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Why Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
By
Jeanna Bryner
Individuals with conservative ideologies are happier
than liberal-leaners, and new research pinpoints the reason: Conservatives
rationalize social and economic inequalities.
Regardless of marital status,
income or church attendance, right-wing individuals reported greater life
satisfaction and well-being than left-wingers, the new study found.
Conservatives also
scored highest on measures of rationalization, which gauge a person's tendency
to justify, or explain away, inequalities.
The rationalization measure
included statements such as: "It is not really that big a problem if some people
have more of a chance in life than others," and "This country would be better
off if we worried less about how equal people are."
To justify
economic inequalities, a person could support the idea of meritocracy, in which
people supposedly move up their economic status in society based on hard work and good performance.
In that way, one's social class attainment,
whether upper, middle or lower, would be perceived as totally fair and
justified.
If your beliefs don't justify gaps in status, you could be left
frustrated and disheartened, according to the researchers, Jaime Napier and John
Jost of New York University. They conducted both a U.S.-centric survey and a
more internationally focused one to arrive at the findings.
"Our research
suggests that inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on
conservatives," the researchers write in the June issue of the journal
Psychological Science, "apparently because liberals lack ideological
rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at
least neutral) light."
The results support and further explain a Pew Research Center survey from 2006, in which 47 percent of
conservative Republicans in the U.S. described themselves as "very happy," while
only 28 percent of liberal Democrats indicated such cheer.
The same
rationalizing phenomena could apply to personal situations as well.
"There is
no reason to think that the effects we have identified here are unique to
economic forms of inequality," the researchers write. "Research suggests that
highly egalitarian women are less happy in their marriages compared with their
more traditional counterparts, apparently because they are more troubled by
disparities in domestic labor."
The current study was funded by the National
Science Foundation.
I just don't even know what to say about this except WTF?!??!!!
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