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This is kind of my gut instinct, too, but I don't think it is intentional lying. The question asked the respondent to evaluate their "mental health". This is o

This is kind of my gut instinct, too, but I don't think it is intentional lying. The question asked the respondent to evaluate their "mental health". This is oversimplifying, but the conservative view is often that worrying about mental health makes you 'soft', and that people complaining about their mental health are whiners who need to toughen up. If this view is accurate, it would make sense that conservatives would not state that they have poor mental health, because they believe they should just toughen up and deal with it. Now, whether this means that conservatives are actually more happy or not is not clear, but an alternative explanation would be that conservatives are in denial about their mental health issues, and will describe themselves as not having any, and instead cope in unhealthy ways (drinking, getting angry at minorities and immigrants, abusing their spouses/kids, etc) Of course, the alternative alternative explanation is that conservatives are right, and liberals are just whiny naval-gazers who will complain about everything even though their lives are objectively better than previous generations.

barbazoo 1y ago
> even though their lives are objectively better than previous generations Which also might not even be true either anymore. > Americans are less likely to earn more than their parents https://www.weforum.org/stories/2020/09/social-mobility-upwards-decline-usa-us-america-economics/ https://www.weforum.org/stories/2020/09/social-mobility-upwa...
Llamamoe 1y ago
Anecdotally, there's a lot more people who "don't have mental health issues" and instead act them out on others through verbal or physical abuse on the right side. I know more people with abusive parents than otherwise, and most of them were right-leaning.
9rx 1y ago
And the most likely explanation is that the liberal-conservative divide has nothing to do with it. Rather, we find correlation simply because conservatives are more likely to live in rural areas, which is where we find happier people according to other studies.
k310 1y ago
I don't know how old folks are here, but when I was young, ANY mental problem had a real stigma associated with it. I imagine there was a lot of denial. And there's a whole lot of denial going on these days, even with our higher awareness, and a lot of machismo, much of which is projection. "I'm fine. The other {person, group} is not right" Projection is pretty rampant.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
  > "I'm fine. The other {person, group} is not right" > Projection is pretty rampant. This reminds me exactly of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome). The accusation is offered in lieu of a good argument because it helps the accuser avoid noticing the “derangement” in their own thinking. It’s also telling that it is given the moniker “syndrome”. It is called such in order to discredit the accused; such a “syndrome” is a reason not to take someone seriously, regardless of the actual content of their speech. Actually, now that I’m writing this, I recall there’s often talk of Liberal “hysteria”. No talk of what others are hysterically saying, nor the meaning behind it, just the “hysteria”. Perhaps not seeming as a projection but certainly as another excuse to dismiss a perspective they don’t want to think about or discuss. Mental health issues are an excuse to dismiss any individual or their beliefs in American Conservatism, so naturally American Conservatives have no self-reported mental health issues because they don’t want themselves or their beliefs to be be dismissed.

barbazoo 1y ago

> even though their lives are objectively better than previous generations Which also might not even be true either anymore. > Americans are less likely to earn more than their parents https://www.weforum.org/stories/2020/09/social-mobility-upwards-decline-usa-us-america-economics/ https://www.weforum.org/stories/2020/09/social-mobility-upwa...

Llamamoe 1y ago

Anecdotally, there's a lot more people who "don't have mental health issues" and instead act them out on others through verbal or physical abuse on the right side. I know more people with abusive parents than otherwise, and most of them were right-leaning.

9rx 1y ago

And the most likely explanation is that the liberal-conservative divide has nothing to do with it. Rather, we find correlation simply because conservatives are more likely to live in rural areas, which is where we find happier people according to other studies.

k310 1y ago

I don't know how old folks are here, but when I was young, ANY mental problem had a real stigma associated with it. I imagine there was a lot of denial. And there's a whole lot of denial going on these days, even with our higher awareness, and a lot of machismo, much of which is projection. "I'm fine. The other {person, group} is not right" Projection is pretty rampant.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
> "I'm fine. The other {person, group} is not right" > Projection is pretty rampant. This reminds me exactly of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome). The accusation is offered in lieu of a good argument because it helps the accuser avoid noticing the “derangement” in their own thinking. It’s also telling that it is given the moniker “syndrome”. It is called such in order to discredit the accused; such a “syndrome” is a reason not to take someone seriously, regardless of the actual content of their speech. Actually, now that I’m writing this, I recall there’s often talk of Liberal “hysteria”. No talk of what others are hysterically saying, nor the meaning behind it, just the “hysteria”. Perhaps not seeming as a projection but certainly as another excuse to dismiss a perspective they don’t want to think about or discuss. Mental health issues are an excuse to dismiss any individual or their beliefs in American Conservatism, so naturally American Conservatives have no self-reported mental health issues because they don’t want themselves or their beliefs to be be dismissed.