Did a Gallup poll find that Americans feared public speaking more than death? No, not ever!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some surveys about fear of public speaking have been misquoted repeatedly for many years. There is a post at the SpeakUp PUBLIC SPEAKING PRACTICE blog on April 2, 2026 titled Fear of Public Speaking Is More Common Than You Think. The second paragraph gave a nonworking link and claimed:

 

“A Gallup poll found many Americans reported fearing public speaking more than death.”

 

But that survey actually looked at two surveys from 2001 and 1998 on what more people feared, which is a completely different question than what people feared more. And death was not on those fears lists. The quarter-century old article by Geoffrey Brewer at Gallup News on March 19, 2001 is titled Snakes Top List of Americans’ Fears. For 2001 the list of 13 fears and their percentages is as follows:

 

Snakes: 51%

Public speaking in front of an audience: 40%

Heights: 36%

Being closed in a small space: 34%

Spiders and insects: 27%

Needles and getting shots: 21%

Mice: 20%

Flying on an airplane: 18%

Crowds: 11%

Dogs: 11%

Thunder and lightning: 11%

Going to the doctor: 9%

The dark: 5%

 

And for 1998 the list of 13 fears and their percentages is as follows:

 

Snakes: 56%

Public speaking in front of an audience: 45%

Heights: 41%

Being closed in a small space: 36%

Spiders and insects: 34%

Mice: 26%

Needles and getting shots: 21%

Flying on an airplane: 20%

Thunder and lightning: 17%

Going to the doctor: 12%

Crowds: 11%

Dogs: 10%

The dark: 8%

 

Another earlier article by Roxine Kee at CollegeInfoGeek on September 17, 2018 titled 5 Tips for Crafting Great Speeches and Presentations stated:

 

“If you’re like most people, you probably would rather die than present in front of a classroom. I’m not exaggerating: in this Gallup poll from 2001, the fear of public speaking is ranked #2, ahead of the fear of death (#6).”

 

There is an undated article by Kathy Varol titled The secret that turned my public speaking anxiety into excitement which also claimed:

 

“A 2001 Gallup poll found that 40% of Americans cited public speaking as their top fear – more than double the number who feared death.”

 

But Kathy confused the Gallup poll with the 1973 Bruskin survey I had blogged about in a post back on October 27, 2009 titled The 14 Worst Human Fears in the 1977 Book of Lists: where did this data really come from? It found 40.6% feared speaking while 18.7% feared death.

  

Another undated article from Eileen Hopkins titled Are you afraid to speak in public? said that:

 

“Public speaking is one of the greatest fears people face; in fact, according to a Gallup poll, 40% of people are more scared of giving a speech than they are of dying!

 

Also, on July 18, 2025 I blogged about Spouting nonsense – a YouTube video from Amrez with fairy tales about two surveys on public speaking fears. One was the Gallup article but they incorrectly claimed it included death, illness, old age, running, losing a loved one, or other.  

 

The skull and crossbones cartoon came from here at Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

What would you rather do than call customer support?

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Shep Hyken at Medium on April 2, 2025 titled Your Call Is Very Important to Us which also appeared at Advisorpedia on April 14, 2025. As shown above in a bar chart, he found in surveys that, rather than call customer support, 53% would have dinner with in-laws, 39% would clean a toilet, 34% would visit the dentist, and 26% would speak in front of an audience of a thousand people. These results previously appeared in his 2025 The State of Customer Service and CX study on page 22. In his 2026 study 36% would rather clean a toilet. And in his 2022 study 46% would rather visit the dentist while 42% would rather clean a toilet.

 

 

Botched statistics on fear of public speaking from an article in the March 2026 Toastmaster magazine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by social psychologist Jennifer Fidder on pages 10 and 11 of the March 2026 issue of Toastmaster magazine titled Fix Your Fear of Speaking. She begins with these three paragraphs:

 

“If you’re afraid of public speaking, have no fear – it’s one of the most common phobias. You’ve probably heard the saying that most people fear public speaking more than they fear death. And that’s true to an extent – nearly everyone has an impending fear of death; however, public speaking is something we all face having to do on a regular, even daily, basis.

 

Estimates suggest that around three-quarters of the general population report some level of anxiety about public speaking. An estimated 15 – 30% of them have a formal diagnosis of public speaking anxiety.

 

That fear of public speaking is called glossophobia, and it can prevent you from participating in activities, receiving promotions at work, and even being able to converse individually.”

