Social conservatives are happier & healthier
New surveys in the USA show that high school boys are trending conservative. High school girls are becoming more socially liberal. However, that all changes as they get older. We check out the latest social trends and its effect on mental health. Because progressivism or liberalism is secular, it’s also depressing. If you want to improve your mental health, become a social conservative.
TRANSCRIPT:
A popular narrative is that young people are liberal and getting more liberal. What if that was fake news? And what is the effect of this so-called liberalism.
According to a report in The Hill, Twelfth-grade boys (which is year 13 here so it’s 17-18 year olds (for us oldies – think 7th formers) – those boys are nearly twice as likely to identify as conservative versus liberal, according to a respected federal survey of American youth.
In annual surveys over the last three years, roughly one-quarter (between 26 and 23%) of high school seniors self-identified as conservative or “very conservative” on the Monitoring the Future survey, a scholarly endeavor that dates to the 1970s. Only 13 percent of boys identified as liberal or very liberal in those (last 3) years.
The figures represent a striking shift in the political views of boys. As recently as the late 2000s, liberal boys occasionally outnumbered conservatives.
You can see that just in the middle of the graph where the blue is above the red briefly, and also briefly in 2009.
Here’s what a psychotherapist told FOX news
It seems that high school boys do not want to be considered liberal. Liberal-identifying boys have been an ever-falling trend, however, since the study’s first numbers in 1975 were at 25%.
However, girls are different
The share of 12th-grade girls who identified as liberal rose from 19 percent in 2012 to 30 percent in 2022. Only 12 percent of girls identified as conservative in last year’s survey, administered by the University of Michigan.
Young girls are a different story, though; liberalism in senior girls has skyrocketed to over 30% in recent years, whereas conservative-identifying girls have dropped to nearly a third in comparison at 12%.
It’s important to note that more than 40% responded to the liberal-conservative question on the survey saying, “None of the above” or “I don’t know.” Either they haven’t really thought about it, don’t care, or genuinely like a parts of both conservatism and liberalism. I’d suspect they just don’t want to label themselves.
Since 2016, however, the trend toward conservatism for high school boys has grown considerably. High school girls, on the other hand, have drastically moved to the Left in the past decade
Young women, too, are trending liberal. Women ages 18 to 29 are more likely to identify as liberal now than at any time in the past two decades, according to Gallup surveys last year. Young women are almost twice as likely as young men to claim the liberal tag, a widening gender gap in political beliefs.
The political leanings of young men have changed little over the past two decades. Last year, 31 percent said they were conservative, 24 percent as liberal, and 43 percent identified as moderate – so they’re neither liberal or conservative.
DailyWire says
As boys in high school shift to the Right, fewer young men are graduating from America’s universities, which many conservatives believe have become beacons of leftist ideology. In the 2018-2019 academic year, just 74 men received a bachelor’s degree for every 100 women who completed their program. As of 2023, 64% of women at public universities were graduating compared to 58% of men. In overall enrollment, women are outnumbering men by almost 60% to 40%
However, before you despair about what is happening to our younger women, check out this story from June. And remember this is all ages
The Gallup survey released Thursday showed 38 percent of respondents said they are conservative or very conservative on social issues, an increase from the 33 percent who said so last year. The percentage who now say they are liberal or very liberal on these issues dropped from 33 percent last year to 29 percent.
So social conservatives have increased from 30% to 38% in the past 2 years.
Social liberals have dropped from 34% to just 29% in the past 2 years
Pollsters also noted increases in the percentage across most age groups. The group of 30 to 49 saw the biggest rise, jumping 13 points from 22 percent in 2021 to 35 percent in 2023.
Gallup said in its analysis that Americans were about as likely to say they are conservative on social issues as that they are liberal in the past eight years. But conservatism has a clear advantage this year
But here’s the interesting bit – and I shared this as part of my opening remarks at the recent Forum on the Family.
PEW Research found that young liberal women followed by young liberal men (on the right of the graph) were far more likely to have been diagnosed with a mental health issue than a young conservative female or male (shown on the left) and 18-29 and 30-49 are the left half of each line
Now commentators such as the Disinformation Project and other activists will immediately blame phobias, bigotry and right wing fundamentalism.
But the research amongst young people from the same Monitoring the Future study of students shows clearly that the harms started rising with a social liberal as President, gay marriage being legalised and the White House being lit up in the new cultural religion. So that argument simply doesn’t stack up.
Here’s the more recent data from that same study through to 2021. Self derogation is inner conflict and anxiety & depression. Most likely in liberal girls followed by liberal boys. Least like in those who identify as social conservatives.
As I shared at the Forum, progressivism or liberalism is secular. No God. No moral standard. Narcissism and hedonism. Just watch any secular music video to see that. With no God, it’s about a need for recognition and admiration, pleasure esp sexual is the highest good. Sound familiar.
Therefore, with no God and biblical Truth, progressivism is depressing. Because it’s so confusing. 112 genders and 200+ sexualities? Yeah right.
If you want to improve your mental health, become a social conservative.
Just one more thing before I go. To all the women watching – adult human female – you’ll appreciate this research.
Conservative women are perceived as both prettier and happier than left-wing women, at least according to artificial intelligence (AI). An AI model gave conservative women high “attractiveness” scores, according to a March study published in the journal Scientific Reports, which is owned by Nature.
“For females (though not males), high attractiveness scores were found among those the model identified as likely to be conservative,” the study said.
The researchers added that these results are “credible” since previous research using human raters rather than AI has also highlighted a link between attractiveness and conservatism. The researchers also observed that an expression of “contempt” was related to “a predicted probability of left-wing ideology.”
“We also found that expressing happiness is associated with conservatism for both genders,” the researchers wrote.
If you want proof that this study is correct, well, I’m happy. But definitely not pretty.
A 2022 survey found that conservative women are much more likely to be “completely satisfied” with their lives than liberal women. About 31% of conservative women ages 18 to 55 are “completely satisfied” with their lives while only 16% of liberal women are, according to the American Family Survey from YouGov and Deseret News. The survey also found that conservative women are 24% more likely to be happy with their family life.
That’s really gonna blow the mind of the Disinformation Unit, isn’t it.
Bottom line, team – if you want to be healthier, happier and have better mental health, become a social conservative .
