- Email: [email protected]
Liberal and conservative political ideologies: Different routes to happiness?
Journal of Research in Personality 43 (2009) 502–505
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Research in Personality journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jrp
Brief Report
Liberal and conservative political ideologies: Different routes to happiness? Becky L. Choma a,*, Michael A. Busseri b, Stanley W. Sadava b a b
Psychology Department, York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, ON, Canada M3J 1P3 Psychology Department, Brock University, 500 Glenridge Ave, St. Catharines, ON, Canada L2S 3A1
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Available online 4 January 2009 Keywords: Political ideology Political conservatism Political liberalism Subjective well-being Positive affect Negative affect Life satisfaction
a b s t r a c t Research shows that political conservatives are happier than liberals [Napier, J. L., & Jost, J. T. (2008). Why are conservatives happier than liberals? Psychological Science, 19, 565–572]. Relevant theory and evidence suggest that political conservatism and liberalism might be differentially related to components of happiness [(Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 542–575); life satisfaction, positive affect and negative affect]. We anticipated that political conservatism and liberalism would relate to greater life satisfaction [Arendt, H. (1951). The origins of totalitarianism. London: Ruskin House]. Drawing on regulatory focus theory [Higgins, E. T. (1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist, 52, 1280–1300] and ideo-affective polarity theory [Tomkins, S. S. (1965). Affect and the psychology of knowledge. In S. S. Tomkins & C. E. Izard (Eds.), Affect cognition and personality: Empirical studies (pp. 72– 97). NY: Springer], we predicted that political conservatism and liberalism would relate to less negative and greater positive affect, respectively. As hypothesized, stronger political conservatism and liberalism predicted greater life satisfaction. Whereas stronger liberalism predicted greater positive affect, stronger conservatism predicted less negative affect. Thus, both political conservatism and liberalism are related to components of happiness. Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Are political conservatives happier than liberals? Recent research suggests this might be the case. A Pew research study found that 40% of conservative Americans compared to 27% of liberals described themselves as ‘‘very happy” (Taylor, Funk, & Craighill, 2006). Further, based on surveys from several countries around the world, Napier and Jost (2008) found small, but statistically robust relations between happiness and a more conservative (vs. liberal) political orientation. They explained their findings from a system justification perspective (Jost & Banaji, 1994) in which rationalizing inequality as fair – a characteristic of conservatism – offers a palliative function in an unjust world. These findings are intriguing; however, several other theoretical perspectives (e.g., Arendt, 1951; Higgins, 1997; Tomkins, 1965) suggest that political conservatives may not necessarily be more likely to experience greater happiness than their liberal counterparts. To explore this possibility, in the present work, we evaluated whether political conservatism and liberalism were differentially related to various components of happiness. What does it mean to be happy? Although several conceptualizations of happiness have been proffered, perhaps the most widely adopted model was proposed by Diener (1984), who defined sub-
* Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (B.L. Choma). 0092-6566/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2008.12.016
jective well-being (SWB) as comprising high life satisfaction, frequent positive affect and infrequent negative affect. Whereas life satisfaction represents a cognitive evaluation of one’s life overall, positive and negative affect represent affective responses to one’s life. According to Diener (1984), SWB is what laypersons mean by ‘‘happiness”. SWB is positively linked with a wide range of desirable personal, interpersonal, and societal characteristics (e.g., Diener & Seligman, 2002). One theoretical perspective bearing on the relation between political orientation and happiness comes from Arendt (1951), who proposed that the power of ideology does not come from its content per se, but instead from how it connects phenomenon and provides meaningful explanations for peoples’ experiences. Research has shown, for instance, that convincing media accounts with either a conservative or liberal slant can promote endorsement of conservative- or liberal-related beliefs, respectively (e.g., Brescoll & LaFrance, 2004). Presumably, the meaningfulness of the explanations presented, regardless of ideological slant, fosters belief endorsement. Moreover, studies suggest that viewing one’s life as coherent and meaningful is associated with greater life satisfaction (e.g., Ryff & Keyes, 1995). Therefore, the strength of an individual’s support for a political ideology, either conservative or liberal, should be positively associated with greater life satisfaction. Theoretical models also support differential predictions concerning the relations between political orientation and the affec-
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B.L. Choma et al. / Journal of Research in Personality 43 (2009) 502–505
