The South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) is a nationally representative, cross-sectional survey that has been conducted annually by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) since 2003.

SASAS was developed with international and local assistance  , and modelled on similar long-standing attitudinal survey series in the UK (British Social Attitudes: BSA) , USA (General Social Survey: GSS) and Germany (German Social Survey: ALLBUS). The SASAS series is respected as a research tool that provides a unique, long-term account of the changing nature of public values in contemporary South Africa. It is therefore important to enable a better understanding South African society and promoting evidence-based policy .

SASAS aims to:

• Measure and produce rigorous data about changes in public attitudes and behaviour patterns over time as our democracy matures.
• Enable a better understanding of how the attitudes, beliefs and behaviour of South Africans compare with citizens in other countries through collaboration with select cross-national surveys.
• Develop reliable social indicators of national progress based on the attitudes and perceptions of citizens regarding key aspects of their society.