DOI: 10.3886/icpsr35414.v1
title: Survey of Consumer Attitudes and Behavior, October 2008
title: Version 1

description: The Survey of Consumer Attitudes and Behavior series (also known as the Surveys of Consumers) was undertaken to measure changes in consumer attitudes and expectations, to understand why such changes occur, and to evaluate how they relate to consumer decisions to save, borrow, or make discretionary purchases. The data regularly include the Index of Consumer Sentiment, the Index of Current Economic Conditions, and the Index of Consumer Expectations. Since the 1940s, these surveys have been produced quarterly through 1977 and monthly thereafter. The surveys conducted in 2008 focused on topics such as evaluations and expectations about personal finances, employment, price changes, and the national business situation. Opinions were collected regarding respondents' appraisals of present market conditions for purchasing houses, automobiles, and other durables. Also explored in this survey were respondents' types of savings and financial investments, loan use, family income, retirement planning, general feelings and mental health, and political affiliation. Other topics in this series typically include ownership, lease, and use of automobiles, respondents' use of personal computers at home and in the office, and respondents' familiarity with and use of the Internet. Demographic information include ethnic origin, sex, age, marital status, and education.
description: The purpose of this survey series is to forecast changes in aggregate consumer behavior.
description: The data are not weighted, however, this collection contains four weight variables; WT (HOUSEHOLD HEAD WEIGHT), WT_HH (HOUSEHOLD WEIGHT), WT_ADHD (ADULT HEAD WEIGHT), and WT_AD (ADULT WEIGHT) that must be used in any analysis. For more information on weights and sampling, please visit the Surveys of Consumers Web site and refer to the documentation on Sample Design, and the section on Sample Weights.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Created variable labels and/or value labels.; Standardized missing values.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: Dataset
description: Survey of Consumer Attitudes and Behavior Series
description: computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) 
Information on the Index of Consumer Sentiment, the Index of Current Economic Conditions, and the Index of Consumer Expectations and how they were created can be found in the ICPSR Codebook.
 Additional information on the Survey of Consumers can be found by visiting the Surveys of Consumers Web site.
description: Persons aged 18 years or older living in households with telephones within the United States. Smallest Geographic Unit: Census division
description: National sampling of dwelling units selected by area probability sampling.