tive components of happiness. Regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997) distinguishes between the promotion system, associated with attainment of gains, sensitivity to positive outcomes, and positive emotions; and the prevention system, associated with avoidance of losses, sensitivity to negative outcomes, and less negative emotions. Several studies have supported the proposed links between certain affective responses and regulatory foci (e.g., Shah & Higgins, 2001). Idson, Liberman, and Higgins (2000), for example, reported that promotion focus individuals experience more positive emotions, and prevention focus individuals experience less negative emotions in response to success and failure feedback. Relatedly, ideo-affective polarity theory (Tomkins, 1965) distinguishes between a humanistic orientation, characterized by beliefs that people are essentially good, and that society should help people grow; and a normative orientation, characterized by beliefs that people are essentially bad, and that societies should set rules and demand responsible behavior. Humanistic orientations should be related to positive affects such as interest or enjoyment, and normative orientations should be related to negative affects, including fear and shame (Tomkins, 1965). Consistent with this proposal, Tomkins (1965) found that liberal-oriented participants who viewed pairs of facial stimuli with contrasting emotions were more likely to perceive happy expressions, whereas conservativeoriented participants perceived contemptuous expressions. Thus, whereas liberals might show sensitivity to positive affect, conservatives might demonstrate sensitivity to negative affect. Higgins (1997) and Tomkins (1965) similarly maintain that individuals exposed to promotion-focused or humanistic care-giving styles will adopt a more liberal orientation, and those exposed to prevention focus or normative care-giving styles will adopt a more conservative orientation. In support of these proposed links, political conservatism has been reported to associate with a prevention focus, and political liberalism with a promotion focus (Pattershall & Eidelman, 2008). Furthermore, political conservatism has been found to relate to a normative orientation, and political liberalism to a humanistic orientation (de St. Aubin, 1996). To the extent that regulatory focus and humanistic versus normative orientations are reflected both in political orientation and affective experience, political liberalism might be especially linked with positive affect, and conservatism with negative affect. In other words, among liberals, happiness may be expressed in the presence of positive emotions, whereas among conservatives, happiness may be expressed in the absence of negative emotions. Collectively, these theoretical frameworks (Arendt, 1951; Higgins, 1997; Tomkins, 1965) support predictions concerning differential relations between conservative and liberal political orientations and the components of happiness. Note, however, that the majority of research examining political orientation relies on a single-item bipolar liberal-conservative continuum. Although this approach has proven useful (Jost, 2006), separate measures of political conservatism and liberalism are required to determine whether political conservatism and liberalism are differentially associated with happiness. Further, research examining the relation between political orientation and happiness (Napier & Jost, 2008; Taylor et al., 2006) has used single-item ratings of life satisfaction and/or global happiness, rather than distinguishing among all three components of happiness delineated by Diener (1984). In the present work, conservative and liberal political orientations were assessed separately using multiple items, as were life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect. We expected political conservatism and liberalism to be associated with greater happiness, albeit to different components. Consonant with Arendt (1951), we predicted that both political conservatism and political liberalism would be related to life satisfaction. That is, stronger political ideology – liberal or conservative – should predict higher life satisfaction. Further, consistent with
regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997) and ideo-affective polarity theory (Tomkins, 1965), we hypothesized that political liberalism would predict frequent positive affect, but be unrelated to negative affect; and that political conservatism would predict infrequent negative affect, but be unrelated to positive affect. 2. Methods 2.1. Participants and procedure First year students (n = 454; M age = 19.67; SD = 3.98; 79.7% female) from a university in Canada participated in a larger study for course credit. Eighty-six point three percent identified as White, 5.8% other, 4% Asian, 2% Black, 1.3% Hispanic and .7% Middle Eastern. Participants signed consent forms and completed measures of political orientation and SWB in small group settings. 2.2. Measures 2.2.1. Political orientation A six-item measure was used to assess political conservatism and liberalism separately. Participants indicated on a scale from (1) ‘‘not at all” to (9) ‘‘extremely” how conservative or liberal they were in terms of their general outlook, social policy, and economic policy (Skitka, Mullen, Griffin, Hutchinson, & Chamberlin, 2002). A principal axis factor analysis of the six political orientation items revealed two primary factors which were rotated to a promax solution. The first rotated factor was defined by high loadings on the three items measuring political conservatism, and the second rotated factor was defined by high loadings on the three items measuring political liberalism (see Table 1). Accordingly, separate scores for political conservatism (a = .90) and political liberalism (a = .89) were calculated by averaging the three items specific to each orientation, with higher scores indicating greater endorsement of political conservatism (M = 4.35, SD = 1.50) and liberalism (M = 5.41, SD = 1.42), respectively, r = .54, p < .05. 2.2.2. Subjective well-being To assess life satisfaction (LS), participants indicated their agreement, ranging from (1) ‘‘strongly disagree” to (7) ‘‘strongly agree”, with the 15 items comprising the Temporal Satisfaction With Life Scale (Pavot, Diener, & Suh, 1998). Scores were computed by averaging the items (a = .89) such that higher scores indicated higher LS (M = 4.87, SD = .98). To assess positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA), the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule was administered (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). Twenty adjectives (10 positive, 10 negative) were rated from (1) ‘‘not at all” to (5) ‘‘extremely” in terms of the degree to which the participant felt ‘‘in general”. Mean scores were computed for PA (a = .76) and NA (a = .85) with higher scores indicating greater PA (M = 3.58, SD = .48) and NA (M = 2.22, SD = .65), respectively. For LS and PA, r = .45; for LS and NA, r = .43; for PA and NA, r = .36; all ps < .05.
