A conservative environment makes conservatives happier

Life satisfaction depends on time and country

University of Cologne

Past studies have found that conservatives are happier than liberals. Dr. Olga Stavrova from the Institute of Sociology and Social Psychology (ISS) and Junior Professor Maike Luhmann from the Psychology Department at the University of Cologne were able to show in two studies that the positive effect of a conservative ideology on people also depends on the ideological orientation of their social surroundings.

If the dominant ideology in society is rather conservative, adherents of a conservative ideology tend to be happier than liberals. With decreasing social conservatism, the conservatives tended to forfeit their "satisfaction advantage." In the studies, the scientists used the data of 200,000 survey respondents from the USA and 92 countries around the world. The results of the studies will be published in the Journal of Research in Personality (Volume 63, August 2016, Pages 29-35).