Conservatives Happier Than Liberals

Something I've know for years, but now it's confirmed: Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals. However I do not agree with the reason for this happiness as reported here. Basically what it says is that Conservatives are happier than Liberals ... because we DON'T CARE about inequalities, and the Liberals care so much that they can't possibly be as happy. What a pile of crap.

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.

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 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. (continue reading)

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Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, Rosemary's Thoughts, Big Dog's Weblog, Cao's Blog, Faultline USA, Democrat=Socialist, Stageleft, and The World According to Carl, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Comments

[Skunkfeathers]

No surprises here. Proof beyond all doubt will be delivered in Denver at the DNC's rio-vention in August.

[Faultline USA]

Good article! This so-called study was conducted by graduate students Jaime Napier and John Jost of New York University. They conducted a U.S.-centric survey and a more internationally focused one to arrive at the findings. The study was biased from the start. See http://www.psych.nyu.edu/jostlab/napier.html

[Debbie]

Skunkfeathers and Faultline: Thanks for the comment and link.

I thought this was so arrogant and condescending.

[Clinging to God and Guns in Tennessee]

Inequality has existed from the beginning of human civilization. Some have to work harder than others to succeed. LIFE IS NOT FAIR! GET OVER IT!

Conservatives are happier for a couple of reasons:

1. Liberal ideas never work and in fact often make matters worse due to unintended consequences.

2. Liberals have to advance their positions through lies and deceit. If they told the truth about themselves, they would never be elected.

If I had to go through life defending failures and lies, I'd be miserable too.

[Nathaniel]

I would like to add 2 additional points, starting with 1 on "Human Extinction"..

Point 1:
I think that it is easy to see humans can do great damage via pollution, even if you don’t think global warming is happening (and I feel odds are that it is these days) there is still the toxic pollution that has been added to rivers, lakes, and some pieces of land that has a detrimental effect of plant and animal life in that area. So we do cause pollution and it does cause harm.
Does that last point mean that life/from Earth would be better without us? I argue no. Not only are we part of life on/from Earth but if we are able to limit the damage we do to various ecosystems around the world so they do not collapse then we provide means by which life on Earth will become life from Earth and those have the potential to survive past the point (in about 5 billion years from now-so keep paying your mortgage) when the sun expands and most things remaining on Earth get cooked. While humanity should learn how not to damage other forms of life on Earth and should actively work to avoid harm now, we are the only species likely to currently enable space travel and thus create the ability to evacuate the planet when such an evacuation becomes necessary to sustaining most of the life on/from Earth (not just us).
Thus calling for human extinction actually removes a potential boon to the survival of Earth’s various life-forms.

Point 2:

I would argue the harm via pollution that humans cause is mainly not due to the number of humans but to the manner we go about economic development. Global Warming is caused by greenhouse gasses. This are released by the burning of fossil fuels. If not for the latter the former would not be a problem. Also look at China, it has a great deal of problems relating to both air and water quality because of the many emissions (some of which are quite toxic) put into each. China's emissions problem (touching on fossil fuels again) has grown worse after it started its population control program. This can happen because of the fact that there is no stable ratio between the amount of humans and amount of emissions, factories, cars, coal powers plants, and so on. China jumped ahead of the USA in CO2 emissions not by a population boost but through rapid and reckless economic development in which consideration of the environment was not an issue. Thus focusing on economic systems systems to be the logical way to prevent pollution and environmental damage.

Note: Population control does not involve counting and limiting the amount of emissions-only the number of humans. This is why it actually fails to serve as effective protection for the environment.
Given the horrible pollution in China ideas promoting population control should really be questioned more.

[Grouch at Right Truth]

"I would like to add 2 additional points, starting with 1 on "Human Extinction".."

What the hell has this got to do with conservatives being happier than liberals?