All research presented in this document will have been pulled from the HINTS dataset. The researchers who will use the study of this dataset have collected the dataset through questionnaire surveys. The two variables used in this document will be “What is your marital status? Would you say..." and "In the last 30 days, how many times have you felt so sad that nothing could cheer you up?" I chose these two variables because, as a sociology major, I am very interested in how society works in the as a whole, living in a society where marriage is encouraged and staying single is looked down upon, I wanted to research whether there was indeed any correlation between the level of happiness a person experiences if they are married and when they are single operationalized are very important. This means that the variables were collected in a question where the question was formulated in such a way that it did not have a double meaning or could not be misunderstood other words, the variables had simple answers, given in the form of a scale and a list of statuses. The possible answers to the marital status question were: “Married”. Not confirmed. Reject. I do not know. Possible answers to the question how sad are you would be: “All the time. Most of the time. Some time. A little time. Not once. Reject. I don't know.” People are often asked what makes a person happy. Many people would like to know the secret to a happy life, the answer could be marriage. I would like to research the correlation between how happy a married person is and how happy an unmarried person is. The data set I'm going to use for this... middle of the paper... that you should always be aware of is that people lie. Some of the interviewees could have simply lied about the level of happiness they experienced because if they had told the truth they would have felt guilty. A simple solution to this problem would be to conduct the survey in a private setting and not over the telephone where the wife or husband may be within earshot. Another thing to think about is that if the concept of marriage in society changes, will these also find the change? Only time will tell!ReferenceDiener, E., & Diener, C. (1996). Most people are happy. Psychological Science,7(3), 181-185.Glenn, N.D. (1975). The contribution of marriage to the psychological well-being of males and females. Journal of Marriage and Family, 594-600. Ross, C. E. (1995). Reconceptualizing marital status as a continuum of social attachment. Journal of marriage and family, 129-140