Re: why are conservatives happier than liberals?

[robert <http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert>]

The people storming the capital building on Jan 6 didn't very happy to me.

 > From: Noelle <noelle>
 > Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2021 07:52:38 -0700 (PDT)
 >
 > (from electoral-vote.com) then there's the "however" part: last 
 > sentence
 > 
 > Thomas Edsall has an interesting piece in The New York Times about 
 > studies that show conservatives are happier than liberals. Why? One 
 > possibility is that (by definition) conservatives like the status 
 > quo and liberals want to change it. Change is much harder than doing 
 > nothing, so conservatives get what they want (no change) more often 
 > than liberals get what they want (big changes).
 > 
 > Another issue is rising levels of inequality. For the most part, 
 > conservatives believe that people who are rich worked hard and 
 > deserve it and people who are poor are lazy and deserve it. So they 
 > are not unhappy with substantial inequality. To them, it is the 
 > natural order of things. Liberals don't buy this and are thus 
 > unhappy with substantial inequality.
 > 
 > However, a different scholarly paper cited by Edsall has very 
 > different views. It says that conservatives score high on traits 
 > associated with good mental health, including personal agency, 
 > positive outlook, moral beliefs, and generalized belief in fairness. 
 > Consequently they are more satisfied with their marriages, jobs, and 
 > residences. This paper also says liberals are unhappier due to less 
 > religiosity, a lesser likelihood of being married, and less belief 
 > in personal agency.
 > 
 > The latter paper found that both groups place a high value on 
 > fairness, but define it differently. Liberals tend to define 
 > fairness in terms of equal outcomes regardless of contributions and 
 > expect the government to enforce it. Conservatives tend to define 
 > fairness in terms of outcomes being proportional to contributions 
 > and expect the free market to enforce it.
 > 
 > Another paper found that a key ingredient for a meaningful life is a 
 > sense of coherence. Having an all-encompassing vision of life (like 
 > a religion) could help provide it.
 > 
 > Yet another paper looked at the elderly. Older people tend to look 
 > back on their lives and have a sense of being part of a tradition 
 > and culture that they want to see preserved going forward. 
 > Right-wing attitudes encourage this.
 > 
 > However, Edsall points out that so many of the studies are so 
 > contradictory that it is hard to draw any conclusions from them. (V)