790,000 people fear public speaking at some level. Those real numbers are more impressive statistics than overstated percentages.

 

My cartoon was created in PowerPoint from a globe and monkey at OpenClipArt.

 

 

A ludicrously overstated claim that Chapman University found 91% of Americans fear public speaking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Jannik Linder at Gitnux on July 17, 2024 titled Statistics reveal widespread public speaking fear among individuals globally which contains a claim that:

 

“91% of Americans fear public speaking, according to a Chapman University study.”

 

But that is nonsense. Annually (except for 2020) from 2014 to 2023 Chapman University did their Chapman Survey of American Fears. They asked a random sample of U. S. adults about their fears at four levels: Not Afraid, Slightly Afraid, Afraid, and Very Afraid. In their press releases they reported the sum of percentages for Very Afraid and Afraid, as is shown above on a bar chart made using Excel. Those nine values ranged from 23.3% (2017) to 34% (2022) with a mean of 27.9%. The claimed 91% is more than three times too high!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What if we added the percent for Slightly Afraid? On October 23, 2023 I blogged about What do American adults fear at some level? Results for the Grand Sum of Very Afraid + Afraid + Slightly Afraid levels (everything but the kitchen sink) in the ninth 2023 Chapman Survey of American Fears. Public speaking was ranked #44 at 65.0%. Results for all nine surveys are shown above in a second bar chart. They range from 57.9% (2017) to 69.2% (2022) with a mean of 62%. Compared with the mean, that 91% is 29% too high!

  

Another problem with this article is that although there is a long list of references they only contains links to home pages, like one for Chapman University.

 

In this article there also is a claim that:

 

“77% of people have anxiety about public speaking.”

 

On October 12, 2020 I blogged about Do 77% of Americans fear public speaking? No! That percentage described stage fright in Swedes who also had social anxiety disorder.

 

There is a second article, also by Jannik Linder at Gitnux and from July 17, 2024 titled New findings reveal staggering public speaking fears statistics impact globally. It doesn’t have the 91% claim, but does say:  

 

“Public speaking is the number one fear for 25.3% of people.”

 

If you look at my first bar chart, then you will see that this percentage really is a result from the 2014 Chapman Survey of American Fears!

 

A bogus 77% fear statistic in a book by an organization that should have known better

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On October 9, 2017 I blogged about how It must be true, since I read it in a book. Recently I looked on Google Books and found one from 2021 titled Speak! Overcoming the Fear and Horror of Public Speaking authored by Dale Carnegie & Associates. The introduction has a claim that:

 

“Research shows that as much as 77% of people around the world have some level of fear when it comes to speaking in front of others.”

 

On October 12, 2020 I had blogged about Do 77% of Americans fear public speaking? No! That percentage described stage fright in Swedes who also had social anxiety disorder. The 77% was about a much narrower group than the world.

 

On Google Books I also found Suly Rieman’s 2023 book # No Fear: A guide to overcoming fear in our daily lives which has an even vaguer version:

 

“The fear of public speaking is so common that some researchers have estimated that as much as 77% of people have some level of this fear.”

 

 

A misleading blog post titled Public Speaking Statistics: Recent Data from 2023

 

At Gitnux on March 20, 2023 there is a blog post by Oness Skander (originally from February 17, 2023) with a misleading title of

Public Speaking Statistics: Recent Data from 2023. But some are not from 2023, others are not recent, and some not even statistics. A box near the top is titled Public Speaking: The Most Important Statistics, and those three are:

 

The percentage of people who fear public speaking increased significantly from 73% in 2010 to 85% in 2019.

 

89.4% of people with social anxiety conditions had a fear of speaking publically.

 

61% claimed that public speaking improved their career opportunities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her first misleading and incomplete statement uses some results in a table from an article by Steven Zauderer at Cross River Therapy on January 11, 2023 titled 31 Fear of Public Speaking Statistics (Prevalence). But she omits his final entry of 75% for 2020, which breaks the preceding pattern, including the perfectly linear increase of a percent per year from 2011 to 2017. As shown above via a graph, for both 2011 and 2020 there was the same 75%.