 

Her first sentence mixes up fear and phobia. As shown above via a Venn Diagram, a phobia is a fear that also is intense, persistent and interfering. Back on December 11, 2013 I blogged about a previous article in a post titled Spouting Nonsense: July 2013 Toastmaster magazine article fumbles fears and phobias.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we discuss fears and surveys, it is important to ask when a survey was done, where it was done, and what level(s) of fear were examined. We don’t need to hear stale old statistics again! There have been eleven Chapman Surveys of American Fears done from 2014 to 2025. They examined four levels of fear, as shown above via a bar chart for public speaking in the 2025 survey.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another bar chart looks at the fear of dying at any level (Very Afraid + Afraid + Slightly Afraid), which only applies to from 49.7% to 66.8% of us - with a mean of 60.5% or about 3 out of 5 of us, and is not anywhere near everyone. But fear of people I love dying (shown in a similar chart) ranges from 73.3% to 86.9% - with a mean of 82.1% or more than 4 out of 5 of us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still another bar chart looks at the fear of public speaking at any level - which ranges from 57.9% to 69.2% (with a mean of 63.0%) and quite a bit less than the three-quarters (75%) Jennifer claimed. Yet another bar chart shows the fear of public speaking for the levels of Very Afraid plus Afraid used in Chapman’s press releases (with a mean of just 28.5.%). Back on February 3, 2014 I blogged about Busting a myth – that 75% of people in the world fear public speaking. That ~75% (really 73%) came from back in 1977!

 

And the estimated 15 – 30% for public speaking anxiety appeared in a 2012 review article. I blogged about it in a post back on January 19, 2013 titled A recent review article on public speaking anxiety.

 

Also, Jennifer’s saying that most people fear public speaking more than they fear death is not right. There were two surveys long ago that instead found that more people (but less that 50% of them) feared public speaking than feared death. One was done in 1973, and I blogged about it on October 27, 2009 in the most popular post on this blog titled The 14 Worst Human Fears in 1977 Book of Lists: where did this data really come from? Another was discussed in a post on May 19, 2011 titled America’s Number One Fear: Public Speaking – that 1993 Bruskin-Goldring Survey. 

 

What about in the Chapman surveys? More people feared public speaking (at any level) than dying in 2015 (60.0% vs 49.7%), 2016 (60.2% vs 50.8%), 2017 (57.9% vs 55.0%), 2022 (69.2% vs 66.8%), 2023 (65.0% vs 59.8%), 2024 (65.75 vs 65.0%), and 2025 (68.5% vs 62.3%) while less did in 2018 (58.3% vs 64.4%), 2019 (64.1% vs 66.3%), and 2020/21 (61.7% vs 65.0%).

 

Finally, I don’t think it is useful to refer to the fear of public speaking by the word glossophobia. On May 6, 2022 I posted on Who popularized the word glossophobia? What is a better Plain English alternative? I suggested instead using the term speech fright, as a specific type of stage fright.

 

Superficial research in an article about fear of mass shootings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article with superficial research by James Alan Fox at USA Today on January 14, 2026 titled There’s no mass shooting epidemic, but fear epidemic is real | Opinion. He says (as shown above) that:

 

“Although the frequent claims of a ‘mass shooting epidemic’ are more hyperbole than reality, there truly is an epidemic of fear fueled by the extensive media coverage afforded deadly attacks in schools, churches, restaurants and other public settings.

 

Indeed, the percentage of Americans indicating that public mass shootings are a significant source of worry has nearly tripled, from 16% in 2015 to 44% in 2025, based on the Chapman University Survey of American Fears." 

 

The first data point for fear of a random or mass shooting really should be from 2014 rather than 2015, and be 24.7% - which is 51 percent larger than the 16.4% that Prof. Fox uses. So his comparison would just be an increase of 79% rather than a near tripling.

 

 

  

 

 

And those are only two of eleven data points in those Chapman surveys, as is shown above. When you only use ~18% of the available data, you will get a grossly misleading picture of what really is going on.

 

There also is another article by James Alan Fox in the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice for July 31, 2023 (Volume 40, number 1) titled Trends in U. S. Mass Shootings: Facts, Fears, and Fatalities. Figure 2 in it is a vertical bar chart showing seven Chapman Survey data points from 2015 to 2022, but it also omits the 2014 data point and instead of listing 47.4% for 2019 (the very highest point!) it repeats the 41.5% from 2018. Also, he reports 28.1% for 2017 when the correct number in the detailed results instead is 30.8%. I discussed this problem in a blog post on October 4, 2017 titled What do the most Americans fear? The fourth Chapman Survey on American Fears, and being innumerate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is fear of a random or mass shooting the greatest fear in the Chapman surveys? No – corrupt government officials are. As shown above in a bar chart, fear of a random or mass shooting ranked from a low of #56 to a high of #22.   

