Political party values compared

COLUMBIA, Mo., Sept. 24 (UPI) -- American Republicans and Democrats just are not that different when it comes to values, a U.S. researcher contends.

"The one thing that struck me the most was that the value differences were rather small -- really, people were more alike than different, in that almost everybody favored intrinsic values more than extrinsic values," Psychology Professor Kennon Sheldon of the University of Missouri said in a statement. "It was just a small relative difference between the two parties."

Sheldon compared extrinsic values such as financial success, status, appearance with intrinsic values such as growth, intimacy and helping held by self-declared Democrats and Republicans.

Past research shows that extrinsic values undermine both personal well-being -- mood and satisfaction -- and collective well-being -- cooperation and congeniality.

Sheldon said he found Republicans to be consistently higher on the extrinsic value of financial success and lower on the intrinsic value of helping others in need. Only non-religious Republicans, presumably economic conservatives, differed from Democrats on the value of helping those in need.

However, even religious Republicans exceeded Democrats in valuing financial success.

Religious and non-religious Democrats did not differ in their values.

The finding are to appear in the March 2009 issue of theJournal of Applied Social Psychology.