A friend of mine who teaches in the Walton School of Business regularly reads research articles in the journal Psychological Science in order to track research about human behavior that might have applications for business management.  I got a pass-along copy of a recent research article with the intriguing title Why Are Conservatives Happier Than Liberals?  Jamie L. Napier and John T. Jost from the New York University Department of Psychology sought to probe the reasons behind a 2006 survey from the Pew Research Center that found 47% of conservative Republicans in the U.S. described themselves as “very happy” as compared with only 28% of liberal Democrats.  Napier and Jost determined to find out why.

 

There is a lot of research about differences between liberals and conservatives.  The two world views tend to have different cognitive styles, different ways of thinking.  “Liberals tend to enjoy thinking more and to prolong cognitive closure, whereas conservatives tend to prefer relatively simple, unambiguous answers to life’s questions” according to a 2006 study published in Psychological Review.  But Napier and Jost didn’t find that cognitive styles or any of the demographic differences such as income, age, education, gender, religiosity or marital status actually corresponded to the different happiness factor. 

 

When they screened for all the variables, the researchers found that the source of conservative happiness was rooted in a core belief they called “system justification ideology.”  Political conservatives tend to endorse and justify a wide range of rationalizations of “current social, economic, and political institutions and arrangements.”  The system is fair, conservatives believe.  And that system justification ideology provides “a kind of ideological buffer” against the bad feelings conservatives might otherwise experience in the face of social and economic inequality.

 

According to the study, conservatives have an easier time rationalizing inequality than liberals.  Conservatives were more likely to agree with questions like “It is not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others,” or “This country would be better off if we worried less about how equal people are.” 

 

According to the study, conservatives “not only accept inequality in society, but are motivated to see inequality as being caused by fair procedures and legitimate systems, such as meritocracy.”  The researchers found that these tendencies hold in nine other countries as well as in the United States.  Their conclusion:  “conservatives’ ideological beliefs have provided an emotional buffer against the negative hedonic consequences of inequality in society.”  Translation:  conservatives don’t feel so bad over social inequalities.

 

To gauge the real world situation, the study went on to examine whether the presence of inequality was real or imagined.  According to measures of income inequality, the gap between rich and poor has increased sharply since the 1970’s after decades of relative stability following World War II.  Inequality has grown.  “Inequality exacerbated the happiness gap between liberals and conservatives,” the researchers concluded.  Liberals just can’t rationalize away the presence of social inequalities, and as inequality grows, liberals become more unhappy.  Conservatives are not so bothered.  The report added, “This could explain, in part, why conservative governments tend to increase inequality more than liberal government,” as a 2004 Princeton study by L. M. Bartels found.

 

This research article helped me understand why conservative-talk often uses the term “political correctness” for what I would call “empathy.”  And how the core value of “compassion” can so easily be dismissed as “bleeding heart liberalism.”  When liberal advocates point out the suffering and inequality that is a reality in the lives of so many Americans, Newt Gingrich and Phil Gramm call us “whiners.”  Conservatives are comfortable justifying the system and rationalizing the inequalities.  Liberals see the inequalities and want to humanize and improve the system.  It is hard for liberals to be happy in the face of inequality and injustice.  The Old Testament prophets were an unhappy bunch too.

 

Fascinating research.  It makes me wonder.  What inequalities would Jesus rationalize?