Table 1 Results from factor analysis of the political orientation items. Items
Rotated factors Factor 1
Conservative – general Conservative – social Conservative – economic Liberal – general Liberal – social Liberal – economic
.92 .90 .76 .03 .03 .02
Factor 2 .00 .00 .03 .85 .84 .82
Note. N = 454. Eigen values (and percent of total variance explained) for the first and second factors were 3.79 (63.2%) and 1.14 (19.0%), respectively.
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3. Results Examination of a scatterplot of the political conservatism and liberalism scores (available on request from the first author) showed that, consistent with the negative correlation between political conservatism and liberalism scores, the majority of participants scored either high conservatism/low liberalism, moderate conservatism/moderate liberalism, or low conservatism/high liberalism. However, some respondents also reported low endorsement of both ideologies. In contrast, few participants scored high on both political conservatism and liberalism. Political orientation scores were examined in relation to LS, PA and NA. Correlation analyzes (Table 2) demonstrated that whereas political conservatism was not significantly associated with any of the SWB components in bivariate analysis, greater political liberalism was weakly related to greater PA, but unrelated to LS and NA. Importantly, these bivariate analyzes do not allow for estimating the relations between political liberalism and the components of SWB, independent of political conservatism (and vice-versa). To examine the unique associations of each political orientation dimension with the three components of SWB (controlling for the other political orientation dimension), each of the SWB components was regressed onto the political conservatism and liberalism scores simultaneously. As shown in Table 2, political conservatism and political liberalism both weakly predicted greater LS, as anticipated. Also, consistent with hypotheses, political liberalism uniquely predicted greater PA and political conservatism uniquely predicted less NA (albeit at a trend level; see Table 2). 4. Discussion Our findings demonstrate that both political conservatism and liberalism are related to components of happiness, as conceptualized by Diener (1984) in terms of life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect. Similar to previous research (e.g., Napier & Jost, 2008; Taylor et al., 2006), we found that political conservatism predicted greater life satisfaction. As hypothesized, political liberalism also predicted greater life satisfaction. The direction and magnitude of the predictive effects of political conservatism and liberalism on life satisfaction were identical. Given that few respondents were characterized by both high conservatism and liberalism, we interpret these findings as follows: Relative to the absence of a political ideology, a strong liberal or conservative orientation is predictive of high life satisfaction. These findings converge on the possibility that life satisfaction is influenced by having a strongly held political ideological belief system to explain one’s world, irrespective of the specific orientation of that framework (Arendt, 1951). A promising direction for future research, therefore, is examining the potential links between political orientation and other ‘meaning-related’ constructs, including sense of coherence (Antonovsky, 1993) and psychological well-being (Ryff & Keyes,
1995), as well as connections between these constructs and the system justification model (Jost & Banaji, 1994) investigated by Napier and Jost (2008). With regard to positive and negative affect, as hypothesized, political liberalism uniquely predicted frequent positive affect, and conservatism uniquely predicted infrequent negative affect at a trend level. These findings support Higgins’ (1997) assertion that promotion focus is related to sensitivity to positive outcomes, and prevention focus to negative outcomes, as well as Tomkins’ (1965) contention that liberal (humanistic) orientations are related to positive affects, and conservative (normative) orientations to negative affects. Moreover, our results are consistent with the possibility that sensitivities to positive versus negative emotions and outcomes resulting from regulatory focus and humanistic versus normative orientation may underlie the differential associations between political orientations and affective experiences. Extending beyond this ‘differential sensitivities’ account, future researchers might also consider the role of motivational direction (i.e., approach vs. avoidance), as reflected in behavioral activation and inhibition systems (Gray, 1982; Summerville & Roese, 2008), in explaining the differential links between political orientations and the affective components of happiness. In summary, the present research suggests that both political liberals and political conservatives are happy, the only difference being their source of happiness: more positive versus less negative affect, respectively. Although the weak nature of the relations found is consistent with previous research (e.g., Napier & Jost, 2008), we encourage readers to keep this in mind while interpreting the present results. Since we employed a general measure of affect, further research is necessary to explore whether specific emotions might be associated with certain political orientations. Further, although our