We’ve all heard it before: “What’s more American than apple pie and baseball?” Most people don’t think twice about an expression like that, but we believe there’s no expression, turn of phrase, or colloquialism that we can’t ruin improve by subjecting it to intense scrutiny.
Of course, it isn’t enough to just find out how American apple pie is (hint: not very). We want to find out exactly what the most American thing is in the most democratic way possible. To do this we turned to our tried and true MaxDiff analysis to find out what items Americans associate the most with the United States of America.
As it turns out, apple pie and baseball are really not highly associated with the United States, falling below our other two national symbols: bald eagles and guns. Now it may have been a different story if the eagle was eating apple pie while shooting a baseball from its nest.
And while July 4th might be over, it turns out it’s never far from our hearts and minds. Compared to the rest of the list, Americans overwhelmingly associate the Fourth of July the most with the United States (take that, National Karl Day and National Caesar Salad Day). In fact, America is all about the 3 Fs: Football, Freedom, and the Fourth of July. In case you're looking to get into the bumper sticker business and want to print something scientifically engineered to be popular.
On the other hand, respondents rated items like pollution and colonialism as the second and third least associated with America. At the bottom of the list, apparently the least American thing is being accepting of immigrants so… in your face, Statue of Liberty?
