We fielded our survey through Qualtrics in August of 2025 and we managed to collect a total sample of 557 respondents. Not bad, right?
One concept that kept bubbling up during our discussion was the idea of self-improvement. Young folks have a term for this: “maxxing.” For instance, some young men are devotees of “jaw-maxxing,” which is a series of facial exercises to make them have a more defined jawline. There is also a corner of the internet that is obsessed with sleep-maxxing. These folks track their sleep patterns obsessively, always looking for ways to catch a few more minutes of shut-eye.
It’s pretty clear that the typical American is always on the lookout for ways to improve their lives on a whole bunch of different dimensions. We wanted to focus on that topic in a more philosophical way in our questionnaire. We asked them: How close do you feel you are to being the kind of person you ought to be, morally speaking?
