Written By: - Date published: 1:15 pm, July 15th, 2008 - 41 comments
Categories: articles -
Tags: conservative, jordan carter, liberal, research
Jordan Carter posted a month or so back (a little controversially) on how much easier life might be for some on the left if they didn’t believe it was necessary to give due moral regard to others – selfishness certainly seems simpler.
New research suggests that Jordan may well be right. The study has concluded that individuals with conservative ideologies are happier than liberal-leaners. The apparent reason? Conservatives are better at rationalising social and economic inequalities.
“Our research suggests that inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on conservatives,” the researchers write in the June issue of the journal Psychological Science, “apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at least neutral) light.”
Here’s the article (apologies for the source).
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Stephen: There’s some research on charitable giving (conservatives giving more), for whatever reason (would invoke religion again though)
I’ve heard this before, asked for the evidence, and not got it. So Stephen can you point me to your source for this?
Because the stuff I have seen says the exact opposite, that the poor are more generous with their donations:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2001/dec/21/voluntarysector.fundraising
rOb: the stuff I have seen says the exact opposite, that the poor are more generous with their donations:
That’s certainly been my observation rOb – based on extensive experience from back in the day when we did door-to-door collections.
Latterly I’ve found tories will give more to environmental efforts – but the teensy fact that everyone’s overlooked is that they have bucketloads more from which to give: it’s the old Widow’s Mite story, and on a “percentage of income” basis lefties would be miles ahead in my experience – a no-brainer really when you look at the contrast in political attitudes. Dog-eat-dog versus give a mate a hand.
a no-brainer really when you look at the contrast in political attitudes. Dog-eat-dog versus give a mate a hand.
And there you have it in a nutshell really.
“Stephen: There’s some research on charitable giving (conservatives giving more), for whatever reason (would invoke religion again though)”
That research is by Arthur C Brooks who also did the research on happiness. Religion does seem to play a big factor.
“In 2000, religious people gave about three and a half times as much as secular people — $2,210 versus $642. And even when religious giving is excluded from the numbers, Mr. Brooks found, religious people still give $88 more per year to nonreligious charities.”
“Mr. Brooks agreed that he needed to tackle politics. He writes that households headed by a conservative give roughly 30 percent more to charity each year than households headed by a liberal, despite the fact that the liberal families on average earn slightly more.”
http://philanthropy.com/free/articles/v19/i04/04001101.htm
Ak,
“that the poor are more generous with their donations..
That is also my experience from a short period doing door to door collections.”
In my brief experience doing door to door collections I found ‘poor’ areas were quite generous. I didn’t collect in any wealthy suburbs though, so couldn’t compare..
jcb/Felix: That’s it, I’m starting the Socialist Meritocracy Party. From each according to how awesome other people are, to each according to how awesome she is!
L
I’m starting the Socialist Meritocracy Party. From each according to how awesome other people are, to each according to how awesome she is!
Unless everyone thinks everyone else is totally awesome then I think I spot a flaw…
I think the original slogan was closer to the mark – it has a kind of symmetry to it.