Researchers at New York University conducted a survey in 2006 that draws conclusions that attempt to explain the differences between political conservatives and liberals by a fundamental dissimilarity in the way they think; essentially, conservatives rationalize inequalities economically and socially, making them happier overall, while liberals do not.
The recent study, conducted by Jaime Napier and John Jost of New York University and covered by Jeanna Bryner of LiveScience.com concludes that “inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on conservatives…apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at least neutral) light.” Furthermore, the researchers have postulated that “There is no reason to think that the effects we have identified here are unique to economic forms of inequality…,” meaning that the tendency to rationalize personal issues also probably makes conservatives happier. These conclusions were based on a survey that determined a person's level of happiness and attempted to correlate that happiness with her tendency to rationalize socioeconomic inequalities.
While the study, presented in the LiveScience.com article written by Jeanna Bryner and presented in Yahoo News on May 7, 2008, does highlight some of the differences between the political polar opposites, it does not shed any new light on some sort of mystical difference in the physiologies or psychologies of conservatives and liberals. In fact, I would argue that the issue is just as muddled as before for the following reasons; the two sides are vastly different in how they understand and approach political science and economics, and they espouse utterly dissimilar ideological and political views based on that understanding. And I might add that each side's ideologies depend on some sort of rationalization.
Here is an alternative conclusion, one that has been apparent, at least to conservatives, since FDR's New Deal. Maybe you will call this rationalization, but here goes my attempt to better explain their results: Most conservatives understand market economics well enough to know that the Liberal agenda is largely incompatible with a well-functioning market economy. Without going too far into the details, the socialistic or populist way of redistributing wealth destroys the incentive for individuals to be productive, one of the cornerstones of a market economy. The market economy is not perfect…there are inequalities…but neither is further destroying the market incentive an improvement upon the current system. Essentially, our socioeconomic system is not currently perfect, but it works, and most conservatives are relatively content because it does work.
Liberals, on the other hand, either do not understand the market economy or themselves rationalize its deterioration (if they had their way) by holding firm to the belief that their compassion for their fellow man and their desire for equality of outcome outweighs our dependence on a strong market economy. If it means scrapping the market completely and with it our economy so that everyone can have equal, if greatly diminished, economic power, then that is what must be accomplished. Ultimately, they are discontent because either they understand the paradox that their ideology presents, or they don't understand it and are mad because they haven't had enough proof that the socialism and populism they have been pushing doesn't work. Either way, it does not matter to them that their ideology is a detriment to the American economy and people as a whole. They have rationalized that. Let me repeat that. They have rationalized screwing up America's economy, an equally important component to our society as “equality.” Furthermore, their rationalization has not made them happy.
The researchers' conclusion that conservatives are happy because they tend to rationalize fails because politics basically depends on either side's attempt to rationalize the negatives of its own ideology. Both sides rationalize; conservatives may rationalize our inequalities and perceived social injustices, but liberals rationalize socialism's economic impotence as a paradigm of economy.
The only true conclusion that can be drawn from this column or the study and article on which it was based is that the latter two were written from the perspective of liberal academics and a liberal member of the media and the former was written from the perspective of a conservative. Both pieces simply serve as evidence that with a biased mind and an agenda, anyone can manufacture results that work in his favor, and this study and the original accompanying piece are nothing more than liberally tainted propaganda aimed at determining some sort of flaw in conservative thinking that makes conservatives the uncompassionate and ultimately dysfunctional people that they are.
I suggest re-conducting this study with conservative researchers in three years when Obama is in power, using conservatively flavored questions. I guarantee that the results will not be the same, but disproving the results of this study is peripheral to undermining the validity of it as an unscientific item of propaganda written by people with an agenda.
