Power Line's Steven Hayward, in addition to aggregating humorous content for The Week in Pictures, has a serious side on display in a column with this provocative title, "Liberals Are Miserable People." Hayward cites a Journal of Research in Personality study which finds:
Conservatives score higher than liberals on personality and attitude measures that are traditionally associated with positive adjustment and mental health, including personal agency, positive outlook, transcendent moral beliefs, and generalized belief in fairness. These constructs, in turn, can account for why conservatives are happier than liberals and have declined less in happiness in recent decades.
Conservatives are more satisfied with their lives, in general and in specific domains (e.g., marriage, job, residence), report better mental health and fewer mental and emotional problems, and view social justice in ways that are consistent with binding moral foundations, such as by emphasizing personal agency and equity.
What isn't clear is the direction of causation. Does conservatism cause happiness, or are happy people simply conservative because they have few complaints about the status quo? Long time readers of COTTonLINE know I have argued conservatives are those who have figured out how to make the preexisting conditions "work" and are more or less comfortable.
