This study, begun in 1972, was supported in its first year by grants from the Russell Sage Foundation and the National Science Foundation. NSF provided support for 1973 through 1991, with surveys in 1973-1978, 1980, 1982, 1983-1993, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008.

The Principal Investigators are James A. Davis, formerly Director of NORC and now a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago, Tom W. Smith, Senior Fellow and Director of the General Social Survey (GSS), NORC and Director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Society, and Peter V. Marsden, Research Associate, NORC and Department of Sociology, Harvard University.

The National Data Program for the Social Sciences (General Social Survey) is both a data diffusion project and a program of social indicator research. Its data collection instrument, the General Social Survey (GSS), was fielded for the 27th time in 2008. Previously an annual survey, the GSS became biennial in 1994. The questionnaire contains a standard core of demographic and attitudinal variables, plus certain topics of special interest selected for rotation (called "topical modules"). Items that appeared on national surveys between 1973 and 1975 are replicated. The exact wording of these questions is retained to facilitate time trend studies as well as replications of earlier findings.

NORC also incorporates methodological experiments into each year of the GSS data collection. These have involved question wording, context effects, use of different types of response scales, as well as random probes and other assessments of validity and reliability.

For the baseline items in the initial survey, some 150 social scientists reviewed drafts of the questionnaire, suggested revisions and additions, and expressed their preferences by vote. Topic and question selection is monitored annually by a Board of Overseers, composed of distinguished social scientists.

Items include national spending priorities, drinking behavior, marijuana use, crime and punishment, race relations, quality of life, confidence in institutions, and membership in voluntary associations.

Since 1985, the GSS has taken part in the International Social Survey Program, a consortium of social scientists from 44 countries around the world. The ISSP asks an identical battery of questions in all countries; the U.S. version of these questions is incorporated into the GSS. GSS co-Principal Investigator Tom W. Smith served as the ISSP Secretary General in 1997-2003.

The basic purposes of the GSS are to gather data on contemporary American society in order to monitor and explain trends and constants in attitudes, behaviors, and attributes; to examine the structure and functioning of society in general as well as the role played by relevant subgroups; to compare the United States to other societies in order to place American society in comparative perspective and develop cross-national models of human society; and to make high-quality data easily accessible to scholars, students, policy makers, and others, with minimal cost and waiting. Since 1988, the GSS has also collected data on number of sex partners, frequency of intercourse, extramarital relationships, and sex with prostitutes.

The GSS is the largest sociology project funded by NSF and has been described as a national resource. In use by sociologists it is second only to the Census. Over 14,000 research uses in articles, textbooks, monographs, dissertations, etc. have been documented.

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