Conservatives More Satisfied With Life Than Liberals, Finds Study

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PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Conservatives have a greater life satisfaction than liberals, according to a new study.

The study published by Social Psychological and Personality Science examined the relationship between political orientation and well-being using measures of life satisfaction, affect, and meaning and purpose in life.

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Researchers looked at five sets of data that included samples from 16 countries, where participants gave an assessment of their life in general.

According to the findings, people who identified as conservatives reported they were happier, more satisfied and had a greater purpose in life.

However, researchers say the relationship between political orientation and well-being is relatively weak since the research was limited to a narrow set of well-being measures.

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"A question that still needs to be addressed is why conservatives find more meaning in life than liberals. Our results showed that it can't be completely explained by the fact that conservatives are more religious than liberals and religious people find more meaning in life than non-religious people. But the results suggest it is more likely related to social conservative issues (e.g., views on abortion and gay rights) than economic conservative issues," said study author David Newman.

Newman says some of the data was collected as early as the 1980s and some was collected in 2017.