We Can Fix That with Data

How does your taste in music affect your opinion about the redistribution of wealth? Marginal Revolution knows, thanks to the 1993 General Social Survey. Run your own fun queries:

1. Use the “Percentages (Frequencies)” search boxes to choose your first indicator. You can either choose one from the dropdown, or use the search box to find one for you (for example, entering “women” and repeatedly clicking the “Go/Next” button will show you all the questions about opinions of women). Click “see question text” to see how the survey question was phrased.
2. Use the “Add a second question” search boxes in the same manner.
3. Hit “Get Results.”
4. Read the bit about reading crosstabs to understand the results.

Man, I could play with this all day. Unfortunately, I can’t link directly to my query results — you’ll have to reproduce them on your own.

• When you “agree” that “only a few people can judge art,” you’re likely to strongly dislike easy listening music. (Hypocrites.) (”only a few people can judge art” by “like or dislike easy listening music”)
• If you believe that God determines your life outcome, you’re more likely to think that life is dull. (”life outcome decided by God” by “is life exciting or dull”)
• If you’re okay with gay sex, you’re more likely to think that we don’t spend enough on space exploration. Conversely, if you’re against gay sex, you think we spend too much. (What are those astronauts up to up there, anyway?) (”homosexual sex relations” by “space exporation program”)
• Math geeks like heavy metal. English geeks don’t. They agree that they dislike new age music, though it’s popular with the artists. (”r favorite subject in hs” by “like or dislike heavy metal music”; “r favorite subject in hs” by “like or dislike new age music”)
• If you had sex for money last year, you’re much more likely to disagree that animals have rights. (Sadly, the sample size of the people who had sex for money is only four — not big enough to matter.) (”animals have rights too” by “r had sex for pay last year”)
• Smokers are slightly more likely to believe in survival of the fittest. (Yet they continue to smoke, eh?) (”has r ever smoked” by “nature is survival of fittest”)

What have you found?