scholarly journals Increasing American Political Tolerance: A Framework Excluding Hate Speech

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 237802312090395
Author(s):  
Anna Boch
Keyword(s):  
Hate Speech ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Tolerance ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
College Educated ◽  
New Framework

According to prior research, political tolerance has either stagnated since the 1970s (if to be tolerant one must be tolerant of every group in all circumstances) or steadily increased (if tolerance is measured using an index, averaging across groups). Using General Social Survey cross-sectional and panel data on civil liberties, this article proposes a new framework: separating out the groups that use hate speech from those that may be only controversial. The United States is unique among Western liberal democracies in not having a prohibition against hate speech. By applying a dichotomous hate speech framework to measuring political tolerance, this article finds that the proportion of Americans who are always tolerant has increased by 8 percentage points from 1996 to 2018. Meanwhile, tolerance of groups that use hate speech has remained flat and even decreased among groups that historically were more tolerant of such groups, including the college educated.

scholarly journals Clergyman, Cleric, and Religious Leader: An Experiment on Alternative Reference Individuals for the Free Expression Items

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen L. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
Religious Leader ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Foundational Work ◽  
Two Alternatives ◽  
The Web

Following upon the foundational work of Samuel Stouffer in his 1955 book Communism, Conformity, and Civil Liberties, the General Social Survey (GSS) has measured support for free expression in the United States since 1972. In this report, I offer two sets of results to inform decisions about the questionnaire for the 2020 GSS. First, to set the background, I use GSS data from 2008 through 2018 to summarize levels and changes in attitudes toward free expression for all six existing reference individuals on the GSS. Second, I offer results from a three-armed experiment that compares the existing reference individual of a “Muslim clergyman” to two alternatives: “Islamic cleric” and “Islamic religious leader.” The experimental data were collected over the web in January and February of 2019 as part of the AmeriSpeak panel.

scholarly journals Trends in the Association between a College Education and Political Tolerance, 1976–2016

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 237802311880585
Author(s):  
Colin Campbell ◽  
Jerry Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Gay Men ◽  
Data Visualization ◽  
College Graduates ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
College Education ◽  
Political Tolerance ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
College Educated

In this data visualization, we use data from the General Social Survey to explore long-running trends in the association between a college education and political tolerance toward five groups. For tolerance toward militarists, anti-religionists, communists, and gay men, we show that the tolerance gap between college-educated and non–college educated individuals has narrowed, and this is largely attributable to increased tolerance among the non–college educated. We also find that the tolerance gap toward racists has narrowed; however, this is the result of decreased tolerance among college graduates.

scholarly journals The Dynamics and Political Implications of Anti-Intellectualism in the United States

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Motta
Keyword(s):  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Verbal Intelligence ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Political Implications

Recently, Americans have become increasingly likely to hold anti-intellectual attitudes (i.e., negative affect toward scientists and other experts). However, few have investigated the political implications of anti-intellectualism, and much empirical uncertainty surrounds whether or not these attitudes can be mitigated. Drawing on cross-sectional General Social Survey (GSS) data and a national election panel in 2016, I find that anti-intellectualism is associated with not only the rejection of policy-relevant matters of scientific consensus but support for political movements (e.g., “Brexit”) and politicians (e.g., George Wallace, Donald Trump) who are skeptical of experts. Critically, though, I show that these effects can be mitigated. Verbal intelligence plays a strong role in mitigating anti-intellectual sympathies, compared with previously studied potential mitigators. I conclude by discussing how scholars might build on this research to study the political consequences of anti-intellectualism in the future.

The Politics of Part-Time Work: Gender, Employment Status, and Preferences for Redistribution

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
David S. Pedulla ◽  
Michael J. Donnelly
Keyword(s):  
Employment Status ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Limited Attention ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Preferences For Redistribution ◽  
Time Work ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Part Time Work

Abstract The social and economic forces that shape attitudes toward the welfare state are of central concern to social scientists. Scholarship in this area has paid limited attention to how working part-time, the employment status of nearly 20% of the U.S. workforce, affects redistribution preferences. In this article, we theoretically develop and empirically test an argument about the ways that part-time work, and its relationship to gender, shape redistribution preferences. We articulate two gender-differentiated pathways—one material and one about threats to social status—through which part-time work and gender may jointly shape individuals’ preferences for redistribution. We test our argument using cross-sectional and panel data from the General Social Survey in the United States. We find that the positive relationship between part-time employment, compared to full-time employment, and redistribution preferences is stronger for men than for women. Indeed, we do not detect a relationship between part-time work and redistribution preferences among women. Our results provide support for a gendered relationship between part-time employment and redistribution preferences and demonstrate that both material and status-based mechanisms shape this association.

