What Buys Happiness? Analyzing Trends in Subjective Well-Being in 15 European Countries, 1973-2002 Trends in life satisfaction are examined across 15 European countries employing a modified version of Kendall’s Tau. Analyses show that GDP growth relative to growth in the preceding period is a significant determinant of the trends; the same holds for the growth in life expectancy while the conte...

Can one's political ideology influence one's health? Aggregate studies correlating average voting patterns with average mortality levels, 1–4 or average health dissatisfaction , 3 suggest that mortality tends to be lower in areas where the majority vote for the party with conservative political orientation. This finding has usually been presented as reflecting the differences in socioeconomic d...

Public interest has become increasingly focused on the role of money in politics. Specifically, the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court ruling maintained the legality of unrestricted political expenditures by corporate and union entities. As a result, there has been a proliferation of super PAC, or ‘political action committee’, organizations. While these organizations are not permitted to make...

J ournalists, pollsters, and pundits use categories of political analysis that they do not always clearly define and whose meanings are ambiguous. To make sense of the political rhetoric even the informed public must struggle hard. A single news analysis in the New York Times used the following ambiguous expressions: "social conservatism," "economic conservatism," "pragmatic conservatives," "do...

Background Stigmatizing attitudes toward persons with mental disorders is a well-established and global phenomenon often leading to discrimination and social exclusion. Although previous research in the United States showed that conservative ideology has been related to stigmatizing attitudes toward mental disorders, there is reason to believe that this mechanism plays a different role in...

r e s u M e n Después de superado el prejuicio que equiparaba emoción con irracionalidad, las teorías de la acción colectiva empiezan a incorporar las variables emocionales. Sin embargo, las emociones a las que aluden se limitan a las negativas y, fundamentalmente, a la ira. Esto obedece a que la acción colectiva se asocia exclusivamente con la protesta. Pero las acciones colectivas también pue...

Parochial altruism refers to the propensity direct prosocial behavior toward members of one's own ingroup a greater extent than those outside group. Both theory and empirical research suggest that parochialism may be linked political ideology, with conservatives more likely liberals exhibit bias in altruistic behavior. The present study, conducted United States Italy, tested this relationship c...