Conservative high school seniors less prone to depression than liberal counterparts: Poll
Jenny Goldsberry
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A recent study found that high school seniors that identified as liberal were more prone to depression than their conservative counterparts.
Columbia University surveyed more than 85,000 18-year-old teenagers from 130 private schools from 2005 to 2018, considering them conservative or liberal based on self-reporting. While all teenagers reported higher depressive affect scores after 2010, liberal students reported higher depressive scores than their counterparts, which were calculated by self-reports regarding their moods, self-esteem, self-derogation, loneliness, depressive episodes, and suicidal ideations and behavior.
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“These findings indicate a growing mental health disparity between adolescents who identify with certain political beliefs,” the study read. “It is, therefore, possible that the ideological lenses through which adolescents view the political climate differentially affect their mental well-being.”
Of all respondents, liberal women reported the highest depressive affect, with liberal women without a college-educated parent topping the charts. More women tended to identify as liberal than me, with 22% reporting a left-leaning political ideology. About the same amount, 21% of men identified as conservative.
Those behind the study cited similar surveys that found “common aspects of a conservative identity are equally as protective for adolescent mental health as for adult mental health.” However, when it came to black women, the education of their parents was more correlated with a healthy mental state because “conservatism alone was not protective for mental health.”
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The National Institute on Drug Abuse funded the study.