How Social Scientists Perpetuate the Myth that Single People Aren’t Happy

In a recent study, single people were given no opportunity to say they were happily single

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Decades ago, when I first started reading scientific papers on people who are single, I realized something right away: What we think we know about single people depends, in large part, on the questions that are asked as well as the questions that are not asked, on the ways the studies are designed, and how they are interpreted. For example, if we only ask about how much money single and married people have, and never ask about how much control they have over their saving and spending or whether their own financial security can be imperiled by the debts or reckless money habits of a partner, then it could seem like married people are better off.

One of the beliefs about single people, supposedly supported by science, is that they are just not very happy. I’ve critiqued this claim often. Here I want to give an example of a study designed in a way to make it impossible for single people to say that they are happy.

Only the People Who Wanted a Romantic Relationship Were Given the Opportunity to Say Positive Things about Themselves