Looking at all the data, though–in particular, that that big fat red bar at the far right of the second graph above (the “not too happy” extremely Republican women), it’s hard for me to buy the summary statement that conservative women are “particularly blissful.” Particularly likely to say they are either “very happy” or “not too happy”–particularly extreme in their happiness statements!–but that’s a bit different.

The real message, though, is that survey responses can show a lot of different things. I think this discussion provides a strong argument for presenting a graph rather than trying to pull out patterns using sentences and paragraphs. A graph shows the big patterns, it also shows the complexity of the situation, in particular, a group such as conservative women who are more likely to say they are “very happy” and more likely to say they are “not too happy.” Instead of arguing over whether it’s appropriate to describe such a group as “particularly blissful,” we can just show people the data. I appreciate Quinn’s openness in sharing his analysis, and I hope that, in the future, media outlets such as the Times will make it easier for essayists and reporters to include graphs where appropriate. We’re used to thinking of graphs as a big production, but a well-designed graph can be formatted to take up not much more space than a paragraph of text.