Death or Public Speaking- Which Would You Prefer?

According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that seem right? That means to the average person, if you have to go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.

-Jerry Seinfeld

When we think about Jerry Seinfeld, what comes to mind? Funny guy, good t.v. show, maybe some of us will even think about his classic hair style (back in the good old days of the mullet). Would anyone ever make the claim to call him an insightful genius of human nature and our fears? Probably not, but while this quote of his may seem a bit of an absurd statement at first, he’s actually on to something. Shockingly, this bit, taken from Jerry’s standup, is actually based in fact. In 1977 David Wallechensky, Irving Wallace, and Amy Wallace published a book simply called The Book of Lists. This book, as the name suggests, was made up of of lists, everything from the worst places to hitchhike, to people misquoted by Ronald Reagan, and yes, even a list of the 14" worst" human fears. This list was put together by a team of market researchers, asking 3000 U.S. inhabitants a simple question, “what are you most afraid of?” What makes Jerry Seinfeld’s quote even more surprising is that according to this list, death is even lower than originally thought. In fact it doesn’t come in until number 7. Below is the full list, organized by percentage of answers.

1. Speaking before a group 41%
2. Heights 32%
3. Insects and Bugs 22%
4. Financial Problems 22%
5. Deep Water 22%
6. Sickness 19%
7. Death 19%
8. Flying 18%
9. Loneliness 14%
10. Dogs 11%
11. Driving/Riding in a Car 9%
12. Darkness 8%
13. Elevators 8%
14. Escalators 5%

What is most interesting to me about this list isn’t what’s on it, but more so what is actually missing from it. Fears such as home invasion, starvation, or rape seem to be missing, and instead we find fear of darkness, escalators, and even public speaking. This speaks not to what we fear, but more so the relevance of our fears to our daily lives. When presented with a question as broad as “what are you most afraid of” we are naturally inclined say the first great fear that jumps into our mind. With this being said, it seems as though our “greatest fear” isn’t the one with the highest stakes, or the last thing we would want to happen in our lives (seriously who would actually rather die than speak in front of an audience,) but rather the most relevant fear that we could see actually happening to us. 

Tying this concept into Unequal Childhoods we see that fear, much like concepts of privilege and even prejudice does not have a universal consistency, and seems to have everything to do with relevance to our own lives. It is because of this idea that for me, this is such a clearly American list of fears. The same way Lareau suggests that members of the middle class struggle to look outside of their own lives and be aware of their own privileges, in comparison the perils of working or lower class, we as Americans struggle to see, in the grand scheme of things, the severity of death or other fears, which are much more present in other cultures. This is not to say that fear of death is not present in our society, but it does indicate that American society has progressed to a point where death is not the most prevalent fear we face on a daily basis. It is because of this privilege that we are able to say that we are more afraid of public speaking than dying, simply because within our society we are able to disconnect ourselves from the fear of death or other tragedies, due to their lack of probability in our daily lives. Should this survey have been conducted in another country, perhaps one without this privilege, I feel as though the list would be drastically different.