 

 

According to eight Chapman Surveys of American Fears, more adults fear sharks than fear public speaking – but neither is their top fear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Way back on October 27, 2009 I blogged about an often-quoted old survey (where public speaking was the top fear) in a post titled The 14 Worst Human Fears in the 1977 Book of Lists: where did this data really come from? In that post I noted:

 

“The movie Jaws came out in 1975, so by next year I suspect that sharks were ‘top of mind’ and would have made any list of top ten fears.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, starting in 2017, the annual Chapman Survey of American Fears asked about Sharks. As shown above for eight surveys, more people fear them than fear Public Speaking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But, as also is shown above, Corrupt Government Officials were the top fear in ten surveys, and Public Speaking only ranked from #26 to #59.   

 

Cartoons of a shark and speaker came from OpenClipArt.

 

 

An article about key findings from the 11th Chapman Survey of American Fears for 2025 has stumbling student graphics with significant errors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On October 23, 2025 I blogged about how In the eleventh Chapman Survey of American Fears for 2025, public speaking only was ranked #46 of 67 fears at 33.7%. Those results from the 2025 survey first were reported in a news release by Robert Hitchcock on October 21 mistitled What Americans Fear Most in 2025: Chapman University’s Annual Survey Reveals Top Fears and the Psychology Behind Them. And their detailed results are in a methods report pdf file.

 

There also is an 8-page pdf article titled Chapman University Survey of American Fears 2025 Key Findings. It includes five graphics that were prepared by students. The first one, by Madeline Southern, titled TOP 10 FEARS 2025 is correct.

 

But the other four are not. The third graphic, also by Madeline Southern, is a chart titled FEAR OF DRINKING WATER POLLUTION AND POLLUTION OF OCEANS, RIVERS, AND LAKES. It plots those two fears for years ranging from 2017 to 2025. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But that chart has four incorrect entries for those two fears because, as shown above in a pair of tables, it claims to include results for 2020. Actually there was no survey done in 2020 – just one identified as 2020/21. Those four entries are offset from where they belong.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fifth graphic is a bar chart by Yasmine Hourie, which is titled FEAR OF MURDER AND PROPERTY CRIME. What she calls Property Crime in the 2021 to 2025 surveys is identified as Theft of Property. As shown above in a table, four of five entries are correct but the one for 2022 says 30.0% when the detailed results say 34.5%.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, the bar chart for Murder is completely incorrect because it lists just one item while the detailed results show both Murder by a Stranger and (somewhat lower) Murder by Someone You Know. I show those results above in a table. Her Murder result also does not match the average for by a Stranger and by Someone You Know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second graphic is a pie chart by Emma Boyd titled OPINIONS OF HOMELESSNESS POLICY and has a caption claiming it presents results for % Strongly Agree or Agree. But, as is shown above via a table, none of those percentages are correct. They instead were rescaled to add up to a hundred percent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fourth graphic, by Gabriella Bartsch, is a bar chart titled CONSPIRACY BELIEFS IN AMERICA which claims to show percentages for seven items at the level Strongly Agree or Agree. But, as is shown above in my replot, all of her numbers are smaller by an average of 3.6% than those in the detailed results (and curiously are shown with two decimal places rather than one).  

 

Chapman University obviously stumbled when preparing this article. No one bothered to carefully edit these graphics and remove the errors.

 

The cartoon was adapted from one at OpenClipArt.

 

 

In the eleventh Chapman Survey of American Fears for 2025, public speaking only was ranked #46 of 67 fears at 33.7%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Results from the 2025 Chapman Survey of American Fears were first reported in a news release by Robert Hitchcock on October 21 mistitled What Americans Fear Most in 2025: Chapman University’s Annual Survey Reveals Top Fears and the Psychology Behind Them. Detailed results are in a 101-page methods report pdf file. They really discussed what most people fear rather than the completely different question of what people fear most.

 

They surveyed a random sample of 1,015 adults for a margin of error of 3.6%. The survey was done by SSRS between March 24 and April 8, 2025. For each of 67 fears, people were asked about four levels: Very Afraid, Afraid, Slightly Afraid, or Not Afraid. For 27 fears there also was a negligibly small Web Blank (Don’t know), at 0.1% for 22 of them, 0.2% for 4 of them, and 0.3% for one of them.   

 

And there is a two-page article titled The Chapman Survey of American Fears, Wave 11: The Complete List of Fears 2025. As usual, they ranked fears via the sum of the percentages for Very Afraid and Afraid. The top five were Corrupt Government Officials at 69.1%, People I love Becoming Seriously Ill at 58.9%, Economic/Financial Collapse at 58.2%, Cyber-Terrorism at 55.9% and a tie between People I Love Dying and the U.S. Becoming Involved in Another World War at 55.3%. Public speaking was only ranked #46 at 33.7% - slightly more than a third.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

When I compared the Complete List of Fears with the methods report, I was surprised to find four fears that had yet another survey answer listed – Does not apply to me. Percentages for that one are shown above in a table. Note that in one case (Question 10B ranked #31 - Not Being Able to Pay Off College Debt of Myself or a Family Member) more than half (51.5%) gave that answer. In the table I listed how the answers for those four fears had been rescaled (fiddled with) to ignore ‘does not apply to me’ – and for that extreme case the fear went up from 19.4% to 43.1%. I was appalled to find rescaling had been done without any mention in the articles. But the first 25 fears on the list were not affected by the rescaling.

