Trying to Count Non-Religiosity

Two massive datasets are increasingly divergent in how many people claim to have no religious affiliation, the ‘nones’. The number of nones has been increasing in both datasets from 2008 to 2018, but the divergence in the datasets has been increasing over time.

The Friendly Atheist writes: “For example, how are the questions asked? On the GSS [General Social Survey], the question looks like this: What is your religious preference? Is it Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, some other religion, or no religion?

The CCES [Cooperative Congressional Election Study] asks: What is your present religion, if any? It then offers 11 options — including atheist, agnostic, and nothing in particular (which you can combine to find a total “no religion” number).

Not surprisingly, the latter question gets a higher response from the Nones. I’m not surprised. It’s far more open-ended. It treats “atheist” and “agnostic” like every other option. Even “nothing in particular” may be less grating to some than “no religion,” which could sound harsh or negative.

Burge also notes another important difference between the two surveys, which I believe also accounts quite a bit for the discrepancies: ‘… the GSS is still conducted by a survey administrator asking questions of respondents, while the CCES is computer-based. People are less likely to lie to a computer than they are to a person.’”