Research Guides: Psychology: Data

Finding Data

A number of government agencies, research institutes, and universities make their data available to the public on-line. This page is designed to expose you to the available avenues for accessing on-line data for economic research and social science research more broadly.

Searching for Data on a Specific Topic

If you Google your topic with the term "statistics" or "data," Google is unlikely to produce results that offer you good data. However, within your results, you may find articles that cite original data sets from institutions like universities, research centers, government agencies, or non-partisan think tanks.

To increase your odds of finding useful citations, try searching for your topic and "statistics" or "data" using Google Scholar and Google News. In your results, take note of which institutions collect the data that interest you. Find those institutions on-line via Google and explore the data pages of their websites.

Key Psychology Data Sets

RCMD Resource Center for Minority Data This link opens in a new window

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Public Data

Explore Census Data
US Census Bureau interactive data sets, previously known as American Fact Finder
American National Election Studies
To serve the research needs of social scientists, teachers, students, policy makers and journalists, the ANES produces high quality data from its own surveys on voting, public opinion, and political participation. ANES data enable researchers to better understand the theoretical and empirical foundations of national election outcomes.
Centre for Economic Policy Research
The Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) was founded in 1983 to enhance the quality of economic policy-making within Europe and beyond, by fostering high quality, policy-relevant economic research, and disseminating it widely to decision-makers in the public and private sectors.

CLASP Center for Law and Social Policy - Data This link opens in a new window
CLASP conducts analysis of national, state, and local data to accurately document racial disparities and disparate policy impacts by race to inform our policy recommendations and advocacy.

Data.gov
United States Federal Government clearinghouse for linked, open government data.

EIU Economist Intelligence Unit - Country data via CIAO This link opens in a new window
Find up-to-date economic, political, and geographic information by country.

Federal Reserve
The Federal Reserve often referred to as "the Fed" is the central bank of the United States. Created to help promote a safe and sound monetary and financial system for our nation.
General Social Survey
The GSS contains a standard 'core' of demographic, behavioral, and attitudinal questions, plus topics of special interest. Many of the core questions have remained unchanged since 1972 to facilitate time-trend studies as well as replication of earlier findings. The GSS takes the pulse of America, and is a unique and valuable resource. It has tracked the opinions of Americans over the last four decades.
Hate Map | Southern Poverty Law Center

ICPSR Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research This link opens in a new window
ICPSR maintains a data archive of more than 500,000 files of research in the social sciences. It hosts 16 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields.

LAPD Crime Mapping
Interactive maps of crimes by type and neighborhood Sept 2011-Present.

Social Explorer This link opens in a new window
Social Explorer is an online research tool designed to provide quick and easy access to current and historical census data and demographic information.

State of Working America Data Library
Provides researchers, media, and the public with easily accessible, up-to-date, and comprehensive historical data on the American labor force. It is compiled from Economic Policy Institute analysis of government data sources. Use it to research wages, inequality, and other economic indicators over time and among demographic groups.
UN Data (UNSD)
60 databases from the UN on topics of economy, health and society.
Economic and Political Impact of Immigrants, Latinos and Asians State by State | Immigration Policy Center
World Bank
The World Bank provides free and open access to a comprehensive set of data about development in countries around the globe, together with other datasets cited in the data catalog. Broader access to these data allow policymakers and advocacy groups to make better-informed decisions and measure improvements more accurately. They are also valuable tools to support research by journalists, academia and others, broadening understanding of global issues.