91 percent of worries do not come true: The Study.

In a 2020 study, 91 percent of worries do not come true, or 91.4% exactly. Lucas LaFreniere and Michelle Newman tracked 29 students with generalized anxiety disorder. However, wrong worries survive because unchecked worries seem to work.

How the worry prediction study worked.

In this worry prediction study, a text message prompted each person four times a day for ten days. First, they wrote each worry as a specific prediction. Then they tracked what happened over the next thirty days, while independent raters judged which worries came true. As a result, the average person logged more than thirty testable worries.

What 91 percent of worries do not come true looks like.

The authors wrote that 91.4% of worry predictions did not come true. Also, for 7 of the 29 people, none came true at all. Meanwhile, the middle participant saw 93.5 per cent fail to happen. And of the worries that did come true, about 30 per cent turned out better than expected.

So when you hear that 91 percent of worries do not come true, picture these ordinary daily records. Similarly, a 2026 trial with 117 people found 89.14 per cent did not come true.

Why wrong worries keep their power.

This explains why worrying feels like it works. When a feared disaster does not arrive, your mind gives the worry the credit, like a lucky charm. Later, Newman and Sandra Llera added a second answer in 2011. In short, their contrast avoidance model suggests a bad outcome feels less like a shock when you already expected it.

Test whether 91 percent of worries do not come true for you.

Write tonight's worry as a prediction with a date to check it.

Then set a phone reminder thirty days out to record what happened.

Questions about 91 percent of worries do not come true.

Is it true that 91 percent of worries do not come true?

In one 2020 study of 29 students, 91.4% of worry predictions did not come true. Similarly, a 2026 app trial found 89.14 per cent.

How confident were the participants about their worries?

Their expected chances were "much greater than actual observed likelihoods." Moreover, those whose worries were most inaccurate improved the most in treatment.

What is the contrast avoidance model?

It suggests some people stay worried without realising it. As a result, a bad outcome feels less like a shock.

Read the whole chapter.

This lesson covers one section of chapter 4, “Nobody checked your fear's record”. The book goes further, with the full evidence, the stories and every exercise.

91 percent of worries do not come true: cover of I Want to Start a Business but I'm a Coward by Diego Segura

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