Why Is This Man Glowering When He Should Be Smiling? Conservatives, Liberals, and the Happiness Gap
In a 2005 Pew Research Center survey, 47% of self-described conservative Republicans said they were “very happy,” a mood that only 28% of liberal Democrats shared. Pondering these results, conservative columnist George Will concluded that “liberalism is a complicated and exacting, not to say grim and scolding, creed. And not one conducive to happiness.”
If we take this liberal-conservative happiness gap as a given, then a question naturally arises: Why? Why isn’t liberalism as conducive to happiness as conservatism is?
First, though, should we take the gap as a given? In a recent study, NYU psychologists Jaime Napier and John Jost (drawing on data from the World Values Survey) replicate the Pew Center survey’s result. In the U.S., they report, “right-wing orientation” was indeed predictive of one’s sense of personal well-being (a compound of satisfaction with one’s own life and self-rated happiness). Even after statistical controls for the standard demographics (income, education, age, sex, marital status, employment status, and church attendance) were instituted, right-wingers scored higher on the subjective well-being scale. So the gap couldn’t be written off as an artifact of demographic differences between right- and left-wingers.
So again, why?
Napier and Jost couched their answer in terms of “system-justification theory”:
Research shows that political conservatism is a system-justifying ideology in that it is associated with the endorsement of a fairly wide range of rationalizations of current social, economic, and political institutions and arrangements. Previous work reveals that the endorsement of system-justifying beliefs is generally associated with high personal satisfaction, as well as increased positive affect and decreased negative affect; this is referred to as the palliative function of system-justifying ideology.
Is system-justifying ideology the missing link? In the U.S., when endorsement of meritocratic beliefs (on a scale ranging from “Hard work doesn’t generally bring success – it’s more a matter of luck” to “In the long run, hard work usually brings a better life”) was added to the explanatory model, the direct effect of right-wing orientation waned; follow-up analysis revealed that right-wing orientation was predictive of endorsement of meritocratic beliefs, which in run predicted subjective well-being. The same result held in a ten-nation analysis that brought country-level variables (GDP and unemployment and inflation rates) into play.
In another part of the study, Napier and Jost used three decades of General Social Survey data to explore these relationships over time in the U.S. As economic inequality grew, they found, subjective well-being declined. However, this effect held only for liberals, not for conservatives. A different way of saying the same thing would be that the liberal-conservative gap became significant only at higher levels of economic inequality.
Napier and Jost conclude as follows:
…our research suggests that inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on conservatives, apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at least neutral) light.
For a full report of this study, see:
Napier, Jaime L., and John T. Jost. 2008. Why are conservatives happier than liberals? Psychological Science 19, 6 (June): 565-572.
Comments
Shorter conclusion:
The selfish are happier than the unselfish.
Posted by: Shag from Brookline | July 3, 2008 07:11 AM
I'm more inclined to say that conservatives are more self-satisfied than selfish. Maybe that's why they're so happy.
Posted by: I Hate Stars | July 3, 2008 01:21 PM
Or really narrow in scope. Libertarians probably score better on this assessment, too.
I'm happy with my political philosophy, but thinking about how to deal with the inequalities that structure American society gives me more pause than just accepting or supporting things as they are.
Posted by: Dee | July 4, 2008 08:27 PM
See here for discussion. My short answer: I don't think a simple explanation will work, and I think that policy concerns as well as psychological leanings are necessary to put it all together.
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July 4, 2008 09:57 PM
I'm tempted to agree with the general conclusion, but need some more convincing.
In 2005, liberals had been handed their butts in an election the year before and scorned off the team in the primaries before that. So we weren't as happy as the winners on the far right.
More generally, the world over is run by people further to the right than self identified liberals like me. We don't like the lazy pace with which the world is drifting in our direction - we have a sense of urgency. Leave Iraq Now! National Healthcare Now! Close the IMF now! Gay rights now! Stop climate change now! Stop Nuclear proliferation now! Fair pay now! Public Transportation Now! Debt Relief Now! Feel the urgency in these popular (american) liberal slogans.
Our well-being takes a hit when we see the lazy response to issues we see as urgent. And it takes a bigger hit when everyone on TV says we're wrong about everything.
But I, at least, feel a little better having won congress over a couple years ago - even if they let me down most of the time(at least it's not all the time). And I feel better about congress with just about every special election.
So let's not be hasty. Let's check again after we win some more and conservatives lose some more. If the difference holds, I'll bite.
Posted by: Dan | July 7, 2008 12:22 PM
Most conservatives I know think that the world is an imperfect place; people within it are limited by human nature, which also is imperfect and imperfectible. This doesn't mean that neither can be improved at the margins, just that there are some basic constraints within which we all live. I think the general happiness of conservatives arises from their recognition of imperfection and limits the peace they have made with these truths.
Most liberals I know (including my dear wife) do not accept that only marginal improvements are possible. They believe that human nature can be profoundly changed, and with it, the world, if only we'd give the government experts the power and money to work their magic. They seek to "immanentize the eschaton"--make heaven on earth--as some commentator once said.
I think the liberals' unhappiness (as compared to the conservatives in this study) stems from the fact that they see human imperfections not as a reflection of enduring human nature, but something that we have failed to fix. It seems very unfair and it is frustrating. It is understandably difficult to make peace with a world that can seem so unjust.
I don't think that the current political landscape has anything to do with this--at least not for conservatives. Aside from the normal stresses that come with aging and maturity (e.g., evolving career, growing family to support, etc.), my happiness has been fairly constant regardless of who is in Congress in the White House. The changing faces in government do not change the fact that the world is the way it is, and human nature is human nature. There are wise policies and unwise policies in light of these facts, but no silver bullets.
I would not be surprised, however, if liberals' happiness DID increase (and therefore their relative happiness compared to conservatives) w/ electoral success. After all, this would bring them one step closer to getting the reform that they believe (I think mistakenly) that they are one step closer to building heaven on earth.
Posted by: Matt | July 7, 2008 04:21 PM
Ignorance is bliss.
Posted by: GWill | July 9, 2008 05:18 PM