Here's something interesting

[tLakota]

Well, friends! It turns out that we conservatives/conservative independants are happier with life than liberals.

Individuals with conservative ideologies are happier than liberal-leaners, and new research pinpoints the reason: Conservatives rationalize social and economic inequalities.
Regardless of marital status, income or church attendance, right-wing individuals reported greater life satisfaction and well-being than liberals, the new study found. Conservatives also scored highest on measures of rationalization, which gauge a person's tendency to justify, or explain away, inequalities.
The rationalization measure included statements such as: "It is not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others," and "This country would be better off if we worried less about how equal people are."
To justify economic inequalities, a person could support the idea of meritocracy, in which people supposedly move up their economic status in society based on hard work and good performance. In that way, one's social class attainment, whether upper, middle or lower, would be perceived as totally fair and justified.
If your beliefs don't justify gaps in status, you could be left frustrated and disheartened, according to the researchers, Jaime Napier and John Jost of New York University. They conducted a U.S.-centric survey and a more internationally focused one to arrive at the findings.
"Our research suggests that inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on conservatives," the researchers write in the June issue of the journal Psychological Science, "apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at least neutral) light."
The results support and further explain a Pew Research Center survey from 2006, in which 47 percent of conservative Republicans in the U.S. described themselves as "very happy," while only 28 percent of liberal Democrats indicated such cheer.
The same rationalizing phenomena could apply to personal situations as well.
"There is no reason to think that the effects we have identified here are unique to economic forms of inequality," the researchers write. "Research suggests that highly egalitarian women are less happy in their marriages compared with their more traditional counterparts, apparently because they are more troubled by disparities in domestic labor."
The current study was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Here's the link:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/...erthanliberals

What are your ideas on this new research? Is it really surprising? Or is it one of those 'about time' moments?

[Pastor Billy-Reuben]

Re: Here's something interesting

I'm not surprised by the findings, and I'm even less surprised by the liberal bias in interpreting the findings.

The statement, "Conservatives rationalize social and economic inequalities.", would have been much better stated as "Conservatives understand that social and economic inequalities are God's Will, and leave the problem in God's capable hands."

Liberals, on the other hand, worry themselves sick because they don't have faith in God.

Pastor Billy-Reuben

[Link is cool]

Re: Here's something interesting

Well America has always been the most prosperous under a Republican president.