findings may be unique to a Canadian context, consistent with previous research (e.g., Napier & Jost, 2008), we anticipate that studies exploring political orientation and happiness using a multi-component approach in other countries will yield similar results. The present study also has implications for research on political orientation more generally. Despite theoretical and empirical reasons to distinguish between political orientations (e.g., Higgins, 1997; Kerlinger, 1984; Tomkins, 1965), most research is based on a single bipolar rating of liberal versus conservative political orientation. Although useful (Jost, 2006), this approach has the potential to conceal theoretically important differences and similarities between conservatives and liberals, such as those found in the present study with respect to life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect. The inability to identify people without a strong political orientation (conservative or liberal) using a single bipolar continuum may be particularly important, as demonstrated in the present work by individuals characterized by both low conservatism and liberalism. Incorporating separate (in addition to bipolar) measures of political conservatism and
Table 2 Results from regressions of subjective well-being components on political liberalism and political conservatism. Predictors
Subjective well-being component Life satisfaction
Political liberalism Political conservatism Model R2 F-statistic
Positive affect
r
b
.06 .05
.12* .12* .01 3.07*
r
Negative affect b
.12* .05
.13* .01 .01 3.41*
Note. N = 454. Pairwise correlations (r) are reported. Standardized regression coefficients are (b) shown by criterion (column variable). p < .05. ** p = .06. *
r
b .00 .08
.05 .11** .01 1.80
B.L. Choma et al. / Journal of Research in Personality 43 (2009) 502–505
liberalism in future research would allow researchers to bypass many of these concerns. In conclusion, political liberals may not experience more unhappiness or dissatisfaction than political conservatives (Taylor et al., 2006). Instead, political conservatives and liberals can be equally, even if differently, happy from their respective sides of the political field. Acknowledgments We thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for their support for this project, and Samantha Addario, Carol Leishman Calder, Lisa Roepke, Alyssa Schirru, Christine Skinner, and Jessica Sgrignoli for help with data collection. We also thank Michael Ashton and Gordon Hodson for helpful comments on previous versions of this article. References Antonovsky, A. (1993). The structure and properties of the sense of coherence scale. Social Science and Medicine, 36, 725–733. Arendt, H. (1951). The origins of totalitarianism. London: Ruskin House. Brescoll, V., & LaFrance, M. (2004). The correlates and consequences of newspaper reports of research on sex differences. Psychological Science, 15, 515–520. de St. Aubin, E. (1996). Personal ideology polarity: Its emotional foundation and its manifestation in individual value systems, religiosity, political orientation, and assumptions concerning human nature. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 152–165. Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 542–575. Diener, E., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Very happy people. Psychological Science, 13, 81–84. Gray, J. A. (1982). The neuropsychology of anxiety: An enquiry into the functions of the septo-hippocampal system. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Higgins, E. T. (1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist, 52, 1280–1300. Idson, L. C., Liberman, N., & Higgins, E. T. (2000). Distinguishing gains from nonlosses and losses from nongains: A regulatory focus perspective on hedonic intensity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 36, 252–274. Jost, J. T. (2006). The end of the end of ideology. American Psychologist, 61, 651–670. Jost, J. T., & Banaji, M. R. (1994). The role of stereotyping in system-justification and the production of false consciousness. British Journal of Social Psychology, 33, 1–27. Kerlinger, F. (1984). Liberalism and conservatism: The nature and structure of social attitudes. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Napier, J. L., & Jost, J. T. (2008). Why are conservatives happier than liberals? Psychological Science, 19, 565–572. Pattershall, J., & Eidelman, S. (2008, February). Prevention, promotion, and politics: Evidence that regulatory focus affects political conservatism. Poster presented at the annual meeting of society for personality and social psychology (SPSP), Albuquerque, NM. Pavot, W., Diener, E., & Suh, E. (1998). The temporal satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 70, 340–354. Ryff, C. D., & Keyes, C. L. M. (1995). The structure of psychological well-being revisited. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 719–727. Shah, J., & Higgins, E. T. (2001). Regulatory concerns and appraisal efficiency: The general impact of promotion and prevention. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 693–705. Skitka, L. J., Mullen, E., Griffin, T., Hutchinson, S., & Chamberlin, B. (2002). Dispositions, scripts, or motivated correction? Understanding ideological differences in explanations for social problems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(2), 470–487. Summerville, A., & Roese, N. J. (2008). Self-report measures of individual differences in regulatory focus: A cautionary note. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 247–254. Taylor, P., Funk, C., & Craighill, P. (2006). Are we happy yet? Retrieved 01.12.08. Tomkins, S. S. (1965). Affect and the psychology of knowledge. In S. S. Tomkins & C. E. Izard (Eds.), Affect, cognition, and personality: Empirical studies (pp. 72–97). NY: Springer. Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063–1070.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Research in Personality journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jrp