 

Another way to discuss fears is to put them on a scale from 1 to 4 where 1 = Not Afraid, 2 = Slightly Afraid, 3 = Afraid, and 4 = Very Afraid. The Fear Score for Corrupt Government Officials is 2.989 or almost exactly Afraid, while for Public Speaking it is 2.175 (a bit more than Slightly Afraid). On November 9, 2024 I blogged about Overblown claims about fears from investigators for the 2024 Chapman Survey of American Fears, and showed all the previous Fear Scores for Public Speaking, which are:

 

2014     1.920

2015     1.956

2016     1.933

2017     1.909

2018     1.947

2019     2.081

2020/1  2.023

2022     2.172

2023     2.041

2024     2.067

2025     2.175

 

My cartoon was adapted from this one at OpenClipArt.

 

 

A flawed article by Dr. Cheryl Mathews on what public speaking anxiety statistics say

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a flawed article by Dr. Cheryl Mathews at SpeakCalmHQ on September 10, 2025 that is titled The Biggest Myth About The Top Fear: What Public Speaking Anxiety Statistics Really Reveal. She discusses the 2024 Chapman Survey of American Fears to point out that public speaking is not the number one fear. But Cheryl also creates a couple new myths. Her six takeaways are:

 

1] Public speaking is not the top fear Among Americans despite popular myths.

2] The real number one fear for most people is corrupt government officials.

3] Only a minority – about 29% - experience strong anxiety about public speaking.

4] Most people’s public speaking anxiety is mild and manageable.

5] Severe speaking anxiety can hurt careers and quality of life, but there’s help out there.

6] Accurate, recent public speaking anxiety statistics come from Chapman University surveys.

 

She says other highlights are:

 

Corrupt government officials. Over 65% of Americans are very afraid or afraid.

Death. Number two in the fear rankings.

Public speaking anxiety. Number 59 out of a long list, with only about one quarter of Americans affected by significant speech anxiety.  

 

If you look at the 2024 Chapman fears list for Very Afraid plus Afraid, you will not find Death listed at #2, or at all. That #2 is from the Jerry Seinfeld joke. Dying is listed as #51 at 31.6%. People I Love Becoming Seriously Ill is #2 at 58.4%. And People I Love Dying is #4 at 57.8%. On October 24, 2024 I had blogged about how In the tenth Chapman Survey of American Fears for 2024, public speaking only was ranked #59 of 85 fears at 29.0%.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Mathews has a section titled Breaking Down Public Speaking Anxiety: Three Main Groups that begins with a pie chart for public speaking fear that I’ve instead shown above as a bar chart. Her Group 1 is Not Afraid or only Slightly Afraid (71%). Her Group 2 is Afraid or Very Afraid (29%). Group 3 is Very Afraid (Phobic, 12%). But Phobic is not quite the same as Very Afraid! Back on December 8, 2019 I blogged about how a Toastmasters press release confuses a fear of public speaking with a phobia. In that post I pointed out that along with being intense a phobia is also persistent and interfering.

 

Cheryl’s fourth takeaway is that most people’s public speaking anxiety is mild and manageable. I have discussed that another way, via a fear score, in a blog post on June 1, 2025 titled An article on stage fright by David Pennington claimed public speaking was the #1 fear in a Chapman Survey, but ignored their nine other surveys where it was ranked from #26 to #59. On a scale from 1 to 4, the Fear Score for public speaking was always around 2 – just Slightly Afraid. The first sentence of Cheryl’s article asked: “What scares Americans the most?” What she discussed instead was What do the most Americans fear?

 

Near the end Cheryl has a brief section titled What About the Global Population? which states:

 

“We don’t have a lot of data globally. However, we can assume from these global anxiety surveys that the percentages above generally reflect patterns in other countries and across the global population.”

 

The 2024 Chapman survey found 29.1% of Americans feared public speaking. But back on August 15, 2012 I blogged about how Surveys show that public speaking isn’t feared by the majority of adults in nine developed and eleven developing countries. Only 13% in nine developed countries feared public speaking/performance. And just 9.4% in eleven developing countries feared public speaking/performance. That 13% is less than half, and 9.4% is only a third of what the Chapman survey found.  

 

The grim reaper cartoon was adapted from this one at OpenClipArt.