6 ms·

There's actually some evidence that having left-wing political beliefs in general is associated with mental health consequences, because people with such belief

There's actually some evidence that having left-wing political beliefs in general is associated with mental health consequences, because people with such beliefs are more aware of societal injustices, and because unhappy people are more likely to want change. I suspect that this is a similar effect, probably enhanced by the fact that vegetarians are usually on the left. Did the study control for political views? I'd be interested in seeing if this replicates in India, where many vegetarians are actually strong (religious) conservatives.

wyager 4y ago
> There's actually some evidence that having left-wing political beliefs is associated with mental health consequences This is certainly true, at least based on polling, cf https://news.gallup.com/poll/102943/republicans-report-much-better-mental-health-than-others.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/102943/republicans-report-much-... > because people with such beliefs are more aware of societal injustices in general There is no evidence I'm aware of that this is the underlying causal relationship.
goodpoint 4y ago
> because people with such beliefs are more aware of societal injustices, and because unhappy people are more likely to want change That's well proven. Yet, for the record, mental health is known to be much worse in the far-right and far-right libertarians (conspiracy theories, projection etc.)
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  >> unhappy people are more likely to want change > That's well proven. Is that something that needs proving? Doesn't being unhappy logically imply that you want change?
- wyager 4y ago
  > for the record, mental health is known to be much worse in the far-right and far-right libertarians Every paper I've seen on the subject has pretty much monotonic improvement in reported mental health outcomes almost all the way to the right, and if there's any non-monotonicity, it's insufficient to come even close to the reported negative mental health outcomes on the far left. This is not a formal scientific paper, but the SSC survey has the benefit of tighter granularity and more heterodoxy than most sources. https://mobile.twitter.com/phl43/status/1227338353101672450 https://mobile.twitter.com/phl43/status/1227338353101672450 Low granularity research from gallup: https://news.gallup.com/poll/102943/republicans-report-much-better-mental-health-than-others.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/102943/republicans-report-much-...
  - divided 4y ago
    Interesting data points, but in isolation polling seems to be a rather poor method for determining this. More conservative viewpoints are also associated with higher stigmatization of mental health conditions[1] and one indisputable measure of a mental health crisis (suicides) is more prevalent in rural areas compared to urban[2]. This seems like an obvious confounding variable. If you poll people have they been formally diagnosed with a mental health disorder, and one group of people refuses to seek treatment for it in the first place due to stigma, then _of course_ fewer of them are formally diagnosed. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6600024/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6600024/ [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8909802/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8909802/
  - WhyIsItAlwaysHN 4y ago
    A shallow search seems to support that people with right leaning ideologies tend to stigmatize depression more and to not support mental health help and intervention. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6600024/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6600024/ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2378023120921652 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2378023120921652 A person who stigmatizes mental illness would be more likely to not seek help and would not admit that they have problems in a public survey. As an example of this, the slate star codex post shows that alt-right people reported a very low percentage of diagnosed depression. The popularity of Jordan Peterson and his videos in that space is a clear signal that a lot of these people are seeking ways to deal with mental health problems. Even more, they're not looking for them through official channels, but through online celebrities and communities. I would be very glad to be corrected with data on this as I'm not an expert, but I think it's an important point to consider when discussing mental illnesses where self-reporting makes a big difference in their diagnosis.