It's darn difficult to be happy when you're afraid. I know there have been subsequent studies that reflect higher levels of neuroticism among liberals, which probably jibes with your own observations here and apart from the interwebs.
When we look at COVID beliefs, liberals are much more likely to overestimate or grossly overestimate the danger. As someone else has pointed out, liberals are more frightened of COVID after they've been vaccinated, than before. Another possible measure is the common belief among liberals that we are at, or have passed, the climate "tipping point," and indeed some, like the shadow Speaker of the House, hold that the earth will perish in a few decades if we don't pass certain legislation immediately. How often are groups of people who contend the world is coming to an end eventually shown to be kooks? Think back to last year and The Madness, and polling that emerged during the riots and mayhem. Liberals polled about police shootings of unarmed suspects were off by factors of three/four/five. And then consider four years of daily predictions of imminent doom for the republic...tomorrow. Always tomorrow. Just wait. If he had barricaded himself in the WH and hung on one more day, that would've been it. Poof. Kaboom. There goes the US of A as we know it. Did some say these things for effect, and was some of it street theater dramatics? Sure, but we all know liberals who really believed we were on the precipice every single day. Like me, you may have had family members who believed this. Also like me, you probably took pity on them, seeing the effects of their irrational fears.
Link: https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/article/view/4839/4839.html