Appendix A

Latter-day Saint Spiritual Seismology Survey

Data for the Spiritual Seismology Survey (SSS) were collected using an online survey administered through Qualtrics (Ryan Burge, professor at Washington University, is a principal investigator of this project). The instrument was designed by a research team to assess a broad range of topics related to religious affiliation, belief, practice, spirituality, and moral and political attitudes.

The survey was fielded between February 28, 2025, and July 16, 2025. Respondents were recruited via Qualtrics Panels, which use an opt-in, quota-based sampling framework. Qualtrics maintains partnerships with multiple online panel providers to ensure diverse recruitment and robust sample quality. Participants were invited by email to complete the survey and were provided a modest incentive (typically, points redeemable for cash or gift cards) through their respective panel vendors.

To achieve national representativeness, Qualtrics implemented quotas based on age, gender, race/ethnicity, and education level calibrated to match benchmarks from the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS).

The final dataset included 100,741 adult respondents aged 18 and older residing in the United States. Median completion time was approximately 20 minutes. All participants provided informed consent prior to participation, and no personally identifying information was retained beyond standard Qualtrics metadata necessary for survey administration.

Attention checks and response-quality screens (for example, speeding, straight-lining, and inconsistent responses) were included to ensure data integrity. Respondents who failed multiple quality checks were excluded from the final analytic sample.

For the current report, we had access to only the Latter-day Saint sample. The total sample size was 1,668, with 53% current Latter-day Saints and 47% former Latter-day Saints.

Family Foundations of Youth Development Methodology

Full details of the Family Foundations of Youth Development (FFYD) dataset can be found at foundations.byu.edu. The FFYD project currently includes five waves of data collection (2016, 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024). At each wave, previous participants were invited to participate again, and surveys took about 35–55 minutes to complete. Because Latter-day Saints are underrepresented in research literature, they were intentionally oversampled.

Wave 1 (2016) focused on Utah youth and one of their parents. To obtain a random sample, the study used the national research company InfoUSA (now Data Axle), which compiles household information from publicly available sources. From that database, 10,000 Utah households with a child age 12–14 were randomly selected. Recruitment letters with unique survey codes were mailed, and households were also contacted by phone. Although the database was generally reliable, household composition was inaccurate in at least 10% of cases. Among eligible households, just over 60% participated. To preserve a random sample, families and friends could not join unless their household had been randomly selected, though multiple eligible youth within a selected household could participate. In Wave 1, there were 597 child participants and 618 parent participants.

Wave 2 (2018) recontacted Wave 1 participants and added new participants from Utah and Arizona. Arizona was chosen because it is similar to Utah in some respects but has a substantially lower proportion of Latter-day Saints than Utah. New families were again recruited through InfoUSA, this time selecting households with a child age 12–16 so they would be comparable in age to returning participants. More than 80% of Wave 1 participants returned. Wave 2 included 1,264 child participants and 1,395 parent participants.

Wave 3 (2020) recontacted participants from the earlier waves and added a Southern California sample. Most California participants were recruited through InfoUSA using the same mailing and phone procedures. Because that did not yield enough Latter-day Saint participants, the BYU Alumni database was also used; 1,000 recruitment emails were sent, and analyses included a control for whether California participants came from InfoUSA or the BYU Alumni database. Wave 3 included 1,699 child participants and 1,777 parent participants.

Wave 4 (2022) continued the longitudinal study with 1,242 child participants and 1,346 parent participants. Retention from Wave 3 to Wave 4 was 71% for children and 74% for parents.

Wave 5 (2024) included 1,139 child participants and 1,201 parent participants. Retention from Wave 4 to Wave 5 was 72% for children and 73% for parents.

Across all five waves, the project combined random-sample recruitment with longitudinal follow-up, allowing both cross-sectional and developmental analyses of youth and parents over time.