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  The God fearing right? Having a believe in a higher leads to better mental health outcomes in general. Conspiracy theories like 9/11 UFOs or are often far leaning left views although both side have a distrust with the government. Framing conspiracy beliefs as right wing missing the real split. Those who trust power structures and people in power and those who distrust.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - aksss 4y ago
    Well, the foundation of Christianity is the establishment of a source of hope that transcends the tragedies and corruption of the prime material plane. That hope is incredible source of strength for many. I think it's an interesting examination of people to understand where they derive hope from, and just IME for many it's their spiritual belief system. "What gives you hope (about humanity, the world, your personal life, your family, etc.)" always seems like an enjoyable conversation. To the extent that one feels and internalizes gratitude I think is also strongly correlated to hopefulness, just IME.
verisimi 4y ago
Maybe there's something to that too. Left wingers also typically, like big government and believe that its fine for us all to collectivised and made to follow governments rules. Is that how empathy is used against the empath? Can govt just say that such-and-such is for the greater good, and most will go along with it? It seems so, at times.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  Not sure that’s a left wing mentality. counter-examples: the patriot act, military spending, police funding. The right seems just as happy to support big gov and tow the official/collectivist line when it comes to “law and order”, international power, nationalism, etc. Put another way, anti-vaxers come in two flavors: right wing conspiracy nuts (alex jones), and left wing flakes (goop).
  - aksss 4y ago
    I think what we’re all kind of lacking is the idea of statists vs non-statists. The left and right swap positions on issues like military welfare (tell me again our burn rate in Ukraine right now) and state surveillance (generally a left-loved cause these days) over the decades. The state wants power at a cost to the citizenry. People in power enable this regardless of their party. We should also acknowledge that it’s the nature of the system for the power structures to try and get their hooks in politicians as quickly as possible such that they can be made tools of the power structure. I guess the benefits are good but the consequences on people in power “fighting the system” are multimodal, relentless, and effective.
    - kennywinker 4y ago
      I think you might be confused because the “left” in the usa is a centrist liberal party. Liberals are not leftists. Actual leftists do NOT in my experience support state surveillance. Warfare isn’t a left vs right thing per se, e.g. leftist support for ww2 when american nazi sympathies were common. But imperialist wars are generally opposed by leftists. I do think the state-ist vs non-state-ist thing might be useful, but as a leftist there are plenty of things I support a state-based solution to (healthcare) while others I do not (policing - as currently conceived, anything involving personal freedom + autonomy e.g. drugs, lifestyle). I’d suggest it’s more of a “i’m a healthcare state-ist” rather than “i’m a state-ist”.
jagrsw 4y ago
> because unhappy people are more likely to want change. Things are constantly changing wrt. societal+economic measures - Gini, GDP, longevity (excl. short term perturbations). If anything conservatives might be unhappy that things are changing at all, and left-wing supporters that they're not changing fast enough.

