Posted on 02/08/2008 8:44:55 PM PST by Squawk 8888
After virtually ignoring happiness for more than 100 years, social scientists are making up for lost time. They're churning out hundreds of research papers on the subject each year. There are happiness conferences, a Journal of Happiness Studies, a World Database of Happiness. Happy, you might say, is the new sad.
All of this cogitating about contentment has revealed much about who's supposedly happy and who isn't. Most studies show that wealthy people are marginally happier than poor ones. People with pets or children are no happier than those without. People with active sex lives are -- surprise! -- happier than those without. No single morsel of happiness data, though, is more intriguing than this: Republicans are happier than Democrats.
A 2006 Pew Research poll found that 45 percent of Republicans describe themselves as "very happy," compared with only 30 percent of Democrats (and 29 percent of independents). This is a sizable gap and a remarkably consistent one, too. Republicans have been happier than Democrats every year since the General Social Survey, conducted biannually by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, began asking about happiness in 1972.
What to make of this finding? Is there something about being a card-carrying member of the GOP that induces a warm, fuzzy feeling, a sort of political Prozac? Or does the river of causality flow in the other direction: Are happy people more likely to become Republicans than Democrats? Or maybe neither explanation holds water and it only appears as if Republicans are happier than Democrats.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Republicans and conservatives are generally happier because we negate grievance driven politics and agendas.
You wouldn’t know that from reading FR lately.
I am a 56 yr old National Guardsman and I refuse to visit the DUmp. I see enough when I read the DUmmie FUnnies.
BTW, thanks for your service.
I think this is an important study.
Republicans (probably conservatives moreso) are happier because of the simple grounding in their lives. It’s simple stuff people, Republicans/conservatives believe in something real: Their God, their Family, their country.
When your foundation is reality, you suffer fewer unintended consequences.
“The vast majority of evangelical conservative Christians tend to be Republicans. It is the believers, IMHO, who have every reason to be happy. They have read the final chapter in world history!”
Amen!
Ahhhrrrrrr! Ye can't be TOO happy nowadays! 'Tisn't good for your overall constitution.
Got my handle from a freeware Pirate Name generator. ;O)
LOL...cant argue with that.
Happy, happy, happy!!
You have summed up politics today with your statement!
Very well written and to the point!
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