Brief Report
Liberal and conservative political ideologies: Different routes to happiness? Becky L. Choma a,*, Michael A. Busseri b, Stanley W. Sadava b a b
Psychology Department, York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, ON, Canada M3J 1P3 Psychology Department, Brock University, 500 Glenridge Ave, St. Catharines, ON, Canada L2S 3A1
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Available online 4 January 2009 Keywords: Political ideology Political conservatism Political liberalism Subjective well-being Positive affect Negative affect Life satisfaction
a b s t r a c t Research shows that political conservatives are happier than liberals [Napier, J. L., & Jost, J. T. (2008). Why are conservatives happier than liberals? Psychological Science, 19, 565–572]. Relevant theory and evidence suggest that political conservatism and liberalism might be differentially related to components of happiness [(Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 542–575); life satisfaction, positive affect and negative affect]. We anticipated that political conservatism and liberalism would relate to greater life satisfaction [Arendt, H. (1951). The origins of totalitarianism. London: Ruskin House]. Drawing on regulatory focus theory [Higgins, E. T. (1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist, 52, 1280–1300] and ideo-affective polarity theory [Tomkins, S. S. (1965). Affect and the psychology of knowledge. In S. S. Tomkins & C. E. Izard (Eds.), Affect cognition and personality: Empirical studies (pp. 72– 97). NY: Springer], we predicted that political conservatism and liberalism would relate to less negative and greater positive affect, respectively. As hypothesized, stronger political conservatism and liberalism predicted greater life satisfaction. Whereas stronger liberalism predicted greater positive affect, stronger conservatism predicted less negative affect. Thus, both political conservatism and liberalism are related to components of happiness. Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Are political conservatives happier than liberals? Recent research suggests this might be the case. A Pew research study found that 40% of conservative Americans compared to 27% of liberals described themselves as ‘‘very happy” (Taylor, Funk, & Craighill, 2006). Further, based on surveys from several countries around the world, Napier and Jost (2008) found small, but statistically robust relations between happiness and a more conservative (vs. liberal) political orientation. They explained their findings from a system justification perspective (Jost & Banaji, 1994) in which rationalizing inequality as fair – a characteristic of conservatism – offers a palliative function in an unjust world. These findings are intriguing; however, several other theoretical perspectives (e.g., Arendt, 1951; Higgins, 1997; Tomkins, 1965) suggest that political conservatives may not necessarily be more likely to experience greater happiness than their liberal counterparts. To explore this possibility, in the present work, we evaluated whether political conservatism and liberalism were differentially related to various components of happiness. What does it mean to be happy? Although several conceptualizations of happiness have been proffered, perhaps the most widely adopted model was proposed by Diener (1984), who defined sub-
* Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (B.L. Choma). 0092-6566/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2008.12.016
jective well-being (SWB) as comprising high life satisfaction, frequent positive affect and infrequent negative affect. Whereas life satisfaction represents a cognitive evaluation of one’s life overall, positive and negative affect represent affective responses to one’s life. According to Diener (1984), SWB is what laypersons mean by ‘‘happiness”. SWB is positively linked with a wide range of desirable personal, interpersonal, and societal characteristics (e.g., Diener & Seligman, 2002). One theoretical perspective bearing on the relation between political orientation and happiness comes from Arendt (1951), who proposed that the power of ideology does not come from its content per se, but instead from how it connects phenomenon and provides meaningful explanations for peoples’ experiences. Research has shown, for instance, that convincing media accounts with either a conservative or liberal slant can promote endorsement of conservative- or liberal-related beliefs, respectively (e.g., Brescoll & LaFrance, 2004). Presumably, the meaningfulness of the explanations presented, regardless of ideological slant, fosters belief endorsement. Moreover, studies suggest that viewing one’s life as coherent and meaningful is associated with greater life satisfaction (e.g., Ryff & Keyes, 1995). Therefore, the strength of an individual’s support for a political ideology, either conservative or liberal, should be positively associated with greater life satisfaction. Theoretical models also support differential predictions concerning the relations between political orientation and the affec-
