In my last post I showed the large happiness differences between religious Americans and secularists, and argued that this is a big part of the reason conservatives are so much happier than liberals. But I also noted that religion and other lifestyle distinctions still only explain about half the gap. In this post, I’ll look at the role of divergent world views to explain the rest.
Before I turn to my own explanations, here are two that I got from people I admire.
Nobel laureate and Princeton professor Daniel Kahneman has pioneered happiness measurement techniques with several of his colleagues (including Princeton star economist Alan Krueger, with whom I shared a fun discussion about happiness on a radio show last week). Mr. Kahneman told me that conservatives think the world is fairer than liberals do, and this makes them happy:
If you believe that people generally get from life what they deserve to get, and if you belong to the majority who are doing fairly well (employed and healthy, for example), you will probably be more satisfied with life than an equally fortunate person who believes that there is much stubborn unfairness in the world.
In other words, that liberal you know who drives a Beemer isn’t very happy about it because he feels guilty.
Psychologist Philip Tetlock is a professor of leadership at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. He suggests that conservatives seek out simplicity and clear moral values:
Conservatives quite unapologetically prefer leaders who project can-do decisiveness and dissonance — free rhetoric anchored in solid moral principles.
Assuming that it is easier to be happier in a world where right and wrong are crystal clear, this might lead conservatives to be happier than liberals.
In my book I argue that conservatives are more optimistic about the future than liberals are, and believe in each individual’s ability to get ahead on the basis of achievement.
Liberals are more likely to see themselves and others as victims of circumstance and oppression, and doubt whether individuals can climb without governmental help. Consider a bit of evidence.
The 2005 Maxwell Poll on Civic Engagement and Inequality asked, “How much upward mobility — children doing better than the family they come from — do you think there is in America: a lot, some, or not much?” Among those sampled, 48 percent of below-average income conservatives believed there’s “a lot,” versus 26 percent of upper-income liberals.
In the same poll, 90 percent of the poorer conservatives agreed that, “While people may begin with different opportunities, hard work and perseverance can usually overcome those disadvantages.” Just 65 percent of richer liberals agreed.
The liberal-conservative differences on these questions persist when we control not just for income, but also for education, sex, family situation, religion, and race.
You can decide for yourself whether the conservative edge in hope and optimism is warranted or not. You might think that conservatives are in La-La Land, and that people really are stuck, socially and economically. Or you might think that liberals are a bunch of pessimistic grouches. Some hypothesize that the basis of liberal political power is convincing folks that they are victims, and keeping them that way. Others say conservative power actively perpetuates what we academics like to call “false consciousness.”
So far, I have been clumping together all “liberals” and all “conservatives” in the discussion. Of course, there are many flavors of each, from centrists to radicals. So who is happier — moderates or extremists? That will be the subject of my next post.
But here’s a hint: Remember that guy in front of you in traffic with the “If You Aren’t Outraged, You’re Not Paying Attention” sticker on his car? Believe it or not, he’s probably happier than you are (unless, of course, you have a similar sticker on your car). Stay tuned for proof, and in the meantime, thanks for your thoughts.
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Here’s a good experiment to try: look through opinion polls and track the respective opinions of conservatives and liberals on whether there are WMD in Iraq and whether we should have invaded it or not. The fact that conservatives still believed that there were WMD after thorough searching revealed none makes me think conservatives tend to be happier because they can delude themselves from reality. It is clear that they delude themselves because as the Iraq occupation continues, less and less conservatives think we should have invaded it in the first place—the situation gets to be so dire that they can’t maintain their faith any longer.
It seems to me that you are overlooking the most obvious explanation. If you are content with the status quo and do not want to change it, you are 1) happy and 2)conservative.
Someone who believes everything is or will be okay, is just not cognizant of the things that could go wrong. The differences between these persons, conservatives, liberals, moderates, extrememist, or any other stupid label they try to hang on someone’s neck, is the willingness to accept the idea that the cost of it actually happening is far worse than the cost of doing something preemptive in order to be prepared, whether it actually happens or not. Hurricane Karina is a perfect example. The cost of improving the barrier between city and nature would have been substantial, but pales in comparison to the actual cost that is basically uncalculable at this point. This is the difference between persons, the belief that its better to take the loss now, rather than deal with the consequences of thinking everything will magically be okay without any need for us to do something, and then having it happen. If a belief in God, or in hard work, or in anything else causes you to think that things are better than they are, then you are set up for major failure. And when that person is an elected official, or someone responsible for the masses, its a recipe for disaster. I happen to be the person who thinks about the worse case scenario, because I don’t want it to be the end of all of us, and that makes it hard to be truly happy even when my life around me is okay. I’d rather do something now, so all of us don’t end up with the short end of the stick. To me, that is optimism. Sleep tight.
Rich Webster definitely hit on part of the issue, but there’s another side, which is reality. And reality argues quite convincingly against conservatives.
For starters, income mobility is mostly a fiction in this country, see:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/04/b1579981.html
Of course, then there’s this:
http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/hp673.htm
Which is just a rehash of the Hubbard study which is refuted here:
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-mobility.htm
There are, of course, many more studies, but in order to believe that the US has high income mobility you have basically have to believe in fairies. And of course, belief in fairies has been shown by peer reviewed studies to dramatically increase the happiness of white children aged 3-6 years.
am i the only one who wishes americans were smart enough to have more political descriptors than “liberal” or “conservative”?
conservatives are quite often among the more well off, because conservative theory as a whole is based on the notion that a) taxes are bad, and b) that market insures that people get what they deserve. So, if you are wealthy, conservative theory appeals because you will pay taxes, and feel deserving rather than fortunate for your status in life. I believe that more often that not a person’s status determines their politics, and so, of course, those who are at the top of the ladder are the same people who will choose conservative theory, and will be more likely to be happy. Show me that your studies are controlled for variables such as accumulation of wealth, health issues, and social status and then I will believe that perhaps there is something about conservatives that makes them more likely to be happy. It seems to me that since a vast majority of Americans subscribe to “liberal” positions, even when calling themselves “conservative” there is much defining to do here, and as far as I can tell not a lot of good “science.” I would suggest that those who are happy with their lives are more likely to define themselves as conservatives, precisely becasue as conservatives they want to conserve things exactly as they are.
“For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” Ecclesiastes 1:18
Here’s a thought: Religious people and political conservatives are happier than secularists and liberals because they have a greater capacity for self-delusion.