is it the chicken or the egg?
Does being liberal create mental illness, or does mental illness push people towards a liberal outlook.
1/n Two interesting findings thus far from my analysis of Pew's March 2020 COVID-19 survey. First, white (and especially 'very') liberals are far more likely than all other ideological-racial subgroups to report being diagnosed with a mental health condition. pic.twitter.com/RynS9lk0jR— Zach Goldberg (@ZachG932) April 11, 2020
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1/n Two interesting findings thus
far from my analysis of Pew's March 2020 COVID-19 survey. First, white
(and especially 'very') liberals are far more likely than all other
ideological-racial subgroups to report being diagnosed with a mental
health condition. 
2/n Somewhat surprisingly, this difference further grows when we add standard controls 
3/n We next turn to mean responses
to this battery, which asks about the frequency at which respondents
experienced specific mental health issues over the previous 7 days 
4/n The differences are more modest here, but still significant 
5/n They are also robust to several potential confounds (e.g. job loss, pay-cuts, marital status) 
6/n However, entering the 'mental health diagnosis' variable into the model does (perhaps naturally) narrow the difference. 
7/n In other words, at least some of
the differences in the covid-mental health battery between white
liberals and others are accounted for by the former's higher likelihood
of being diagnosed with a mental health condition.
8/n It's possible that the
disparities in self-reported diagnosis are simply or partly a function
of white liberals being more likely to seek mental health evaluations. I
don't have the data to answer this question. But given that they also
tend to score higher on neuroticism..
9/n (and, not to mention, score lower on life satisfaction/happiness), I think at least some of this difference is genuine.
10/n I didn't write this thread to
mock white liberals or their apparently disproportionate rates of mental
illness (and you shouldn't either). Rather, this is a question that's
underexplored and which may shed light on attitudinal differences
towards various social policies.
11/n Overall, and with one exception
(white moderates), those in 18-29 age group are more likely to report
being diagnosed with a mental health condition. The differences among
white liberals, though, are striking: almost half of white liberals in
this cohort report a diagnosis. 
12/n @jean_twenge would like to get your thoughts on this. I know you've studied some of these trends.
13/n Big 5 personality profiles for white libs who report/don't report receiving a mental health condition diagnosis. 
14/n One of the things that concern
me about liberal social engineering and norm-promotion efforts is that
they ostensibly cater to those who are emotionally fragile or those with
specific personality profiles. Those with different personality
profiles or have higher emotional..
15/n stability are just expected to shut up and deal with it.
16/n Some of you asked for it, so
here is the last chart broken down by gender. Biggest gap within age x
ideological groups is between white liberal men (33.6%) and women
(56.3%) in the 18-29 category 
17/n Link to original dataset
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