503
B.L. Choma et al. / Journal of Research in Personality 43 (2009) 502–505
tive components of happiness. Regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997) distinguishes between the promotion system, associated with attainment of gains, sensitivity to positive outcomes, and positive emotions; and the prevention system, associated with avoidance of losses, sensitivity to negative outcomes, and less negative emotions. Several studies have supported the proposed links between certain affective responses and regulatory foci (e.g., Shah & Higgins, 2001). Idson, Liberman, and Higgins (2000), for example, reported that promotion focus individuals experience more positive emotions, and prevention focus individuals experience less negative emotions in response to success and failure feedback. Relatedly, ideo-affective polarity theory (Tomkins, 1965) distinguishes between a humanistic orientation, characterized by beliefs that people are essentially good, and that society should help people grow; and a normative orientation, characterized by beliefs that people are essentially bad, and that societies should set rules and demand responsible behavior. Humanistic orientations should be related to positive affects such as interest or enjoyment, and normative orientations should be related to negative affects, including fear and shame (Tomkins, 1965). Consistent with this proposal, Tomkins (1965) found that liberal-oriented participants who viewed pairs of facial stimuli with contrasting emotions were more likely to perceive happy expressions, whereas conservativeoriented participants perceived contemptuous expressions. Thus, whereas liberals might show sensitivity to positive affect, conservatives might demonstrate sensitivity to negative affect. Higgins (1997) and Tomkins (1965) similarly maintain that individuals exposed to promotion-focused or humanistic care-giving styles will adopt a more liberal orientation, and those exposed to prevention focus or normative care-giving styles will adopt a more conservative orientation. In support of these proposed links, political conservatism has been reported to associate with a prevention focus, and political liberalism with a promotion focus (Pattershall & Eidelman, 2008). Furthermore, political conservatism has been found to relate to a normative orientation, and political liberalism to a humanistic orientation (de St. Aubin, 1996). To the extent that regulatory focus and humanistic versus normative orientations are reflected both in political orientation and affective experience, political liberalism might be especially linked with positive affect, and conservatism with negative affect. In other words, among liberals, happiness may be expressed in the presence of positive emotions, whereas among conservatives, happiness may be expressed in the absence of negative emotions. Collectively, these theoretical frameworks (Arendt, 1951; Higgins, 1997; Tomkins, 1965) support predictions concerning differential relations between conservative and liberal political orientations and the components of happiness. Note, however, that the majority of research examining political orientation relies on a single-item bipolar liberal-conservative continuum. Although this approach has proven useful (Jost, 2006), separate measures of political conservatism and liberalism are required to determine whether political conservatism and liberalism are differentially associated with happiness. Further, research examining the relation between political orientation and happiness (Napier & Jost, 2008; Taylor et al., 2006) has used single-item ratings of life satisfaction and/or global happiness, rather than distinguishing among all three components of happiness delineated by Diener (1984). In the present work, conservative and liberal political orientations were assessed separately using multiple items, as were life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect. We expected political conservatism and liberalism to be associated with greater happiness, albeit to different components. Consonant with Arendt (1951), we predicted that both political conservatism and political liberalism would be related to life satisfaction. That is, stronger political ideology – liberal or conservative – should predict higher life satisfaction. Further, consistent with
regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997) and ideo-affective polarity theory (Tomkins, 1965), we hypothesized that political liberalism would predict frequent positive affect, but be unrelated to negative affect; and that political conservatism would predict infrequent negative affect, but be unrelated to positive affect. 2. Methods 2.1. Participants and procedure First year students (n = 454; M age = 19.67; SD = 3.98; 79.7% female) from a university in Canada participated in a larger study for course credit. Eighty-six point three percent identified as White, 5.8% other, 4% Asian, 2% Black, 1.3% Hispanic and .7% Middle Eastern. Participants signed consent forms and completed measures of political orientation and SWB in small group settings. 