Some people seem to always look at things through a race lens. The NYT writer may have been one of those people.
IIRC, the income and wealth research has already been done and the OP in this thread looked at political beliefs.
DB2
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There is a strong correlation between income/wealth and race in this country.
Also marital status for that matter.
Not using race glosses over the social inequity involved.
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I don’t doubt that. But I’d still suspect that the underlying problem is a financial one. Those with low incomes tend be less attentive parents (as implied by DB2) because of the financial stresses. But it could easily be a financial problem made worse by racism.
My complaint is the study jumping straight to race as the correlation and skipping over the financial aspect - assuming, of course, that there is also a financial correlation. That is why I’d like to see a stratification by income/wealth to look for a correlation there.
–Peter
And in Finland we find…
An intriguing aspect of the study was its exploration of the relationship between critical social justice and mental well-being. Lahtinen found a correlation between higher agreement with critical social justice attitudes and increased reports of anxiety and depression…
However, these associations were more strongly correlated with participants’ political orientation than with critical social justice attitudes per se . Specifically, being on the political left was more predictive of lower mental well-being than high critical social justice scores alone.
DB2
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Why do you suppose that is?
It may be as simple as progressive politics are a better fit for people who are unhappy.
Focusing more on the ideas upthread, the developments from social media might go as follows:
Endless arguments produce anxiety and depression among those who see themselves as victims. After years of this the kids go off to college in a fragile state, seeing a world made up of victims and oppressors. At college they find teachings that validate their views.
DB2
Failure of society to do what needs to be done sooner rather than later/never.
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My wife was talking to my 21-year-old daughter the other day and asked, ‘Are you OK? You and your friends seem a bit lost.’
My daughter replied, ‘We’re not lost. We’re just really angry.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the World’s going to end,’ my daughter said, ‘because what’s the point of anything?’
According to Harvard pollster John De La Volpe, nearly half of Zoomers suffer from depression requiring clinical treatment. The CDC claims that suicide is Gen Zs second-leading cause of death, with a 56% increase between 2007-2017.
Gen Z is also less likely to seek out behavioral-health guidance, which isn’t helping. In China, Gen Zers, dispirited by all the stark data before them, have taken to “educated pessimism” and report feeling gloomier about their economic prospects compared with older generations.
What does it matter if Gen Z wants to brood over how bad life can seem right now? For one thing, there’s a health risk: being optimistic has long been considered a key indicator of one’s ability to endure hardships and has contributed to better healthover one’s lifetime.
The Mish piece is based on WSJ piece with extensively parts quoted & charts from that article.:
https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/gen-z-voters-election-tiktok-5bcdc524
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I’m pretty sure that 40+ years of “trickle down” had a lot to do with it.
intercst
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However, as noted in the OP, the depressive affect didn’t increase among the teens until after 2010, which doesn’t fit with the 40-year hypothesis.
Out of curiosity, why do you think the ‘trickle down’ effect (whatever that is) affect liberal girls more than the other three categories?
DB2
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I can take a wild guess. The study is extraordinarily difficult to read, which makes me think it is a lousy study (but that’s just a bias). There is one passage though that may be relevant (CSJAS scores reflect concern for social justice).
“Female social sciences students had high CSJAS scores and low well-being relative to other participants. Male business, law, and medical students, and female STEM, education, and humanities faculty had the highest well-being.” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sjop.13018
It is likely that the social sciences attracts those concerned with social justice while that is probably less likely to be true for those going into business. It is also likely that the job/salary prospects for those in the social sciences is significantly worse than those getting a business degree. If the study population had disproportionate numbers of female social science students and male business students, then females would seem more liberal and less happy.
I wouldn’t generalize too much from a single study. Without replication, it could all just be chance or bad survey design.
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I don’t think this is the root of their unhappiness. I think liberal people tend to be more collectivist and conservative people tend to be more individualistic. Because of this, liberal people may feel more sensitive to economic, social, and climate injustice - even if it’s not impacting them as much as others.
Using economic injustice -
Individualist = I’m gonna get mine!
Collectivist = This is wrong.
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There is also the study linked in the OP which found "Adolescent internalizing symptoms (e.g. depressive affect) have increased over the past decade in the US, particularly among girls…Depressive affect (DA) scores increased for all adolescents after 2010, but increases were most pronounced for female liberal adolescents…
“Trends in adolescent internalizing symptoms diverged by political beliefs, sex, and parental education over time, with female liberal adolescents experiencing the largest increases in depressive symptoms…”
DB2
“Ignorance is strength” (1984)
The world is simpler, when fed simple black and white attitudes by a demagogue, then to actually think about anything.
Steve
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Women of color tend to be liberal. Women who are homosexual tend to be liberal. Do minority and homosexual women face greater challenges than white heterosexual women? I suspect so. Doesn’t particularly surprise me in these polls that liberal women seem to be more depressed.
For Americans, abortion alone can explain these surveys.
If you are a pro-life female teen you are ecstatic at the direction the country is going with abortion. If you are a liberal teen you are appalled by the loss of this fundamental right to control your own body.
This is like being surprised that Ukrainians currently feel more anxiety than average.
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Over the last 40+ years of “trickle-down economics”, we’ve seen flat middle-class incomes and massive tax cuts for those living off investment income and inherited wealth. Middle-class Americans are seeing more of this flat income needing to be allocated to rising skim rates in health care, housing, and college costs. Oddly financial services is the one area when skim has been appreciably reduced, but only for the 15% of the population that has found their way to low-fee index funds, cash back credit cards, and free travel through the use of “points”.
Adding to the economic stress, you have 40+ years of gaslighting on climate change that has resulted in a world now afire and a planet imperiled. It’s not surprising that young people who use science and arithmetic to inform their thinking would be depressed, while the “faith community” would be more hopeful. Like Jonestown, it just depends on your appetite for the Kool-aid.
intercst
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I expect that all of these studies are mostly measuring random noise as to causes.
The obvious causes are more like the end of child controlled street culture of games and socializing 40 years ago, TV, Social Media, loss of contact with nature and all it teaches, …
d fb
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True, but the research showed a major change with depression and such starting after 2010. I don’t think women being more liberal just started a decade ago.
DB2
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Same comment/question: what changed about a decade ago? And, how would this affect liberal kids differently than conservative ones?
DB2
The War on Woke. If you’re liberal, it’s quite depressing.
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