A recent study published in Advances in Psychology provides evidence that people’s happiness and life satisfaction are closely tied to how much they agree with their government’s actions. The findings suggest that living under a government that matches your personal values offers psychological comfort, while political opposition can take a temporary toll on mental health.
Politics can dictate the distribution of resources and personal rights, which directly shapes an individual’s overall quality of life. During the early months of President Donald Trump’s second term in early 2025, the United States experienced a wave of sweeping policy changes. Because this time frame also featured challenges to traditional democratic norms, the researchers wanted to measure the psychological impact of these rapid political shifts.
“Politics has become increasingly polarized in the United States, which can affect people’s well-being. Additionally, there is growing concern about democratic backsliding, which occurs when governments weaken democratic norms or institutions,” explained study author Deborah Wu, an assistant professor of psychology at Arizona State University and head of the IDEA (Identity Development, Emotions, and Attitudes) Lab.
“While past research has shown that Republicans tend to report higher well-being than Democrats, less is known about how people’s political affiliation predicts their well-being over time, and whether responses to specific governmental actions during a period of democratic stress may be associated with their well-being. In this study, we examined both of these questions.”
The researchers drew on several psychological concepts to guide their predictions, including system justification. This is the idea that people have a natural drive to defend and rationalize existing political structures because doing so reduces feelings of uncertainty and threat. Another concept is motivated cognition, which suggests that people process information in a way that protects their existing beliefs and group identity.
A third concept known as person-environment fit suggests that people naturally feel better when their broader social and political surroundings match their inner values. Based on these theories, the scientific team wanted to see if a person’s alignment with or alienation from the current government’s actions was associated with their overall happiness. They also wanted to test if this alignment mattered beyond simple party loyalty.
To explore these questions, the scientists recruited 601 adults living in the United States. The sample included 306 Democrats and 295 Republicans, with an average age of about 42 years. Over the course of five weeks, from late February to late March 2025, participants completed weekly online surveys.
By the final week, 397 participants remained in the study. Each week, the participants rated their overall life satisfaction and their general happiness on a scale from one to seven. Starting in the second week, the researchers also asked participants to read three recent news stories about federal actions.
These stories covered topics like international tariffs, immigration enforcement, funding cuts to scientific research, and court orders blocking certain administration policies. Participants then rated how much they supported or opposed the actions described in each news story.
The data showed distinct differences in how the two political groups felt during this five-week window. Republicans consistently reported higher levels of both life satisfaction and happiness compared to Democrats at every time point. Over the five weeks, Republicans experienced a steady, upward trend in their overall well-being.
Democrats displayed a different pattern of emotional response. Initially, the life satisfaction and happiness of Democrats decreased during the first few weeks of the study. This initial dip was followed by a rebound, with their well-being levels eventually rising again by the end of the survey period.
“One surprising finding was that although Democrats initially showed declines in well-being, their well-being later increased over time,” Wu told PsyPost. “This suggests that people may adapt to political stressors more than we might expect. Even in a challenging political environment, individuals may adjust, find ways to cope, or draw support from others who share their views.”
This process might be related to hedonic adaptation. Hedonic adaptation is the tendency for humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events.
When looking at responses to specific news events, the researchers found that Republicans generally supported the administration’s policies. Democrats strongly favored actions taken against the administration. Importantly, supporting the government’s actions was consistently linked to higher happiness and life satisfaction. Opposing the government’s actions was associated with lower well-being.
The researchers then used statistical models to account for basic demographic factors like age, gender, race, socioeconomic status, and political party affiliation. Even after adjusting for these factors, the relationship between supporting government policies and feeling happier remained.
“One key takeaway is that people’s well-being is associated with whether they feel aligned with what their government is doing,” Wu explained. “In our study, people who supported the government’s actions reported higher happiness and life satisfaction, while those who opposed those actions reported lower well-being.”
“Importantly, this was true even beyond just whether someone was a Democrat or a Republican, suggesting that it’s not only who you are politically, but also whether you perceive that the political environment matches your values, that can affect how you feel.”
“We found medium-to-large effects of political party on well-being, and large effects of political party on support for governmental actions, as Republicans consistently reported higher well-being and more support for governmental actions, in comparison to Democrats,” Wu added.
“The size of the associations between support for government actions and well-being were small-to-medium, meaning that though support is an important factor in predicting well-being, it is one piece of a larger picture that includes other factors such as political party and socioeconomic status.”
While the study provides detailed insights, readers should be careful not to assume that political events are the sole cause of these emotional changes. Because the study only tracked people over five weeks, the researchers cannot definitively prove that reading the news stories caused the shifts in well-being. It is possible that people who are already happier naturally tend to support their government more favorably.
Additionally, the sample only included individuals who identified as Democrats or Republicans. This leaves out a large portion of the population who identify as political independents, meaning the results might not apply to everyone in the country. The rapid pace of the news cycle during this period also means that participants were reacting to very fresh, immediate changes.
Future research could track participants over a much longer period to see if these emotional rebounds or increases last for months or years. Scientists might also look into the specific psychological coping strategies that help people recover from the stress of political opposition. Investigating how these political shifts affect marginalized groups, who might experience more direct consequences from new policies, could also offer a more complete picture of national well-being.
The study, “The politics of well-being during democratic backsliding: How partisan affiliation and support for government actions relate to happiness and life satisfaction,” was authored by Deborah J. Wu, Kyle F. Law, Stylianos Syropoulos, and Sylvia P. Perry.
