Note on variable names and capitalization:

Since an important element of this survey is direct comparability to the European Social Survey (ESS) on approximately half of the questions, we have used the following system to distinguish between ESS and U.S.-only variables: lower-case variables indicate that the question is an exact replication of the ESS (which itself uses all lower-case variable names); and upper-case variables are U.S.-only.

In two cases of ESS replications, we had to expand the response options on the U.S. question in order to capture the wider range of American responses (the questions concern the extent of television watching). These variables are now indicated by a capital N at the beginning of the variable name.

When the new upper-case variables were added within a battery of ESS questions (usually at the end of the string), we tried to conform the variable names to ESS labeling style, which typically involves combinations of abbreviations of words from the questions. When the upper-case variables were altogether new questions, we chose our own variable names.

Overall, we hope that the distinction between lower- and upper-case should make it relatively easy to determine which variables are from the ESS and which are U.S.-only.