Previous studies suggest that conservatives in the United States are happier than liberals. This difference has been attributed to factors including differences in socioeconomic status, group memberships, and system-justifying beliefs. We suggest that differences between liberals and conservatives in personality traits may provide an additional account for the "happiness gap". Specifically, we investigated the role of neuroticism (or conversely, emotional stability) in explaining the conservative-liberal happiness gap. In Study 1 (N = 619), we assessed the correlation between political orientation (PO) and satisfaction with life (SWL), controlling for the Big Five traits, religiosity, income, and demographic variables. Neuroticism, conscientiousness, and religiosity each accounted for the PO-SWL correlation. In Study 2 (N = 700), neuroticism, system justification beliefs, conscientiousness, and income each accounted for PO-SWL correlation. In both studies, neuroticism negatively correlated with conservatism. We suggest that individual differences in neuroticism represent a previously under-examined contributor to the SWL disparity between conservatives and liberals.
A 2006 public-opinion survey found that Republicans in the United States have been more likely than Democrats to report being “very happy” every year since 1972 (
In one influential paper,
Other researchers have focused less on the specific beliefs of conservatives and liberals, and more on endemic qualities of each group that are removed from politics
In this article, we build on such findings to propose that differences between conservatives and liberals in basic personality traits may provide an additional, potent explanation for the link between happiness and political orientation in North American populations. That is, while conservatives and liberals may reliably differ in specific beliefs related to happiness (e.g. system justifying beliefs), they may also differ in broad emotional, cognitive, and behavioral tendencies, independently of specific beliefs or socioeconomic status. These stable differences in personality traits may, in turn, play a powerful role in shaping both individuals’ happiness and individuals’ choice of which side of the political spectrum to endorse.
Previous research has found, for example, that conservatives score higher than liberals in conscientiousness (
Neuroticism has been theorized to be negatively related to conservatism (
Recently, it has been demonstrated that more conservative individuals are more likely to perceive external threat (threats, danger, or chaos perceived in society) but not necessarily internal threat (threats perceived in one’s personal life, based on measures including a neuroticism measure;
Why might one expect there to be a negative association between neuroticism and conservatism? Some have argued that an individual’s level of neuroticism may shape the political attitudes he/she adopts. For example,
Subjective well-being is a multi-component construct, comprised of positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction (
Here, we focus on neuroticism. We hypothesized that the relationship between conservatism and satisfaction with life would be at least partially accounted for by trait neuroticism. Although
In two studies, we operationalized “happiness” through life satisfaction (
Eight-hundred and sixteen United States community members were recruited to take part in an online survey through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform for compensation of $0.53. In preparing data for analysis, we considered the amount of time participants took to complete the survey, and IP addresses from which participants completed the survey. Twenty-four participants were removed for having duplicate IP addresses and matching demographic information (in these cases, the second study completion was removed according to the dates and times of completion), and six participants were removed for participating from Indian IP addresses. Next, we removed 142 participants who did not complete either, or both of, the measure of SWL and the measure of conservatism. These exclusions yielded 644 participants (299 male, 5 unreported;
After excluding these participants, 619 remained (279 male, 3 unreported;
The bivariate correlation between conservatism and SWL was small but significant:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. Conservatism | – | .08* | .17** | .06 | -.11** | -.15** | .04 | -.11** | .18** | .43** | .04 |
2. SWL | – | .28** | .11** | -.45** | .03 | .34** | .06 | 0 | .12** | .27** | |
3. Conscientiousness | – | .22** | -.41** | .21** | .34** | .07 | .08 | .19** | 0 | ||
4. Agreeableness | – | -.14** | .34** | .21** | .32** | .15** | .25** | -.03 | |||
5. Neuroticism | – | -.11** | -.41** | .19** | -.16** | -.13** | -.10* | ||||
6. Openness | – | .38** | .11** | -.04 | .10* | -.06 | |||||
7. Extraversion | – | .04 | -.03 | .17** | .09* | ||||||
8. Gender | – | .05 | .16** | -.10* | |||||||
9. Age | – | .22** | .07 | ||||||||
10. Religiosity | – | -.05 | |||||||||
11. Log Income | – |
*
Thus, we used hierarchical regression to predict SWL with conservatism in Block 1, age and gender in Block 2, religiosity and the logarithm of income in Block 3, and the Big Five traits in Block 4. One participant had a standardized residual more than three standard deviations above the mean and was excluded from this analysis. In the model (
