Linking neuroscience to political intolerance and political judgment (original) (raw)

1998, Politics and the Life Sciences

There is substantial evidence that intolerance arises from perceptions of difference. A prevailing view holds that even if intolerance is understandable as a defense mechanism, or as an attitude intended to ward off threatening groups and noxious activities, it often is the result of human irrationality and indulgence of prejudice. This conclusion is supported by studies that seem to demonstrate the apparent irrelevance of the actual level of threat to levels of intolerance. These studies show human actions attendant to diversity are caused by established convictions (i.e., prejudice) rather than by the degree of threat. However, informed by theoretical approaches provided by neuroscientists, we report findings that threat is, indeed, a provocative factor that modifies political tolerance in predictable ways. Previous studies defined threat as probabilistic assessments of the likelihood of bad events. When threat is defined as novelty and normative violations (i.e., as departures from expected, or normal, occurrence), then consistent relationships to intolerance are obtained. ). UNFORTUNATELY, THE INCLINATION of the human species to organize itself in groups did not bring with it a pattern of intergroup relationships governed by evenhandedness, tolerance, or tranquility. Rather, people tend to judge members of other groups quite differently than they judge members of their own group (Brigham and Malpass, 1985; Lanzetta and Englis, 1989; Linville and Jones, 1980). The term ethnocentrism has been coined to categorize this powerful and apparently universal tendency (LeVine and Campbell, 1972). Liberal democracies are regimes dedicated to securing the benefits of individual rather than group identities and prerogatives, as well as to encouraging the universal protection of and active reliance on political rights for all amidst increasingly diverse populations.1 However, if group membership, and differential hostility towards groups most unlike our own, remain enduring features of political and social life, then how will liberal democracies achieve a consensus regarding the importance of protecting the rights of all? Perhaps the most fundamental answer is to inculcate values that will lead people to understand and apply norms of political tolerance (Kautz, 1993; McClosky and Brill, 1983; Stouffer, 1955; Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus . Political tolerance is of central importance to diverse liberal democracies because it recognizes the sovereignty of the majority while seeking to secure for everyone, even the most despised, the right to engage in public deliberations. While this answer is appealing, it is by itself inadequate. We must also concern ourselves with gaining a better understanding of what makes tolerance so difficult to secure.