The Arts as a Polarized Issue and the Role of Political Trust in Promoting the Arts: Evidence From the United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-97
Author(s):  
Lim Jae Young ◽  
Woo Harin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Moderating Role

The arts in the United States, for a long time received strong support from both sides of the political aisle. However, in recent years, the arts have been transformed into a partisan issue that pits conservatives against liberals. The article points to the importance of political trust as a means of helping conservatives overcome their ideological inclinations and support the arts. Scholars argue that political trust influences more strongly individuals who perceive a given policy to be one that imposes ideological risks for them compared with those without such risks. Focusing on the moderating role of political trust, the article examines whether political trust can help alleviate the conservatives’ hostility to the arts. Relying on the 2016 General Social Survey, the article finds that conservatives have no direct relationship with arts spending, but they will be more likely to support arts spending when this is contingent upon political trust.

Population Aging, Intracohort Aging, and Sociopolitical Attitudes

2007 ◽  
Vol 72 (5) ◽  
pp. 812-830 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas L. Danigelis ◽  
Melissa Hardy ◽  
Stephen J. Cutler
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Population Aging ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Sociopolitical Attitudes ◽  
The Life Course

Prevailing stereotypes of older people hold that their attitudes are inflexible or that aging tends to promote increasing conservatism in sociopolitical outlook. In spite of mounting scientific evidence demonstrating that learning, adaptation, and reassessment are behaviors in which older people can and do engage, the stereotype persists. We use U.S. General Social Survey data from 25 surveys between 1972 and 2004 to formally assess the magnitude and direction of changes in attitudes that occur within cohorts at different stages of the life course. We decompose changes in sociopolitical attitudes into the proportions attributable to cohort succession and intracohort aging for three categories of items: attitudes toward historically subordinate groups, civil liberties, and privacy. We find that significant intracohort change in attitudes occurs in cohorts-inlater- stages (age 60 and older) as well as cohorts-in-earlier-stages (ages 18 to 39), that the change for cohorts-in-later-stages is frequently greater than that for cohorts-inearlier-stages, and that the direction of change is most often toward increased tolerance rather than increased conservatism. These findings are discussed within the context of population aging and development.

scholarly journals Gendered Religiosity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Landon Schnabel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Gender Differences ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Gender Expression ◽  
The Feminine

This study uses measures of cognitive and expressive aspects of gender as a social identity from the General Social Survey to examine whether and how they relate to religiosity. I find that religiosity is clearly gendered, but in different ways for women and men. Consistent with the feminine-typing of religion in the Christian-majority context of the United States, gender expression is linked with more religiousness among women but not men. Consistent with religion being a sometimes patriarchal institution, those with more pride in being men are more religious. I conclude that religiosity is gendered, that degendering and secularization processes could go hand-in-hand, and that future research on gender differences in religiosity should further examine variation among women and among men.

Religion and Happiness

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Hout ◽  
Andrew Greeley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Religious Rituals ◽  
Religious Services ◽  
Using Data ◽  
International Social

This chapter discusses the link between happiness and religion. It draws on meaning-and-belonging theory to deduce that a religious affiliation heightens happiness through participation in collective religious rituals. Attendance and engagement appear key: a merely nominal religious affiliation makes people little happier. Notably, two religious foundations of happiness—affiliation with organized religious groups and attendance at services—have fallen. Softened religious engagement, then, may contribute to the slight downturn in general happiness. In fact, steady happiness is reported among those who participate frequently in religious services, but falling levels among those who are less involved. The chapter also considers the association between religion and happiness outside the United States using data from the International Social Survey Program, an international collaborative survey to which the General Social Survey contributes the American data.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document