Side by side with real FGIs and surveys
Each case here pairs one SSR study with a published FGI or panel survey on the same questions. Every setting on both sides — recruitment, weighting, fieldwork dates, original question text, Likert labels, the SSR seeds — is disclosed in the open. The point is not to claim a win. It is to make the comparison reproducible.
Cross-study correlation, Top-2 box agreement, and Bland-Altman bias appear once at least 5 studies and 300 question pairs have been collected. Before that, every case is shown but no aggregate headline is claimed.
Each shelf below collects studies that share an instrument and a topic. The Δ chip on each shelf reports the biggest mean-to-mean gradient inside that shelf — the SSR has to reproduce these gradients to be useful, so they are also the shelf's acceptance test.
Which topics show the biggest internal disagreement? Below: every shelf with a computable Δ, plotted on the same 0 → max scale. A wide bar is a wide gradient the SSR has to reproduce; a short bar is a flat consensus the SSR must not over-polarise. The |s| column reports the shelf-mean |skewness|: ≥ 0.5 (amber) flags shelves where at least one item is bimodal or heavily skewed, so a re-run that matches the mean from a unimodal cluster is still wrong. σ (mean SD on the SSR axis) catches dispersion that |s| misses: a symmetric trimodal distribution — say, partyid spiking at strong-Dem / independent / strong-Rep — reads as skew ≈ 0 but its SD is large. ≥ 1.2 (sky) flags wider-than-unimodal shelves the |s| chip alone would let through.
Abortion attitudes →
Dichotomous yes/no on the seven AB conditions, GSS 2024. The within-battery gradient separates traumatic from elective scenarios.
Well-being (HAPPY + SAT*) →
Three- and four-point happiness and satisfaction items, GSS 2024. The within-battery gradient separates marital happiness and job satisfaction (high) from financial satisfaction (low) on the same wave and the same respondents.
Generalised social trust →
Three classic NORC social-trust items (TRUST + FAIR + HELPFUL) on the same wave and split-ballot, GSS 2024. The within-battery gradient is the gap between how trustworthy Americans think other people are (low) versus how helpful and fair they expect them to be (higher).
Political-policy trio →
Three dichotomous policy items spanning the U.S. partisan spectrum — death penalty, gun permit, marijuana legalisation — asked of the same 2024 wave. The shelf-Δ is intentionally narrow: all three sit at majority-favor, so an SSR re-run has to reproduce a flat consensus rather than a wide gradient.
Sexual-morality trio →
Three 4-pt sexual-morality items (HOMOSEX + XMARSEX + PREMARSX) on the same GSS 2024 wave. The within-battery gradient is the second largest in the catalogue (Δ ≈ 2.34) — Americans are overwhelmingly tolerant of premarital sex but overwhelmingly intolerant of extramarital sex, with same-sex relations reading as a sharply bimodal distribution that an SD/skew chip surfaces.
Political identity (polviews + partyid) →
Two 7-pt political-identity items on the same GSS 2024 wave — ideology (polviews) and partisanship (partyid). Both averages sit near the SSR centre, but the shapes differ sharply: polviews is unimodal at "moderate" while partyid is trimodal across strong-Dem / independent / strong-Rep. The shelf is the within-fixture case for the round-38 shape-mismatch finding.
Religion belief (postlife + god + pray) →
Three religion-belief items on the same GSS 2024 wave — afterlife (dichotomous), god (6-pt ascending), prayer frequency (6-pt descending). pray is textbook bimodal-asymmetric (31.5% several-times-a-day + 21% never, with only 6% at the once-a-week midpoint), god is left-skewed at "know God exists", postlife is left-skewed at "yes". The shelf is the round-38 finding rendered across three different scales.
Institutional confidence →
3-pt Likert across 13 U.S. institutions, GSS 2024. The same wave, the same respondents — the gradient is which institutions still earn confidence.
Federal spending priorities →
3-pt Likert across 23 federal-spending items, GSS 2024 — including the natfare/natfarey split-ballot that isolates the welfare vs assistance-to-the-poor wording effect.
Civil liberties (SPK + LIB) →
Dichotomous tolerance for speech and library books across four target groups, GSS 2024. Same wave isolates target × action interactions.
Hedonic taste tests (CPG) →
9-pt hedonic panel scored on four SKU per category in the Visalli et al. open dataset. Same panel, multiple products — the gradient is product-vs-product within one consumer.
Visalli et al. (2022) — Guacamole panel
benchmark:visalli-guacamole-2022
Visalli et al. (2022) — Crisps panel
benchmark:visalli-crisps-2022
Visalli et al. (2022) — Iced tea panel
benchmark:visalli-icetea-2022
Visalli et al. (2022) — Dark chocolate panel
benchmark:visalli-chocolate-2022
Aquaculture sensory panels →
9-pt hedonic on aquaculture species across feed systems (Control / Insects / Algae / Bioactive), iFishIENCi D3.6. The gradient is which feed system the panel actually prefers.
iFishIENCi (Nov 2021) — Tilapia Laos feed-system panel
benchmark:ifish-tilapia-laos-nov-2021
iFishIENCi (Feb 2021) — Tilapia Laos feed-system panel
benchmark:ifish-tilapia-laos-feb-2021
iFishIENCi (Jan 2023) — African catfish Hungary panel
benchmark:ifish-catfish-hungary-2023
iFishIENCi (2022) — Rainbow trout feed-system panel
benchmark:ifish-rainbow-trout-2022