 

And the 85% claimed to be for 2019 really comes from a 1988 article by Michael Motley. I blogged about it in a September 29, 2020 post titled A quantified version of a discredited Mark Twain quotation about fear of public speaking. Also, the 77% for 2013 likely really come from a 1999 article, which I blogged about in a post on October 12, 2020 titled Do 77% of Americans fear public speaking? No! That percentage described stage fright in Swedes who also had social anxiety disorder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The article by Mr. Zauderer doesn’t identify where he got these percentages. They may come from different surveys asking somewhat different questions, and thus not be comparable. Instead I looked at the detailed results for the annual Chapman Survey of American Fears, and got the less clear pattern of percentages shown above. They are for a grand sum of Very Afraid plus Afraid plus Slightly Afraid. (There was no survey for 2020. One was done in January 2021 and reported as 2020-2021. The Chapman blog posts tabulate the sum for Very Afraid plus Afraid.)  

 

The second claim, of 89.4% is also cited in that article by Mr. Zauderer.  It comes from an article she referenced by Peter Khoury at Magnetic Speaking back in 2016 and titled 7 Unbelievable “Fear of Public Speaking” Statistics. He refers to an article by C. Faravelli et al at European Psychiatry on February 2000 titled Epidemiology of social Phobia: a clinical approach. That 89.4% comes from a survey on residents of Sesto Fiorentino, a suburb of Florence, Italy. I blogged about Mr. Khoury’s article in a post on December 15, 2016 titled Believable and unbelievable statistics about fears and phobias of public speaking.

 

Ms. Skander’s third Most Important Statistic is that:

 

“61% claimed that public speaking improved their career opportunities.”

 

But I could not find that percentage mentioned in any of her references.

 

Later she also claimed:

   

“This statistic is further corroborated by an online survey conducted by the National Speech Anxiety Institute, which found that 95% of those surveyed indicated some level of fear when giving a speech.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wikipedia defines a Googlewhack as a search that returns only one result. That’s what you get if you look up the phrase “National Speech Anxiety Institute” – just the Gitnux blog post. And a Bing search finds no results. But we can imagine their headquarters (shown above).    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Gitnux blog post also states (and shows this bogus pie chart, annotated by me in red):

   

“44% of women and 37% of men reported feeling anxious and afraid about speaking in front of an audience.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those percentages come from an article by Geoffrey Brewer at Gallup on March 19, 2001 titled Snakes top list of Americans’ fears. How they should look in a horizontal bar chart comparing those two different genders is shown above.

 

The 1920s building came from Openclipart and The Scream came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

A zombie statistic that 77% of the general population fears public speaking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Elizabeth Pratt at VeryWellHealth on January 24, 2022 titled What is Glossophobia? The Fear of Public Speaking. Her second sentence says that:

 

“Public speaking causes feelings of anxiety in roughly 77% of the general population, and it can sometimes hinder a person's day-to-day life. (Ref. 2)”

 

That percentage is nonsense but it keeps returning like a zombie. I blogged about it on October 12, 2020 in a post titled Do 77% of Americans fear public speaking? No! That percentage described stage fright in Swedes who also had social anxiety disorder. I had found that nonsense mentioned in an article at VeryWellMind on April 12, 2020 which since had been updated (with the same error) on July 16, 2021.   

 

The zombie image was adapted from this one at OpenClipArt.

 

Outdated and incorrect statistics about our fears

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a daily Google alert on the phrase “public speaking.” Recently it provided links to web pages about a training course by Mangates in both Wellington and Christchurch, New Zealand. (Similar descriptions are at web sites for training in San Antonio and South Africa). Two opening sentences in the first paragraph of their description say:    

 

“According to a 1973 survey by the Sunday Times of London, 41% of people list public speaking as their biggest fear. Forget small spaces, darkness, and spiders, standing up in front of a crowd and talking is far more terrifying for most people.”

