Posted on 08/27/2024 6:20:40 AM PDT by Titus-Maximus
In a recent essay for Social Science & Medicine–Mental Health, epidemiologist Catherine Gimbrone and coauthors identified a significant gap in depressive attitudes between liberal and conservative teens. This gap was present in all years observed in the study (2005–18). It grew significantly starting in 2012, however, as depressive affect unilaterally spiked among liberals. Three years later, conservatives also began reporting increases in depression—although that rise tapered off relatively quickly while the increases among liberals continued.
Liberal girls tended to be significantly more depressed than boys, particularly after 2011. However, ideological differences swamped gender differences. Indeed, liberal boys were significantly more likely to report depression than conservatives of either gender. The authors also found that the more educated a teen’s family was, the more likely the young people were to be depressed, and the more dramatic their rise in depression was after 2012.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanaffairsjournal.org ...
From 2023, but worth a review.
As PJ O’Rourke called it years ago, liberals are nothing but unhappy spoiled children. The data confirms it.
Could also, possibly, be explained by belief in God, too.
That is also in the article:
“Conservatives are more likely to be patriotic and religious. They are more likely to be (happily) married and less likely to divorce. Religiosity, in turn, correlates with greater subjective and objective well-being (here, here, here). So does patriotism. So does marriage. Consequently, some have argued that the apparent psychological benefit of conservatism actually comes from feeling deeper connections with one’s country, one’s family, and the Divine. On this model, conservatism itself would be largely incidental to the happiness gap. A liberal who was similarly religious, or patriotic, or had a similarly happy marriage, would be expected to have similar levels of happiness as conservative peers.”
I doubt this very much. Central to liberalism is envy, which makes them unsatisfied about most everything, which in turn engenders hatred.
Liberal hate their country and their families.
They are miserable to be around and spread misery.
They are also extremely unhappy.
Liberalism is a slippery slope to depression. Conservatism is a hard sell to those on the fence. We’ve been asleep at the switch for 50+ years and it will get more hard. In our movement we need to throw the left a rhetorical bone from time to time. Trump saying his health care plan will treat EVERYBODY is a good start. His speaking out on never-ending wars and RFK’s speaking out for our children will work.
I don’t know how the US will come up with all the health care workers needed for full coverage. Put Ben Carson in charge.
Depression is related to lack of relatedness and lack of meaning in life. As long ago as the 1890s French sociologist Emile Durkheim linked depression and suicide to a state of “anomie,” lack of connectedness to something greater than oneself, and consequent lack of meaning. Religious faith, family, and patriotism convey meaning to life, and thus are protective against depression and in fact sources of satisfaction. Nothing to do with wealth or prosperity.
Concentration camp psychiatrist Victor Frankl wrote in “Man’s Search for Meaning” that often, those who survived the camps were, simply, those who had reason to do so. They had something to look forward to: reunion with loved ones being a major driver of hope and perseverance.
Consider now the 21st century liberal: unconnected to any real faith, no love of country, increasingly dinks (double income no kids), ruled by self-indulgence, yet miserable because reality refuses to bend to their wishes and make them happy. Vance’s cat-lady observation is highly relevant here. People with no children have less reason to care about the future.
It’s interesting that 2012 and 2015 seem to be the significant inclines. That was when we could all see the media lies about Obama carrying the day and the Deep State taking over everything. Obama DID “fundamentally transform the country”, and while he was doing it the country’s teens lost their hope.
with white liberal women being the worst and only group not actually hate their own race.
I don’t know why we can’t get this right. You can’t win if you can’t properly identify the enemy. The Democrats are not liberals! They are collectivist Marxists aligned with global corporations to create a global fascism.
Why do we keep giving them the cover of being called open minded “liberals”? It drives me nuts!
This is so true. It also shows the danger of the AI-driven social media that so many consume. In his interview with Tucker Carlson, RFK Jr described how the goal of social media is to keep its customers on the platform as long as possible, and the way they do that is to make the person feel good by giving them only “what their itching ears long to hear” (Scripture’s words, not his). This creates people who are totally separated from reality. Their sense of belonging is the company of others (or bots) who are just as reality-impaired as they are.
These are very, very dangerous mind games that are being played. And RFK is right; if we want any future for our kids we have to stop the fake reality games and get back to real life.
The government is an abusive parent, and the kids are suffering because of the government usurping the place that parents are intended to hold in their children’s lives.
When outcomes are guaranteed to be the same regardless of what a person does, the meaning of that person’s efforts is totally destroyed. This is why communism isn’t the happy place that Tim Walz propagandized to his students - because when everybody automatically has the bare minimum they need regardless of what they do, there is no reason to care about anything or do anything. When people cannot better their lives no matter what they do there is no hope. Where there is no hope it is very difficult to have relationships. Without relationships, meaning in life diminishes. It’s a vicious circle. Somebody needs to be saying this out loud - taking Walz’s glowing propaganda apart and showing everybody what a trap it truly is.
The liberals went totally bananas once they started to teach each other to hate themselves and each other. You know, that “white guilt” and that kind of college crap for morons.
” Well-Being Gap” ?????
WTF!
I suggest that there is no such thing as a Well-Being Gap.
Made up, like Allah (may piss be upon him) and Kwanza.
In large part, thanks to publik skool system indoctrination.
Their judging each other by a scale of "oppressed victimhood" while disregarding merit would result in their relatively quick implosion - if they weren't intertwined with we saner members of overall society, who make up for their backwardness.
It's ironic that they DO come together on legislation and policies while we, brought up to be independent thinkers, have great difficulty doing the same even when the goal is clearly beneficial to all.
We see it here on FR all the time: candidates being nit-picked and dismissed because they don't meet some people's ideals of perfection that no one realistically lives up to.
Good thing Rome was the be-all power of Jesus' time because he wouldn't have gotten elected to anything had he taken a political path.
Musa al-Gharbi……🧐
The piece itself explores all of these possibilities. I highly recommend reading the whole thing.
They hate themselves too
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