Study: Conservatives Happier than Liberals

Researchers Jaime Napier and John Jost of New York University claim to have an explanation for why conservatives are happier than liberals.

Here's the SCIENCE:

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 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.

Translation: Conservatives are compassionless, selfish brutes wearing psychological blinders.

What a load!

The researchers don't distinguish between inequality and injustice. The distinction between the two is an important one. Inequalities aren't necessarily indicators of social injustice. That's not a rationalization. That's a fact.

I certainly don't frame injustice in a positive light. I don't rationalize it.

I don't ignore others' suffering. I don't rationalize it away to make me happy.

Did the researchers make a discovery?

No. Their work isn't science. It's propaganda.

Rather than saying conservatives rationalize inequality, the researchers could say that liberals are irrational and lack nuance.