In order to test which variables could individually account for the shared variance between conservatism and SWL, we conducted partial correlations between conservatism and SWL, controlling for individual variables. The control variables selected were those which correlated in the same direction with both conservatism and SWL: neuroticism, conscientiousness, and religiosity. The SWL-PO association was rendered non-significant when controlling for neuroticism (
These results support two main conclusions: first, there was a small but significant negative correlation between conservatism and neuroticism, indicating that more conservative people reported being more emotionally stable than more liberal people. Second, as in previous studies (
Study 1 ( |
Study 2 ( |
|||
---|---|---|---|---|
Mean | SD | Mean | SD | |
1. Conservatism |
3.26 | 1.66 | 3.35 | 1.77 |
2. Satisfaction with Life |
4.24 | 1.52 | 4.26 | 1.54 |
3. Extraversion |
3.32 | .63 | 3.29 | .66 |
4. Agreeableness |
3.84 | .52 | 3.92 | .58 |
5. Conscientiousness |
3.49 | .57 | 3.47 | .62 |
6. Neuroticism |
2.77 | .76 | 2.67 | .80 |
7. Openness |
3.89 | .52 | 3.89 | .57 |
8. Religiosity |
4.32 | 2.70 | - | - |
9. System Justification |
- | - | 4.29 | 1.54 |
Study 1 indicated that the differences between liberals and conservatives in neuroticism, conscientiousness, and religiosity can each account for the differences in reported life satisfaction. Previous studies have provided contradictory findings regarding the role of system justification beliefs in explaining the association between measures of well-being and political identification (e.g.
One-thousand four hundred and two participants residing in the United States participated on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. After we removed participants whose data were incomplete on measures of SWL or political orientation, two participants who participated from Indian IP addresses, and 17 who completed the study in 4 minutes or less (5 minutes was in the 5th percentile of time taken;
Conservatism had a positive correlation with SWL similar in magnitude to that found in Study 1 (
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. Conservatism | – | .08* | .17** | -.03 | -.11** | -.27** | .01 | -.08* | .18** | .16** | .29** |
2. SWL | – | .29** | .11** | -.38** | .02 | .34** | .09* | 0 | .31** | .28** | |
3. Conscientiousness | – | .27** | -.40** | .13 | .32** | .09* | .18** | .15* | .17** | ||
4. Agreeableness | – | -.15** | .33** | .22** | .32** | .16** | .01 | -.02 | |||
5. Neuroticism | – | -.14** | -.42** | .14** | -.22** | -.11** | -.26** | ||||
6. Openness | – | .38** | .11* | .01 | -.08 | -.21** | |||||
7. Extraversion | – | .05 | .06 | .11** | .10** | ||||||
8. Gender | – | .06 | 0 | -.06 | |||||||
9. Age | – | .10* | .14** | ||||||||
10. Log Income | – | .17** | |||||||||
11. System Justification | – |
*
Similar to Study 1, we conducted a hierarchical regression predicting SWL with conservatism in Block 1, basic demographic characteristics (i.e. age and gender) in Block 2, variables previously implicated in explaining the conservatism-SWL association (i.e. system justification beliefs and the logarithm of income) in Block 3, and the Big Five traits in Block 4. In this analysis, three participants had standardized residuals more than three standard deviations away from the mean and were excluded from the regression analysis.
In the model (
In order to test which variables could individually account for the shared variance between conservatism and SWL, we ran partial correlations between conservatism and SWL, controlling for single variables. The control variables selected were those correlated with both conservatism and SWL in the same direction: neuroticism, conscientiousness, the logarithm of income, and system justification beliefs. The SWL-PO association was rendered non-significant when controlling for any of the following: neuroticism (
This study replicated the small but significant bivariate correlation between conservatism and happiness reported in Study 1, as well as the small but significant negative correlation between conservatism and neuroticism. This study also suggests that neuroticism on its own can account for the association between conservatism and happiness, as can SJ beliefs, income, and conscientiousness. When any one of these variables was accounted for, the correlation between conservatism and SWL was reduced to non-significance.
These studies present several noteworthy findings. First, with data drawn from over 1300 U.S. residents across both studies, we replicated the positive bivariate correlation between conservatism and “happiness” (here, life satisfaction) that has been reported in previous studies. The magnitude of the correlations between PO and SWL, in both of our studies, was low. Taken together with previous studies finding relatively small correlations between PO and measures of happiness, these data send a cautionary message against over-interpretation of the bivariate correlations often reported between political orientation and happiness. Instead, it appears that at least five variables can virtually eliminate the association between political orientation and subjective well-being.
