Public Opinion Resources
Pew Research Center
Pew Research Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan and nonadvocacy research organization that conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, data analysis, and other social-science research. It does not take policy positions.
Why explore it: Pew is particularly useful for examining differences and similarities in attitudes across groups, following changes over time, and learning how reputable survey research is conducted.
Explore:
https://www.pewresearch.org/
Learn about Pew's research methods:
https://www.pewresearch.org/our-methods/
Gallup
Gallup has been measuring American public opinion since 1935, giving it an unusually long record for examining how attitudes have changed across generations and historical periods.
Why explore it: Long-running questions can be especially useful because today's opinions can be viewed in historical context rather than as an isolated snapshot.
Explore Gallup public opinion research:
https://news.gallup.com/topic/public-opinion.aspx
YouGov
YouGov is a global research, data, and analytics organization that conducts polling on politics, culture, public attitudes, consumer behavior, and current events.
YouGov's online panel uses nonprobability sampling rather than giving everyone in the population an equal chance of initially being selected. For individual surveys, it selects panelists and uses statistical weighting to create samples designed to represent the population being studied. Understanding that methodology is useful when interpreting its results.
Why explore it: Beyond reading the results, YouGov offers interested individuals an opportunity to participate in survey research themselves.
If participating in surveys sounds interesting to you, you can learn more or join YouGov here:
https://yougov.com/en-us
Learn about YouGov's methodology:
https://yougov.com/en-us/about/methodology
General Social Survey
The General Social Survey, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago, has studied the attitudes, behaviors, and characteristics of American adults since 1972. Its long-running questions allow researchers to examine social change over decades.
Why explore it: The GSS is particularly valuable when you want to move beyond “What do Americans think right now?” and ask, “How has American society changed?”
Explore the General Social Survey:
https://gss.norc.org/
Use reliable survey research to understand what people think and how views change.
Public-opinion research can help you explore attitudes, priorities, beliefs, and differences across groups or over time.
Useful sources may include:
- Pew Research Center
- Gallup
- YouGov
- General Social Survey
These sources do not all measure the same things or use the same methods, so it is often useful to compare more than one.
Public opinion can help you understand what people say they think. It does not necessarily tell you what is true, what should happen, or what people will actually do.
Useful question:
Am I trying to understand current opinion, long-term change, or differences between groups?
Return to: Public Opinion & Civic Data
