I’d say there are some not-so-well-known facts in the scholarly articles I cite (regarding the degree to which people feel the fear, in what situations, and what other fears it is compared with).

Consider the converse, or the irony, or the underside of the fear. For instance, I try to make the point here that underlying the fear of speaking is its importance in our lives. If we didn’t value it so much, we would not be afraid of doing badly.

How about discovering your own experience of the fear of speaking? If you think about it you might come up with some insights about why you personally might feel fear (and when you don’t), what is normal or acceptable about it, and how you have handled it in the past.

For example, it is my opinion, based on experience and coaching others, that a moderate degree of fear of speaking can be good for thorough preparation and respect for your audience (see Cicero, above), that few people in the audience will visibly notice moderate to mild nervousness (after some excellent speeches I ask the presenter “did you feel nervous or afraid” and they usually say “yes”), and that your fear will tend to subside as you get into your speech … IF you focus on what you are saying and feel passionate about communicating it.

In my experience the best medicine is to focus on contributing value and insight to your audience with your message, rather than focusing on yourself (i.e. worries about your appearance and delivery and any small mistakes you make).

This is the irony — the more you focus on the fear the more power you give it. I once saw a skydiver crash into a rooftop because she kept looking at it … over the radio we could hear her keep saying she was afraid to crash into the roof. But the more she looked at the roof she feared, the more her shoulders and body faced the direction she did not want to go. If only she had looked at the target spot on the ground… (yes she was okay in the end, no injury).

The more you focus on the audience as the ones who can gain from what you are saying, the more you will overcome your fear of them.

Dealing with fear by diminishing your audience (like imagining your audience naked or dismissing their opinions as less valuable than yours) is NOT a good idea… audiences can “smell it” when you don’t respect them.

I’ve written on this several times; I find it frustrating and annoying when speakers use this statistic without supporting it.

We all get that people are afraid of public speaking. But more than death? And anyway, why promote this negative view of public speaking over and over? Here are some of my blog posts on this issue:

http://coachlisab.blogspot.com/2008/10/stop-focusing-on-fear.html

http://coachlisab.blogspot.com/2008/10/snakes-top-public-speaking-in-gallup.html

http://coachlisab.blogspot.com/2006/12/book-of-lists.html

I noticed in the January 2009 article by Ruscio that “The social phobia section [of the survey] assessed lifetime experiences of shyness, fear, or discomfort in each of 14 social situations,” among other measures.

The fear of DEATH or physical harm are noticeably EXCLUDED from the possible answers in this semi-structured question, which means it did not distinguish between social fears and relatively non-social fears.

They also seem to distinguish a general “social phobia” from having specific “fears.” In this area of the survey, results showed “Nearly one-fourth (24.1%) of all respondents in the survey reported at least ONE lifetime social fear…. The most common lifetime social fears among those considered here are PUBLIC SPEAKING (21.2%) and speaking up in a meeting or class (19.5%).”

Interestingly, many other measures on their chart also included speaking activities:

Talking to people in authority 14.7
Talking with strangers 13.1
Expressing disagreement 12.4

The respondents were “asked about interference caused by SOCIAL PHOBIA in the domains of home management, work, close relationships, and social life during the month in the past year when social phobia was most severe. Each domain was self-rated by respondents on a 0–10 scale reflecting the extent to which social phobia interfered with the respondent’s ability to function in the domain.”

Unfortunately the “role impairment” results were about generalized “social phobia,” NOT EACH specific fear (such as the fear of public speaking). Naturally those who are afraid of more things report being more impaired: “Across role domains, the subgroup with 1–4 fears generally is least impaired while the subgroup with 11+ fears is most impaired.”

Since so many fears were clustered around speaking, it is not surprising that so many people had more than 4 of the fears that were listed. Very few of the options had to do with non-speaking situations, and these had lower scores:

Entering an occupied room 11.9
Working while being watched 11.8
Writing/eating/drinking while being watched 8.1
Using public bathroom 5.7

and the survey even allowed for the option of…

Other performance or interactional fear 15.7

… which may also have boosted the respondent from having 4 fears to having 5 fears.

None of the survey options included the fear of illness or death or paranormal phenomena or poverty or hunger or thunder or water or heights or being lost in the wilderness, or being alone, etc.

Therefore, in comparison with the other items listed, I am not surprised with the high prevalence of the fear of public speaking. It certainly looks like the scariest thing on the list!