These results are also consistent with a recent meta-analysis which found a small but significant positive association between conservatism and life satisfaction across 24 samples with a total of 7 935 participants (
Second, the present data suggest a reliable association between trait neuroticism and political orientation, such that conservatives are lower than liberals in neuroticism. Thus, neuroticism appears to make a noteworthy – and previously under-examined – contribution to the dispositional profile of political orientation.
Third and most important, the present results demonstrated that one can account for the conservatism-happiness association by controlling for any of the following: neuroticism, income (in Study 2 but not Study 1), conscientiousness, religiosity, and system-justification beliefs.
In some respects, our results are consistent with a positive adjustment explanation for the happiness differential between liberals and conservatives (see
As noted earlier, there are at least two reasons why conservatives might be higher than liberals in emotional stability. First, emotionally stable people may feel less need to adopt an ideology that advocates changing the status quo. In particular, lower neuroticism may lead people to feel less aggrieved by apparent inequities in the distribution of resources (
A growing body of research in political psychology has linked political orientation with psychological variables that are, in and of themselves, irrelevant to political positions (e.g., disgust sensitivity:
In recent years, non-academic and academic observers have noted an increase in political polarization across a range of issues (e.g.,
The present finding – that liberals are more neurotic than conservatives – may similarly be used to craft messages that more effectively resonate with their intended audience. For example, liberals, rather than decrying the perceived callousness of conservatives, may be better served by reframing their understanding of conservativism in terms of generalized emotional stability. Similarly, conservatives, rather than decrying the perceived “whining” of liberals, might reframe their construal of liberals in terms of generalized proneness to dissatisfaction with the state of affairs, or even “perfectionism”. Both of these reappraisals of the other side imply new language and metaphors that, in theory, may produce appeals that meet with more intuitive understanding and, in turn, willingness to entertain compromise. We recommend that future researchers take advantage of findings such as ours to develop psychologically-informed pathways to productive dialogue.
One limitation of these studies is that they both employ online samples involving Mechanical Turk participants. Although we took measures including checking for repeat participation, examining the length of time taken to complete the study and excluding participants with extremely fast completion times, and checking for and removing participants who participated from the second biggest pool of participants, India (
Additionally, we cannot speak to the experience of participants with similar studies (see
Finally, it has been pointed out that Mechanical Turk samples tend to result in under-sampling of individuals who identify as conservative, particularly conservative males (
Overall, this work suggests that the bivariate association between SWL and political orientation should not be over-interpreted. It is small and easily accounted for with several third variables. On the other hand, a link between neuroticism (or emotional stability) and political orientation should perhaps be afforded more attention in future work. The present studies demonstrate a replicable, albeit small, negative association between neuroticism and conservatism. Thus, we suggest that the most fruitful future directions would be those dedicated to better understanding the statistical, construct-level, and causal relationships between conservative ideology, neuroticism/emotional stability, and system justification beliefs.
Participants responded to three items which were taken together to comprise general political orientation. They were prompted with “Please use the scale below to indicate the extent to which you disagree or agree with each statement.”
The first two items, following, were presented in random order:
In general I consider myself to be a very conservative person.
I find that my viewpoint on things tends to be very liberal.
Participants responded to these two items using one of seven radio buttons labeled:
The third item was phrased “I consider my political views to be (select one):”
Originally published by
“Here are a number of characteristics that may or may not apply to you. For example, do you agree that you are someone who respects authority? Please choose a number for each statement to indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with that statement. I…”
Worry about things (
Am a person whose moods go up and down easily (
Am not interested in other people’s problems (
Avoid imposing my will on others (
Get things done quickly (
Leave my belongings around (
Take charge (
Show my feelings when I am happy (
Have a rich vocabulary (
Get deeply immersed in music (
Participants responded to each item using one of seven radio buttons labeled:
This work was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
We are grateful to J. Christopher Cohrs and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions in preparing this manuscript.
All results were unchanged (i.e. no changes in patterns or significance of any results) if these participants were included. Nonetheless, including participants who completed the study so quickly that it would be arguably impossible to read all the items, much less respond meaningfully to them, seemed unwarranted.
As in Study 1, all results were unchanged if these participants were included in the analyses.
The make-up of samples in Study 1 (