2.2. Measures 2.2.1. Political orientation A six-item measure was used to assess political conservatism and liberalism separately. Participants indicated on a scale from (1) ‘‘not at all” to (9) ‘‘extremely” how conservative or liberal they were in terms of their general outlook, social policy, and economic policy (Skitka, Mullen, Griffin, Hutchinson, & Chamberlin, 2002). A principal axis factor analysis of the six political orientation items revealed two primary factors which were rotated to a promax solution. The first rotated factor was defined by high loadings on the three items measuring political conservatism, and the second rotated factor was defined by high loadings on the three items measuring political liberalism (see Table 1). Accordingly, separate scores for political conservatism (a = .90) and political liberalism (a = .89) were calculated by averaging the three items specific to each orientation, with higher scores indicating greater endorsement of political conservatism (M = 4.35, SD = 1.50) and liberalism (M = 5.41, SD = 1.42), respectively, r = .54, p < .05. 2.2.2. Subjective well-being To assess life satisfaction (LS), participants indicated their agreement, ranging from (1) ‘‘strongly disagree” to (7) ‘‘strongly agree”, with the 15 items comprising the Temporal Satisfaction With Life Scale (Pavot, Diener, & Suh, 1998). Scores were computed by averaging the items (a = .89) such that higher scores indicated higher LS (M = 4.87, SD = .98). To assess positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA), the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule was administered (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). Twenty adjectives (10 positive, 10 negative) were rated from (1) ‘‘not at all” to (5) ‘‘extremely” in terms of the degree to which the participant felt ‘‘in general”. Mean scores were computed for PA (a = .76) and NA (a = .85) with higher scores indicating greater PA (M = 3.58, SD = .48) and NA (M = 2.22, SD = .65), respectively. For LS and PA, r = .45; for LS and NA, r = .43; for PA and NA, r = .36; all ps < .05.
Table 1 Results from factor analysis of the political orientation items. Items
Rotated factors Factor 1
Conservative – general Conservative – social Conservative – economic Liberal – general Liberal – social Liberal – economic
.92 .90 .76 .03 .03 .02
Factor 2 .00 .00 .03 .85 .84 .82
Note. N = 454. Eigen values (and percent of total variance explained) for the first and second factors were 3.79 (63.2%) and 1.14 (19.0%), respectively.
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3. Results Examination of a scatterplot of the political conservatism and liberalism scores (available on request from the first author) showed that, consistent with the negative correlation between political conservatism and liberalism scores, the majority of participants scored either high conservatism/low liberalism, moderate conservatism/moderate liberalism, or low conservatism/high liberalism. However, some respondents also reported low endorsement of both ideologies. In contrast, few participants scored high on both political conservatism and liberalism. Political orientation scores were examined in relation to LS, PA and NA. Correlation analyzes (Table 2) demonstrated that whereas political conservatism was not significantly associated with any of the SWB components in bivariate analysis, greater political liberalism was weakly related to greater PA, but unrelated to LS and NA. Importantly, these bivariate analyzes do not allow for estimating the relations between political liberalism and the components of SWB, independent of political conservatism (and vice-versa). To examine the unique associations of each political orientation dimension with the three components of SWB (controlling for the other political orientation dimension), each of the SWB components was regressed onto the political conservatism and liberalism scores simultaneously. As shown in Table 2, political conservatism and political liberalism both weakly predicted greater LS, as anticipated. Also, consistent with hypotheses, political liberalism uniquely predicted greater PA and political conservatism uniquely predicted less NA (albeit at a trend level; see Table 2). 4. Discussion Our findings demonstrate that both political conservatism and liberalism are related to components of happiness, as conceptualized by Diener (1984) in terms of life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect. Similar to previous research (e.g., Napier & Jost, 2008; Taylor et al., 2006), we found that political conservatism predicted greater life satisfaction. As hypothesized, political liberalism also predicted greater life satisfaction. The direction and magnitude of the predictive effects of political conservatism and liberalism on life satisfaction were identical. Given that few respondents were characterized by both high conservatism and liberalism, we interpret these findings as follows: Relative to the absence of a political ideology, a strong liberal or conservative orientation is predictive of high life satisfaction. These findings converge on the possibility that life satisfaction is influenced by having a strongly held political ideological belief system to explain one’s world, irrespective of the specific orientation of that framework (Arendt, 1951). A promising direction for future research, therefore, is examining the potential links between political orientation and other ‘meaning-related’ constructs, including sense of coherence (Antonovsky, 1993) and psychological well-being (Ryff & Keyes,
