Develop methods of social or economic research.

Develop methods of social or economic research. is a detailed work activity in O*NET — a concrete unit of work shared across 5 occupations and seen in 6 occupation-specific tasks. It rolls up into the broader work activity Develop research plans or methodologies. in Thinking Creatively .

Detailed work activities are the most granular shared layer in O*NET's work-activity hierarchy (Generalized → Intermediate → Detailed → occupation-specific task). The figures below describe how this activity shows up across the economy and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the work will be automated.

AI exposure

Of the 6 tasks under this activity that the OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rated, 6 (100%) are flagged as directly exposed to language models (E1) or exposed via model-powered tools (E2).

The Anthropic Economic Index observes real AI use on 5 of these tasks, with a mean mapped-usage share of 0.016% per task.

Exposure estimates overlap with model capabilities — whether a model could speed the task up — not whether the work will be done by software. Observed AI use is augmentation and assistance today, not jobs replaced.

Member tasks

Occupation-specific tasks O*NET maps to this detailed work activity, most important first.

• Develop and implement employee selection or placement programs. · Industrial-Organizational Psychologists · importance 4.6 · exposure with tools
• Develop interview techniques, rating scales, and psychological tests used to assess skills, abilities, and interests for the purpose of employee selection, placement, or promotion. · Industrial-Organizational Psychologists · importance 4.5 · exposure with tools
• Develop, implement, and evaluate methods of data collection, such as questionnaires or interviews. · Sociologists · importance 4.3 · exposure with tools
• Provide expertise in the design, management and evaluation of study protocols and health status questionnaires, sample selection, and analysis. · Epidemiologists · importance 4.1 · exposure with tools
• Design transportation surveys to identify areas of public concern. · Transportation Planners · importance 4.0 · exposure with tools
• Provide assistance in the design of survey instruments such as questionnaires. · Social Science Research Assistants · importance 3.5 · direct LLM exposure

Occupations that perform this

• Industrial-Organizational Psychologists
• Sociologists
• Epidemiologists
• Transportation Planners
• Social Science Research Assistants

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27) Anthropic
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-develop-methods-of-social-or-economic-research,
  title  = {Develop methods of social or economic research.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/detailed-activities/develop-methods-of-social-or-economic-research}
}