GSS (2024) — Political identity (polviews + partyid 7-pt)
https://gss.norc.org/get-the-data/ →benchmark:gss-political-identity-2024
Shape mix:
1
unimodal
1
multimodal-symmetric
Δ 0.11
3.12
()
→ 3.01
()
within-fixture gradient
Acceptance rubric
An SSR re-run acceptably reproduces this benchmark when it clears every check below on the same 2 paired questions the source publishes. The chip badges name the checks the round-38 → round-46 shape-mismatch finding argued are necessary but not sufficient in isolation.
CI overlap
2/2
Shape match
2/2
SSR mean inside CI · shape badge reproduces the source label.
What this benchmark discloses
Recruitment screener (verbatim)
GSS uses an address-based national probability sample of U.S. adults 18+. The 2024 cross-section ran mixed-mode (in-person + web push). No content screener. Sampling frame and selection probability are documented in the GSS 2024 Codebook R3 (NORC). Both items are on the larger ballot share (n ≈ 3,160 / 3,185 of the wave's 3,309 total — the full national sample for the political-identity rotation).
Sample weighting & demographics
Weighted to wtssps (NORC's recommended GSS 2024 post-stratification weight, person-level). Published 1-5 means are the weighted raw means after the 7-pt 1+(raw-1)·4/6 remap; distributions are weighted percentages of each ordinal code.
Fieldwork dates, country, language
United States, 2024 cross-section. Fieldwork March–November 2024 per the GSS 2024 Codebook R3 (page 1). Modes: in-person and web push (push-to-web for the subsample without prior in-person contact).
Original question text & translations
polviews (codebook verbatim): "We hear a lot of talk these days about liberals and conservatives. I'm going to show you a seven-point scale on which the political views people might hold are arranged from extremely liberal — point 1 — to extremely conservative — point 7. Where would you place yourself on this scale?" partyid: "Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a Republican, Democrat, Independent, or what?" (codebook follow-ups distinguish strong/not strong/leaner across both parties; the original codebook scale runs 0-6).
Likert / scale labelling
polviews — raw 1-7 codebook: 1='extremely liberal', 2='liberal', 3='slightly liberal', 4='moderate', 5='slightly conservative', 6='conservative', 7='extremely conservative'. partyid — raw 0-6 codebook, REMAPPED to 1-7 for this fixture so the SSR dispatch can read it: 0→1 'strong democrat', 1→2 'not very strong democrat', 2→3 'independent close to democrat', 3→4 'independent', 4→5 'independent close to republican', 5→6 'not very strong republican', 6→7 'strong republican'. SSR rescale 1 + (raw − 1) × 4/6 maps both 7-pt axes onto SSR 1-5 with higher SSR = more conservative / more Republican. The convention is a direction, not a value judgement.
FGI moderator guide & coding rules
Closed-ended Likert, no FGI. No moderator guide. polviews has run since 1974, partyid since 1972 — both with their original scale labels intact. The partyid raw code remap (0-6 → 1-7) is a fixture-side convenience for the SSR dispatch; downstream code that consumes the raw GSS file directly should remember to apply the +1 shift.
Data source & license
Public domain (NSF-funded). Required citation: Davern, Michael; Bautista, Rene; Freese, Jeremy; Herd, Pamela; and Morgan, Stephen L. General Social Survey 1972-2024. NORC ed., Chicago, 2025.
Anything not disclosed here was not available in the source dataset and is recorded as such.
SSR run — reproducibility keys
- template_version
- 3.0.0
- llm_seed
- 4218
- bootstrap_seed
- 8436
- llm_model
- deepseek-v4-flash
- embedding_model
- nvidia/nv-embed-v1
SSR score vs ground truth, by question
Each row holds one question. The teal mark and range are SSR. The sky mark and range are the source FGI/survey.
§
Where would you place yourself on a seven-point scale from extremely liberal (1) to extremely conservative (7)?
SSR
—
Source
3.12 (3.08–3.15)
Source distribution
SD 1.01
skew -0.03
7 cells
unimodal
1.02.03.04.05.0
§
Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a Republican, Democrat, Independent, or what? (1=strong democrat → 7=strong republican)
SSR
—
Source
3.01 (2.96–3.05)
Source distribution
SD 1.31
skew 0.00
7 cells
multimodal-symmetric
1.02.03.04.05.0