Republicans have a higher sense of well-being than Democrats and Independents, a new Gallup survey shows. Americans identifying with this political group scored better than their non-GOP peers across all six well-being index subcategories with the exception of 'life evaluation.'
The study, released Friday, surveyed over 400,000 American adults over the course of 2011. Republicans' well-being index came in at 68.8, Democrats at 66.3 and Independents at 64.6 Although the difference between the indexes seems small, Gallup said the gaps are significant.
"The differences in wellbeing among Republicans, Democrats, and independents are small on an absolute basis, but statistically significant, given the large sample size this research uses, and would occur infrequently by chance alone," a Gallup press release read.
The Well-Being Index is broken down into six subcategories: life evaluation, emotional health, physical health, healthy behaviors, work environment and basic access (to life necessities). Republicans scored consistently higher across all groups except for the life evaluation index, in which Democrats surpassed them by 0.4 points.
"This [life evaluation] difference could reflect the political impact of having a Democrat in the White House," the report read.
The widest gaps between the groups are in the work environment and basic access indexes, where Republicans and Democrats varied by 5.2 and 3.5 points respectively. Independents fared worse across all six indexes compared with their Republican and Democrat peers.
Although the survey did not state the reason for these wide gaps in Americans' sense of well-being, the polling agency hazards a guess - religion.
"Republicans are more religious in general than independents or Democrats, and Gallup has shown in previous analysis that religiosity has a significantly positive relationship to wellbeing," the study read.
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