1995), as well as connections between these constructs and the system justification model (Jost & Banaji, 1994) investigated by Napier and Jost (2008). With regard to positive and negative affect, as hypothesized, political liberalism uniquely predicted frequent positive affect, and conservatism uniquely predicted infrequent negative affect at a trend level. These findings support Higgins’ (1997) assertion that promotion focus is related to sensitivity to positive outcomes, and prevention focus to negative outcomes, as well as Tomkins’ (1965) contention that liberal (humanistic) orientations are related to positive affects, and conservative (normative) orientations to negative affects. Moreover, our results are consistent with the possibility that sensitivities to positive versus negative emotions and outcomes resulting from regulatory focus and humanistic versus normative orientation may underlie the differential associations between political orientations and affective experiences. Extending beyond this ‘differential sensitivities’ account, future researchers might also consider the role of motivational direction (i.e., approach vs. avoidance), as reflected in behavioral activation and inhibition systems (Gray, 1982; Summerville & Roese, 2008), in explaining the differential links between political orientations and the affective components of happiness. In summary, the present research suggests that both political liberals and political conservatives are happy, the only difference being their source of happiness: more positive versus less negative affect, respectively. Although the weak nature of the relations found is consistent with previous research (e.g., Napier & Jost, 2008), we encourage readers to keep this in mind while interpreting the present results. Since we employed a general measure of affect, further research is necessary to explore whether specific emotions might be associated with certain political orientations. Further, although our findings may be unique to a Canadian context, consistent with previous research (e.g., Napier & Jost, 2008), we anticipate that studies exploring political orientation and happiness using a multi-component approach in other countries will yield similar results. The present study also has implications for research on political orientation more generally. Despite theoretical and empirical reasons to distinguish between political orientations (e.g., Higgins, 1997; Kerlinger, 1984; Tomkins, 1965), most research is based on a single bipolar rating of liberal versus conservative political orientation. Although useful (Jost, 2006), this approach has the potential to conceal theoretically important differences and similarities between conservatives and liberals, such as those found in the present study with respect to life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect. The inability to identify people without a strong political orientation (conservative or liberal) using a single bipolar continuum may be particularly important, as demonstrated in the present work by individuals characterized by both low conservatism and liberalism. Incorporating separate (in addition to bipolar) measures of political conservatism and
Table 2 Results from regressions of subjective well-being components on political liberalism and political conservatism. Predictors
Subjective well-being component Life satisfaction
Political liberalism Political conservatism Model R2 F-statistic
Positive affect
r
b
.06 .05
.12* .12* .01 3.07*
r
Negative affect b
.12* .05
.13* .01 .01 3.41*
Note. N = 454. Pairwise correlations (r) are reported. Standardized regression coefficients are (b) shown by criterion (column variable). p < .05. ** p = .06. *
r
b .00 .08
.05 .11** .01 1.80
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liberalism in future research would allow researchers to bypass many of these concerns. In conclusion, political liberals may not experience more unhappiness or dissatisfaction than political conservatives (Taylor et al., 2006). Instead, political conservatives and liberals can be equally, even if differently, happy from their respective sides of the political field. Acknowledgments We thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for their support for this project, and Samantha Addario, Carol Leishman Calder, Lisa Roepke, Alyssa Schirru, Christine Skinner, and Jessica Sgrignoli for help with data collection. We also thank Michael Ashton and Gordon Hodson for helpful comments on previous versions of this article. References Antonovsky, A. (1993). The structure and properties of the sense of coherence scale. Social Science and Medicine, 36, 725–733. Arendt, H. (1951). The origins of totalitarianism. London: Ruskin House. Brescoll, V., & LaFrance, M. (2004). The correlates and consequences of newspaper reports of research on sex differences. Psychological Science, 15, 515–520. de St. Aubin, E. (1996). Personal ideology polarity: Its emotional foundation and its manifestation in individual value systems, religiosity, political orientation, and assumptions concerning human nature. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 152–165. Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 542–575. Diener, E., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Very happy people. Psychological Science, 13, 81–84. Gray, J. A. (1982). The neuropsychology of anxiety: An enquiry into the functions of the septo-hippocampal system. New York: Oxford University Press.
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