I’m really fascinated by this question. Why is it that social surveys routinely show conservatives are more happy than progressives? Today Thomas Edsall has an opinion piece in the NY Times which looks at some of the research on this question. And what he finds is that there may in fact be a depressive aspect to modern progressivism, one that is being driven by identity politics and the spreading fixation on social justice.
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The happiness gap has been with us for at least 50 years, and most research seeking to explain it has focused on conservatives. More recently, however, psychologists and other social scientists have begun to dig deeper into the underpinnings of liberal discontent — not only unhappiness, but also depression and other measures of dissatisfaction.
One of the findings emerging from this research is that the decline in happiness and in a sense of agency is concentrated among those on the left who stress matters of identity, social justice and the oppression of marginalized groups.
Why would these two things be correlated? Edsall got a comment on that from a Notre Dame professor named Timothy Judge who argued it was about the left’s tendency to create an external locus of control.
I do share the perspective that a focus on status, hierarchies and institutions that reinforce privilege contributes to an external locus of control…
If our predominant focus in how we view the world is social inequities, status hierarchies, societal unfairness conferred by privilege, then everyone would agree that these things are not easy to fix, which means, in a sense, we must accept some unhappy premises: Life isn’t fair; outcomes are outside my control, often at the hands of bad, powerful actors; social change depends on collective action that may be conflictual; an individual may have limited power to control their own destiny, etc.
These are not happy thoughts because they cause me to view the world as inherently unfair, oppressive, conflictual, etc. It may or may not be right, but I would argue that these are in fact viewpoints of how we view the world, and our place in it, that would undermine our happiness.
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This makes immediate sense to me. If your worldview is focused on grand forces and trends (white supremacy, misogyny, racism, global warming) that are holding you back because of your unchangeable identity. And if you further believe those forces are intractable over your lifetime and beyond, there’s not much reason for happiness. It’s a worldview that seems bent toward depression.
Alternatively, if you tend to believe that problems that exist are more local or even internal in many cases then the chances of making changes that will benefit you and others is much higher. Having an internal, as opposed to an external, locus of control seems like a viewpoint designed to increase self-confidence.
Professor Judge’s take was backed up by a professor of sociology at Baylor named George Yancey.
Identity politics…focuses “on external institutional forces that one cannot immediately alleviate.” It results in what scholars call the externalization of one’s “locus of control” or viewing the inequities of society as a result of powerful if not insurmountable outside forces including structural racism, patriarchy and capitalism — as opposed to believing that individuals can overcome such obstacles through hard work and collective effort.
As a result, Yancey wrote, “identity politics may be an important mechanism by which progressive political ideology can lead to lower levels of well-being.”
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Edsall also points to a recent study out of Finland by a researcher named Oskari Lahtinen. I wrote about his study here. Thre was a clear correlation between social justice belief in white supremacy and unhappiness.
Lahtinen found a correlation between higher agreement with critical social justice attitudes and increased reports of anxiety and depression. Agreement with the statement “If white people have on average a higher income than black people, it is because of racism” exhibited the largest positive correlation with anxiety and depression, and the largest negative correlation with happiness.
An interesting round up. I won’t spend too long on the comments because it’s a real cope-fest of progressives trying to argue that their misery just proves they are better people.
I’m OK with conservatives thinking they’re happier than me. Since I was about 18, they’ve made it clear that they’re more religious and moral than me, more American, tougher and more masculine, more law-abiding and family-oriented than me. So I have just trudged along inferior for the past 50 years as a thorn in their side. But unhappy me was born here, has one vote like them, and I’ll gladly use it to support all Democrats, depressed or otherwise.
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The only happiness some progressives can imagine is making conservatives unhappy. That doesn’t seem like a great way to live but to each his own.
