Conservatives might like their bacon, but they sure practice more self control when consuming it.
At least that’s what a recent report published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests.
The study sought to specifically examine “the self-control consequences of individuals’ political ideologies” and found that self-identified conservatives actually exhibit more self control than those who identified as liberals, regardless of race or gender.
“Greater endorsement of political conservatism (versus liberalism) was associated with greater attention regulation and task persistence,” states the abstract of the study.
According to the Daily Caller, the study involved 300 participants in three different series. The conductors of the study examined the subjects’ self control by showing them color words written on backgrounds of different colors.
Participants were tasked with reading each word and ignoring the background color, an act which involves self control.
“If you see the word ‘red’ in blue type your mind wants to say ‘blue’ right away, but you have to suppress that,” explained the report’s lead author Joshua Clarkson. “That’s why it is a strong indicator of self regulation.”
Hence, when conservatives more quickly read the correct word, they were shown to have more self control than their liberal counterparts.
