GSS in the News
Data Release 4 for the 2022 GSS Cross-section data, featuring a new multi-mode design, are now available. The additional data features expand survey paradata on interviewer characteristics, incentives, survey length, respondent selection, and the data collection design. We encourage users to review the documentation and consider the potential impact of the experiments and data collection approach on the survey estimates.
If you are interested in submitting new content for the 2026 GSS, the call for the 2026 GSS Module Competition is now available. The deadline is February 10th, 2025.
NORC at the University of Chicago is giving social scientists and other researchers an easy way to fold social media conversations into their research projects with the launch of its General Social Media Archive. The Archive complements NORC’s long-running, highly influential General Social Survey (GSS).
That explains why consumers say they feel as bad as they did in the financial-crisis year of 2009, a recent Gallup poll showed. For the first time, Americans who say they are "not too happy" outnumber those who say they're "very happy," according to a survey from the nonprofit group NORC at the University of Chicago.
Twenty-four percent of Americans reported they were “not too happy” in life in 2021, up from 13% in 2018, according to the General Social Survey, a sociological survey conducted by research organization NORC at the University of Chicago. The share of those who said they were “very happy” declined to 19% from 31% over the same period.
So, inspired by a study by psychologists Jean Twenge and A. Bell Cooper, I pulled data from the General Social Survey. This is an ongoing project from an independent research organization called NORC at the University of Chicago. Since 1972, the GSS has asked a representative slice of America how happy they are.
But spanking is still prevalent in American families, and legal in all states. Though it appears to be steadily falling out of favor among younger generations, the 2018 General Social Survey — a long-running biennial national survey of American adults — found that 66 percent of Americans agreed that “a good, hard spanking” is sometimes necessary to discipline a child.
For this new study, Homan and her co-author, Amy Burdette, a professor of sociology at Florida State, wanted to see if sexism counters the health benefits of religion. To do this, they drew from two nationally representative sources of data: the General Social Survey and the National Congregations Study.
Using the 2018 General Social Survey collected by NORC at the University of Chicago, I statistically modeled mothers’ reported happiness against the number of children they have, and found that well-being increases as a woman has her first, second, and third child. The fourth child and beyond are associated with falling happiness. (To be precise, the optimal happiness point occurs at 3.14 kids, but getting that .14 of a child is a bit tricky.)
“Data from a General Social Survey indicates that 30 percent of respondents have a social relationship with their neighbors while close to 30 percent are virtual strangers,” she says. “Thus for 60 percent of those surveyed, the neighbor relationship is either very strong or absent altogether.”
The study, titled “The Divided State of Our Unions,” was produced as a joint effort between the Institute for Family Studies, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Wheatley Institution. Researchers based their findings on data from YouGov surveys commissioned by IFS and Wheatley this spring and fall, along with General Social Survey data from the last half century.
A growing majority of Americans believe that recreational marijuana should be legal. A Gallup poll conducted in October 2019 found that 66% of U.S. adults think the drug should be legal. A Pew Research Center survey and the General Social Survey conducted by the nonpartisan and objective research organization NORC at the University of Chicago found similar levels of support for marijuana legalization.
This clip features the results from the 2021 General Social Survey (GSS) by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which explores public confidence in the scientific community.
