“If you’re happy and you know it…” you must be conservative!
American Family Survey recently shared its findings that demonstrate that conservatives tend to be happier than their left-leaning counterparts.
This is nothing new. After 50 years of study, one of the most certain discoveries of social psychology is that American conservatives say they are happier than liberals.
Similar findings were repeated over and over since 1972, so the conclusion is not in doubt; what is debated is, why?
Some liberals conjecture that it’s a result of mental illness. Others joke that all the talk about conservatives being happier is depressing liberals.
Human beings are complicated and it would be an oversimplification to think that voting Republican on Nov. 8 will cheer your heart, but I am still going to start referring to the referendum on Biden at the upcoming midterms as a happy wave – instead of a red wave.
Seriously though, these studies give insights into the connections between political ideologies and happiness. It’s interesting that while the happiness gap stands true for men and women, the widest gap is between left-leaning and conservative women. In other words, liberal women are the least-happy demographic and drag down liberals’ overall happiness disproportionately.
One of the main factors that underlies happiness is being married and being satisfied with one’s family. Further, parents tend to be happier than non-parents. And conservative women are 26 percent more likely to be married than liberal women – and are even more likely to have children.
The idea that true freedom is to be free from responsibility is commonplace today, and has motivated many women to abort their babies and many men to abandon their children, but the reality is that selfishness doesn’t lead to happiness. Liberal ideologies that promote independence, freedom – in the sense of non-responsibility – and fulfillment in a career don’t lead to happier, more satisfied lives.
Another factor is that religious people tend to be happier. So we can begin to see some overlap: conservatives are far more religious than liberals and religious people tend to emphasize marriage/family more than secularists.
Meritocracy is also pointed to as an underlying cause of this happiness gap.
Again, the logic seems simple enough: young people taught to work hard – regardless of circumstances – likely will enjoy some measure of accomplishment, leading to satisfaction. In contrast, teaching young people to focus on negative lessons of the past encourages many to see themselves as victims.
Perceiving themselves as victims, individuals downplay personal accountability, which leads to not taking responsibility for one’s self but instead looking to others to step up for them.
There is much more to ponder, but the most important consideration is that the political ideologies we embrace influence not only how we vote, but also how we order our personal lives.
With that in mind, happy voting!
Scott Kamps writes a bi-weekly column for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, thestableguy@frontier.com.