A correlation between belief in meritocracy and happiness

Yesterday, on the PBS Newshour, there was a segment focusing on poling results that show that conservatives report on the average that they are happier than do liberals. There are a number of other variables that are also correlated with reported happiness -- education, income, marital status, religion, urban vs. rural location, all kinds of things -- but belief that we live in a society with equality of opportunity was picked out for emphasis.

One of the biggest correlates with happiness in our surveys was the belief of a meritocracy, which is the belief that anybody who works hard can make it. That was the biggest predictor of happiness. That was also one of the biggest predictors of political ideology. So, the conservatives were much higher on these meritocratic beliefs than liberals were.

The problem is that the United States no longer provides the social and economic mobility it once did, and indeed there are other societies (notably the Scandinavian societies) that provide more social mobility than does that of the United States. I am tempted to conclude that it is a mistaken belief in meritocracy that leads conservatives to be happy, or a lack of accurate information that leads to both happiness and conservatism. But perhaps it is a conservative outlook that leads to the belief in meritocracy, or a conservative reliance on the way things once were. But of course, relative to many other countries the United States remains more meritocratic -- ask the Asian Americans who have overcome prejudice and succeeded economically and socially through effort and excellence. One has to be careful in interpreting survey data, even when many surveys give similar results.

I also wonder what is the optimum level of happiness. It is nice to be happy, but a certain amount of dissatisfaction with the status quo may encourage one to work to improve things. We want our children's lives to be better than our own, and perhaps a certain amount of dissatisfaction with current conditions encourage us to work to improve the opportunities for our children.