by Edward Penn

Created on: May 19, 2008   Last Updated: June 15, 2008

Which political group is happiest, liberals or conservatives? Conservatives of course, at least according to a survey conducted by Jamie Napier and John Jost of New York University. " Conservatives reported greater satisfaction and well being, than did liberals." the survey claimed. The researchers also found that liberals tend to be unhappy because of social and economic inequalities which conservatives are able to rationalize away.

There have been other studies as well that cite conservatives as being happier, in 2006 a Pew Research center survey uncovered similar results, the survey found that "47% of conservative Republicans in the U.S. described themselves as very happy compared to just 28% of liberal Democrats.".

The truth is, it's hard to put your personal ideology aside and answer the question objectively. I bet if nine people answered the question and three of them were conservative and five liberal, the results would be five to three in favor of liberals.

That being said, as an independent thinking person, I feel Conservatives tend to be optimistic while liberals tend to be pessimistic, a conservative will almost always see the glass as half full and the liberal will say that it is half empty. Go ahead and ask your friends how they view the glass, I think you will be astonished at the results.

Another reason liberals are less happy is the fact that they generally rely on emotion when formulating their opinions, therefor they are more likely to act on emotion when an injustice or inequality is perceived, whereas a conservative tends to rely more on facts which may justify the inequality in their mind.

If you are still unconvinced I recommend you just sit back, with an open mind, and observe people whom you know to be either conservative or liberal, whether on television or in person, and I think you will see that conservatives are indeed happier than their liberal counterparts.

However, just because there may be more happy conservatives, does not mean that all liberals are unhappy, or that all conservatives are happy, I know plenty of miserable conservatives and even more jolly ole liberals. Actually the surveys I cited earlier only reveal a slight lead by conservatives, as a matter of fact both conservatives and liberals have a larger percentage of unhappy people than happy ones, 53% of conservatives are something other than happy and 72% of liberals are likewise.

The real story here is why are so many people unhappy? Life is too short for there to be so many unhappy people, cheer up, tell a joke, look at all the beauty that surrounds us, reach out and help someone in need, and you will find your happiness.

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