Ryerson Project Ryerson Project

Ryerson Project Item 147

I often feel helpless in dealing with the problems of life.

American adults' average (mean) response was 4.06 on a scale of 0 (Disagree) to 10 (Agree). 146 responses have been collected (so far) from 2026-08-27 to 2026-11-06.

Descriptive Statistics

Mean4.06
Median3.00
Standard deviation3.22
N146
Standard error0.267

All-Time Distribution

Response 0: 28 Response 1: 10 Response 2: 21 Response 3: 17 Response 4: 6 Response 5: 11 Response 6: 13 Response 7: 14 Response 8: 9 Response 9: 7 Response 10: 10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0 28 Agreement (0 = maximum disagreement, 10 = maximum agreement) Count

Comparison to Other Items

Based on all-time mean agreement, this item ranks 118 out of 143 qualifying items and is at the 17.6 percentile.

Qualifying items have 100 or more total observations. Higher means indicate more agreement and therefore a higher rank.

Monthly Trend

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0% 50% 100% 0 5 10 2026-08 response 0: 0.0% 2026-08 response 1: 16.7% 2026-08 response 2: 33.3% 2026-08 response 3: 0.0% 2026-08 response 4: 16.7% 2026-08 response 5: 16.7% 2026-08 response 6: 0.0% 2026-08 response 7: 0.0% 2026-08 response 8: 0.0% 2026-08 response 9: 16.7% 2026-08 response 10: 0.0% 2026-09 response 0: 20.0% 2026-09 response 1: 5.5% 2026-09 response 2: 14.5% 2026-09 response 3: 12.7% 2026-09 response 4: 1.8% 2026-09 response 5: 10.9% 2026-09 response 6: 7.3% 2026-09 response 7: 16.4% 2026-09 response 8: 0.0% 2026-09 response 9: 1.8% 2026-09 response 10: 9.1% 2026-10 response 0: 16.4% 2026-10 response 1: 6.0% 2026-10 response 2: 11.9% 2026-10 response 3: 13.4% 2026-10 response 4: 6.0% 2026-10 response 5: 1.5% 2026-10 response 6: 13.4% 2026-10 response 7: 6.0% 2026-10 response 8: 13.4% 2026-10 response 9: 6.0% 2026-10 response 10: 6.0% 2026-11 response 0: 33.3% 2026-11 response 1: 11.1% 2026-11 response 2: 16.7% 2026-11 response 3: 5.6% 2026-11 response 4: 0.0% 2026-11 response 5: 16.7% 2026-11 response 6: 0.0% 2026-11 response 7: 5.6% 2026-11 response 8: 0.0% 2026-11 response 9: 5.6% 2026-11 response 10: 5.6% Aug 2026 Sep 2026 Oct 2026 Nov 2026 Observation month Percent of responses Monthly mean

Observed Trend

Observations suggest unchanging agreement over the observed period, from 2026-08-27 to 2026-11-06. The estimated change over that period is -0.523 points on a 0 to 10 scale. Regression results place a 95% confidence interval around that observed-period change of [-2.414, 1.367].
Regression table

The daily slope annualized over 365.25 days is -2.691 points per year, with a 95% confidence interval of [-12.417, 7.034]. This short-window annualized number is provided for reference, but the observed-period change above is the primary trend estimate.

Call:
lm(formula = response_value ~ days_since_start, data = model_data)

Residuals:
   Min     1Q Median     3Q    Max 
-4.294 -2.870 -0.933  2.792  6.155 

Coefficients:
                  Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)    
(Intercept)       4.360436   0.608160   7.170 3.62e-11 ***
days_since_start -0.007369   0.013471  -0.547    0.585    
---
Signif. codes:  0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1

Residual standard error: 3.231 on 144 degrees of freedom
Multiple R-squared:  0.002074,	Adjusted R-squared:  -0.004856 
F-statistic: 0.2992 on 1 and 144 DF,  p-value: 0.5852