Question: Recent studies show that conservative Republican political ideology is associated with greater overall life happiness than liberal Democratic ideology. One potential explanation for this is that conservatives are more likely than liberals to accept or rationalize the existence of inequalities as being fair and legitimate. To test this potential explanation, participants with conservative or liberal ideologies (Factor A: political ideology) who either rationalize or not (Factor B: rationalization) were asked to report their overall life satisfaction, where higher scores indicated greater life satisfaction. It was expected that conservatives who rationalize would report the greatest life satisfaction. The hypothetical results are given in the following table.
