May 7, 2008

Research: Conservatives better at rationalization?

I didn't read the whole story yet, but this is interesting:
"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 left-wingers, the new study found. Conservatives also scored highest on measures of rationalization, which gauge a person's tendency to justify, or explain away, inequalities."

3 comments:

steves said...

I am sorry, but I think this kind of "research" is just fluff and a waste of time. I have seen similar "studies" that have shown that conservatives are dumber than liberals or that liberals were more mentally ill than conservatives or that they were more likely to be felons than conservatives.

Unknown said...

It does depend on how they define "conservative" and "liberal." I'm too lazy to look up the actual article, though it was nice of LiveScience to actually cite where it is (even if they don't give the actual title). I am skeptical that this "result" was the main thrust of either the research effort or the paper; more likely it was a titillating, ambiguous "also-found" that is good for getting PR for NYU's psych department. But again, I'm too lazy to actually look.

The article's claim does seem to be pretty class-centric. Rationalization is known to be important to the subjective experience of happiness, but it seems like inequality would only be a major impediment to people with the financial security to not be immediately worried about things like unpaid bills and health problems.

Streak said...

Yeah, I know. I mostly thought it was funny, and also how many conservatives around me are so damn good at rationalizing inequality. But that is just anecdotal.