Why liberals are more miserable

From the May 23, 2008 edition of The Week magazine...

"Conservatives are generally happier than liberals because of their greater ability to rationalize political and social inequalities, a new study concludes. In an earlier survey by the Pew Research Center, 47 percent of conservative Republicans described themselves as "very happy," compared with 28 percent of liberal Democrats. Researchers at New York University, attempting to explain the disparity, developed a survey to measure subjects' ability to justify or explain away inequality. Subjects were asked, for instance, if they agreed with such statements as, "It's not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others." Conservatives were far more likely to agree with such statements, and also to hold the view that the U.S. is a meritocracy that rewards hard work. "Our research suggests that inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on conservatives," researcher Jaime Napier tells LiveScience.com, "apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive, or at least neutral, light."