 

But that all just is rubbish. The description seems to have come from a Public Speaking course package sold for $499 by Corporate Training Materials (a division of Global Courseware, located in Dover Delaware).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on October 27, 2009 I blogged about The 14 Worst Human Fears in the 1977 Book of Lists: where did this data really come from? The survey wasn’t done by the Sunday Times. Their article reported on results from R. H. Bruskin Associates in the U.S. As shown above in a chart, speaking before a group was the most common of the fourteen fears people were asked about. They were not asked about small spaces or spiders (but were asked about insects and bugs). There is a difference between whether more people are afraid, and if people are more afraid (the latter question must be answered via a fear survey schedule).  

 

Module 4 of the Corporate Training Materials course is titled Fleshing It Out and it has subheadings of Identifying Appropriate Sources, Establishing Credibility, and The Importance of Citations. They flunked all three subheadings, and didn’t do what they said. On April 25, 2012 I blogged about Why do people still refer to a 39 year old survey? and pointed out that as of the 2010 less than half the people now around (median age 37.2 years) could have been asked questions in 1973.

 

The cartoon was adapted from one titled Tomboy Taylor Doesn’t Seem to Give a Rap Where She Hides in a 1918 book Cartoons by Fontaine Fox – Second Book at the Internet Archive.

 

Spouting Nonsense: a bogus statistic in an article saying to Communicate Like Your Life Depends On It

At Medium on December 10, 2019 there is a long article by Greg Cheek titled Communicate Like Your Life Depends On It. That title set a very high standard which he did not live up to. In his thirteenth section titled Stage Fright, Communication Apprehension, and Plain Nervousness Greg claimed:

“In a recent Gallup poll, Americans were asked to list their greatest fears. Forty percent identified speaking before a group as a top fear, exceeded only by fifty-one percent who said they were afraid of snakes. In comparison, only twenty-eight percent said they were afraid of dying. In most polls, speechmaking and speaking in front of a group of people is tops in provoking anxiety (stage fright).”

On March 24, 2018 I had blogged about how to be careful and Don’t trust superficial research. In that post I discussed another silly claim that the 2001 Gallup poll had asked about greatest fears – which it really had not. The Gallup poll was discussed in a well-known March 19, 2001 article by Geoffrey Brewer titled Snakes Top List of Americans’ Fears. It just asked about fears for 13 situations, and as shown above in a bar chart, dying never was mentioned. 2001 also was nineteen years ago, which is not exactly recent. So, where had that bogus 28% for dying come from? Not from Gallup, who last researched about fear of dying in a Mirror of America survey in November 1990 - and found 23%. 

On March 3, 2020 I blogged about how An obscure UK survey from 2005 found public speaking was the most common fear. The 28% for dying came from a YouGov survey as shown in a second bar chart. It was four years later than the Gallup poll, and done in Great Britain rather than the U.S. Obviously Mr. Cheek never bothered to check the Gallup article.

How had he gotten so confused? Greg apparently read secondhand or thirdhand information about a section from the first chapter in the tenth edition (2009) of Stephen E. Lucas’s book The Art of Public Speaking.  On page 9, he states that:

“If you are worrying about stage fright, you may feel better knowing that you are not alone. A 2001 Gallup Poll asked Americans to list their greatest fears. Forty percent identified speaking before a group as their top fear, exceeded only by the 51 percent who said they were afraid of snakes. A 2005 survey produced similar results, with 42 percent of respondents being terrified by the prospect of speaking in public. In comparison, only 28 percent said they were afraid of dying. (Reference #6).”

Reference #6 on page N-1 is to two different articles:

“Geoffrey Brewer, ‘Snakes Top List of Americans’ Fears,’ Gallup News Service, February 2001; Alex Blyth, ‘How to Get the Most Out of Public Speaking Training,’ Training Magazine (June 14, 2006), p.7”

For careless and superficial research resulting in his spouting nonsense, I award Greg Cheek a Spoutly.