Research

Are you single and ready to mingle?  You’re definitely not alone there.  As it turns out, a record number of Americans reported themselves as single in 2017, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.  While there are plenty of people who choose to be single, there are many more people who are struggling to find the right person and are left to ask themselves why they are still single.  To find an answer, we surveyed over 1,300 adults and asked them a series of questions, including whether or not they chose to remain single, whether they felt past relationships held them back in forging new ones, and why they thought they were still alone.  According to the results of the survey, the answers might be found internally more than externally.

Few staples of popular culture have had such a long-lasting effect on society (and been as controversial) as pornography.  Increases in both the speed and the availability of internet service have only amplified pornography’s influence on modern society.  Aside from the ethical questions posed by pornography, many researchers believe there to be a negative, enduring effect on relationships in general.  Due to the aforementioned increase in the availability of internet service, people (especially men) are being exposed to pornography at an increasingly younger age than in the past.  This further exacerbates the effect that pornography has on individuals, so we set out to quantify the effect that it has on relationships.  We surveyed over 1,200 men and women and asked them a series of questions, including when they first viewed porn, how their preferences have changed over time, and which types of pornography they considered to be the most extreme.  We then asked them questions about their sex lives to determine how much of an influence pornography has over that area and, therefore, relationships as a whole.

It seems like everywhere we go, we are followed by the specter of political division.  Outside of maybe religion, there is no topic more divisive and polarizing than each person’s political identity.  We can’t turn on the TV or our social media feeds without being inundated with news and opinions that are grounded in politics.  This constant exposure to information and opinions, combined with the increased division between Republicans and Democrats, has amplified a tense atmosphere that has led this current era to be one of the most divisive and (more importantly) stressful in the history of this nation.  We surveyed over 1,000 people from all sides of the political spectrum to find how they defined themselves on a wide range of topics, including: religion, parenting styles, relationships, and sexual proclivities.  While many of these responses predictably differed, we also found some similarities across the political landscape, most notably in the levels of stress and the desire to feel better.