Yvain makes some good points, but I don't buy his argument, in part because I think that a single political dimension (aka one left-right axis) is inadequate for any in-depth analysis.

I don't agree that happiness is necessarily associated with the thrive mode and depression -- with the survival mode. People who are engaged in a struggle to survive are rarely depressed, they don't have time for this. On the same "intuitive" basis I can argue that sloth/ennui is the consequence of the thrive mode and motivation/energy is the consequence of the survival mode.

I don't believe that "direct relationship between happiness and political ideology". I'll need to look at the data and at how does the analysis control for other variables before I might be convinced it's real. However I do have a strong prior that this is not so.