I think there's research saying that happier people tend to be more politically conservative, no?
(from 2009)
we predicted that political conservatism and liberalism would relate to less negative and greater positive affect, respectively. As hypothesized, stronger political conservatism and liberalism predicted greater life satisfaction. Whereas stronger liberalism predicted greater positive affect, stronger conservatism predicted less negative affect. Thus, both political conservatism and liberalism are related to components of happiness.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886914004553 (from 2015)
Highlights
• Political conservatism and religiosity positively correlate with happiness.
• Political conservatism and religiosity interact in predicting happiness.
• Religiosity has a greater effect on happiness for political conservatives.
• These results were found in the General Social Survey [2012] and World Values Survey [2005].
Cross-culturally, higher social trust seems more strongly correlated with increased happiness in more individualistic societies, e.g. liberal democracies with a Western cultural legacy. So partisan realignment along social trust may mean that the D coalition is becoming happier relative to the population as a whole, even though ideological conservatives may also continue to have above-average happiness as well.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886921008308 (from 2022)
Highlights
• All types of social trust positively predicted individual level well-being.
• National culture conditions the effects of personal contributors of well-being.
• Social trust more strongly associated with well-being in individualistic cultures.
• The well-being benefits of social trust may be enhanced by individual autonomy.
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