What Matters to Americans: Social, Economic and Political Values

Abstract

This paper provides a non-technical overview of the results of a population sample of Americans in 2011. It provides utility based assessments of a wide range of social, economic and political issues both local and global utilizing a best-worst, maximum difference, approach to determining salience. This is a unique and potentially revealing alternative to standard Likert based polling. In addition, the report outlines data on religious activity, political orientation and affiliation, donating and volunteering behavior and personality measures.

Keywords: social values, political values, polling, utility based assessment