Which Kids Grow Up to Be Liberals and Which Become Conservative

A few months ago, the Pew Research Center (bastion of right-wing political thought) issued results of a?poll talking about who was happier…conservatives or liberals. Not surprisingly, the study, which got a lot of main stream media attention, found that conservatives tend to be happier than liberals.

At this exact moment in time, does that come as a big surprise to you. I mean, who do you think is happier, George Bush or John Kerry, Dick Cheney or Al Gore?

However, a more serious and long-term scientific study has determined that whiny children grow up to be rigid and politically conservative. Self-reliant, confident kids grow up to be liberals.

This is not wishful thinking by liberals. University of California at Berkley professor Jack Block and his late wife, Jeanne Block, tracked almost one hundred children for two decades. From nursery school on, the kids were studied and interviewed–without any sense of political bias (as back in nursery school, few of the kids really cared about politics).

Block’s decades long research found that the whiniest, least confident kids were those who grew up to be uncomfortable with ambiguity, who toed a rigid line on social issues, and who were, for the most part, right wingers. The kids who were loose, interesting, and willing to challenge authority ended up being liberals.