wyager 4y ago

> There's actually some evidence that having left-wing political beliefs is associated with mental health consequences This is certainly true, at least based on polling, cf https://news.gallup.com/poll/102943/republicans-report-much-better-mental-health-than-others.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/102943/republicans-report-much-... > because people with such beliefs are more aware of societal injustices in general There is no evidence I'm aware of that this is the underlying causal relationship.

goodpoint 4y ago

> because people with such beliefs are more aware of societal injustices, and because unhappy people are more likely to want change That's well proven. Yet, for the record, mental health is known to be much worse in the far-right and far-right libertarians (conspiracy theories, projection etc.)

denton-scratch 4y ago
>> unhappy people are more likely to want change > That's well proven. Is that something that needs proving? Doesn't being unhappy logically imply that you want change?
wyager 4y ago
> for the record, mental health is known to be much worse in the far-right and far-right libertarians Every paper I've seen on the subject has pretty much monotonic improvement in reported mental health outcomes almost all the way to the right, and if there's any non-monotonicity, it's insufficient to come even close to the reported negative mental health outcomes on the far left. This is not a formal scientific paper, but the SSC survey has the benefit of tighter granularity and more heterodoxy than most sources. https://mobile.twitter.com/phl43/status/1227338353101672450 https://mobile.twitter.com/phl43/status/1227338353101672450 Low granularity research from gallup: https://news.gallup.com/poll/102943/republicans-report-much-better-mental-health-than-others.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/102943/republicans-report-much-...
- divided 4y ago
  Interesting data points, but in isolation polling seems to be a rather poor method for determining this. More conservative viewpoints are also associated with higher stigmatization of mental health conditions[1] and one indisputable measure of a mental health crisis (suicides) is more prevalent in rural areas compared to urban[2]. This seems like an obvious confounding variable. If you poll people have they been formally diagnosed with a mental health disorder, and one group of people refuses to seek treatment for it in the first place due to stigma, then _of course_ fewer of them are formally diagnosed. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6600024/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6600024/ [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8909802/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8909802/
- WhyIsItAlwaysHN 4y ago
  A shallow search seems to support that people with right leaning ideologies tend to stigmatize depression more and to not support mental health help and intervention. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6600024/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6600024/ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2378023120921652 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2378023120921652 A person who stigmatizes mental illness would be more likely to not seek help and would not admit that they have problems in a public survey. As an example of this, the slate star codex post shows that alt-right people reported a very low percentage of diagnosed depression. The popularity of Jordan Peterson and his videos in that space is a clear signal that a lot of these people are seeking ways to deal with mental health problems. Even more, they're not looking for them through official channels, but through online celebrities and communities. I would be very glad to be corrected with data on this as I'm not an expert, but I think it's an important point to consider when discussing mental illnesses where self-reporting makes a big difference in their diagnosis.
ipaddr 4y ago
The God fearing right? Having a believe in a higher leads to better mental health outcomes in general. Conspiracy theories like 9/11 UFOs or are often far leaning left views although both side have a distrust with the government. Framing conspiracy beliefs as right wing missing the real split. Those who trust power structures and people in power and those who distrust.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- aksss 4y ago
  Well, the foundation of Christianity is the establishment of a source of hope that transcends the tragedies and corruption of the prime material plane. That hope is incredible source of strength for many. I think it's an interesting examination of people to understand where they derive hope from, and just IME for many it's their spiritual belief system. "What gives you hope (about humanity, the world, your personal life, your family, etc.)" always seems like an enjoyable conversation. To the extent that one feels and internalizes gratitude I think is also strongly correlated to hopefulness, just IME.

verisimi 4y ago

Maybe there's something to that too. Left wingers also typically, like big government and believe that its fine for us all to collectivised and made to follow governments rules. Is that how empathy is used against the empath? Can govt just say that such-and-such is for the greater good, and most will go along with it? It seems so, at times.

kennywinker 4y ago
Not sure that’s a left wing mentality. counter-examples: the patriot act, military spending, police funding. The right seems just as happy to support big gov and tow the official/collectivist line when it comes to “law and order”, international power, nationalism, etc. Put another way, anti-vaxers come in two flavors: right wing conspiracy nuts (alex jones), and left wing flakes (goop).
- aksss 4y ago
  I think what we’re all kind of lacking is the idea of statists vs non-statists. The left and right swap positions on issues like military welfare (tell me again our burn rate in Ukraine right now) and state surveillance (generally a left-loved cause these days) over the decades. The state wants power at a cost to the citizenry. People in power enable this regardless of their party. We should also acknowledge that it’s the nature of the system for the power structures to try and get their hooks in politicians as quickly as possible such that they can be made tools of the power structure. I guess the benefits are good but the consequences on people in power “fighting the system” are multimodal, relentless, and effective.
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    I think you might be confused because the “left” in the usa is a centrist liberal party. Liberals are not leftists. Actual leftists do NOT in my experience support state surveillance. Warfare isn’t a left vs right thing per se, e.g. leftist support for ww2 when american nazi sympathies were common. But imperialist wars are generally opposed by leftists. I do think the state-ist vs non-state-ist thing might be useful, but as a leftist there are plenty of things I support a state-based solution to (healthcare) while others I do not (policing - as currently conceived, anything involving personal freedom + autonomy e.g. drugs, lifestyle). I’d suggest it’s more of a “i’m a healthcare state-ist” rather than “i’m a state-ist”.

jagrsw 4y ago

> because unhappy people are more likely to want change. Things are constantly changing wrt. societal+economic measures - Gini, GDP, longevity (excl. short term perturbations). If anything conservatives might be unhappy that things are changing at all, and left-wing supporters that they're not changing fast enough.