Neuroticism and the political Left

 [[{“value”:”From Greg Lukianoff and Andrea Lan: Liberal students have worse mental health than moderate and conservative students At the extremes, 57% of very liberal students in our study reported feelings of poor mental health at least half the time, compared to just 34% of very conservative students. Let that sink in. 34% is really quite
The post Neuroticism and the political Left appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.”}]] 

From Greg Lukianoff and Andrea Lan:

Liberal students have worse mental health than moderate and conservative students

At the extremes, 57% of very liberal students in our study reported feelings of poor mental health at least half the time, compared to just 34% of very conservative students. Let that sink in. 34% is really quite bad, but 57% is approaching a figure of 2 out of every 3 very liberal students.

The graph above shows that as students move further to the left, they are more likely to have poor mental health — suggesting that it’s not just liberal ideology that impacts mental health, but also the extremity of their beliefs. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests show ideology is a statistically significant predictor of mental health. Post-hoc tests demonstrate it predicts in the direction as shown: more liberal, worse mental health. So far, the data is consistent with the findings of others (Zach Goldberg and Jon Haidt using Pew Research’s data, and Gimbrone et al.), and supportive of the hypothesis that “social justice fundamentalism” can be contributing negatively to the mental health of those who adopt it.

Via the excellent Arnold Kling. I’ve been on this bandwagon for a while, it is one of the more important truths for understanding current American political discourse. I would, however, insist that in this context the word “liberal” is especially misplaced.

The post Neuroticism and the political Left appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

 Data Source, Political Science, Uncategorized