Study: Conservatives have more self-control than liberals

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Research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that conservative political leanings are correlated with a higher degree of self-control. The paper's authors worked with 300 people, observing that participants' levels of self-control were better predicted by how conservative or liberal they were rather than other demographic indicators, like wealth, race, or sex.

Lead researcher Joshua Clarkson of the University of Cincinnati disavowed any notion that the study's authors intended to make a value judgment about people of different political beliefs. "We've got liberals, conservatives, libertarians, and people who aren't sure [on the research team]," he said. "We are not saying that conservatives are better in general. We just think this study gives us a novel way to think about self-control."

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.