Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T11:14:12.777Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Linking Neuroscience to Political Intolerance and Political Judgment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

George E. Marcus ,
Sandra L. Wood  and
Elizabeth Theiss-Morse
George E. Marcus
Affiliation:
Williams College, USA
Sandra L. Wood
Affiliation:
University of North Texas, USA
Elizabeth Theiss-Morse
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska, USA
Get access

Abstract

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.

Type
Intolerance and Threat
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , September 1998 , pp. 165 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adorno, T., Frenkel-Brunswick, E., Levinson, D., and Sanford, R.N. (1950). The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Allport, G.W. (1954). The Nature of Prejudice. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Arrow, K. (1982). “Risk Perception in Psychology and Economics.” Economic Inquiry 20:1–9.Google Scholar
Avery, P., Bird, K., Johnstone, S., Sullivan, J.L., and Thalhammer, K. (1992). “Exploring Political Tolerance with Adolescents.” Theory and Research in Social Education 20:386–420.Google Scholar
Borch, K.H. (1968). The Economics of Uncertainty. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Breckler, S.J. (1984). “Empirical Validation of Affect, Behavior, and Cognition as Distinct Components of Attitude.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 47:1191–1205.Google Scholar
Brigham, J.C. and Malpass, R.S. (1985). “The Role of Experience and Contact in the Recognition of Faces in Own- and Other-Race Persons.” Journal of Social Issues 41:139–55.Google Scholar
Campbell, A., Converse, P.E., Miller, W.E., and Stokes, D.E. (1960). The American Voter. New York: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Cooper, J.B. (1959). “Emotion in Prejudice.” Science 130:314–18.Google Scholar
Davis, M. (1992). “The Role of the Amygdala in Conditioned Fear.” In Aggleton, J.P. (ed.), The Amygdala: Neurobiological Aspects of Emotion, Memory, and Mental Dysfunction. New York: Wiley-Liss.Google Scholar
Devine, P.G. (1989). “Stereotypes and Prejudice: Their Automatic and Controlled Components.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 56:5–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downs, A. (1957). An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Ekhardt, W. (1991). “Authoritarianism.” Political Psychology 12:97–124.Google Scholar
Enelow, J.M. and Hinich, M.J. (1984). The Spatial Theory of Voting: An Introduction. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fiske, S.T. and Pavelchak, M. (1985). “Category-Based versus Piecemeal-Based Affective Responses: Developments in Schema-Triggered Affect.” In Sorrentino, R. and Higgins, E. (eds.), The Handbook of Motivation and Cognition: Foundations of Social Behavior. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Fridlund, A.J. and Cacioppo, J.T. (1986). “Guidelines for Human Electromyographic Research.” Psychophysiology 23:567–89.Google Scholar
Gray, J.A. (1987a). “The Neuropsychology of Emotion and Personality.” In Stahl, S.M., Iversen, S.D., and Goodman, E.C. (eds.), Cognitive Neurochemistry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gray, J.A. (1987b). The Psychology of Fear and Stress. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gray, J.A. (1991). “Fear, Panic, and Anxiety: What's in a Name?” Psychological Inquiry 2:77–78.Google Scholar
Gray, J.A. (1994). “Framework for a Taxonomy of Psychiatric Disorder.” In Van Goozen, S.H.M., Van De Poll, N.E., and Sergeant, J.A. (eds.), Emotions: Essays on Emotion Theory. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hamill, R., Wilson, T.D., and Nisbett, R.E. (1980). “Insensitivity to Sample Bias: Generalizing from Atypical Cases.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39:578–89.Google Scholar
Hepworth, J.T. and West, S.G. (1988). “Lynchings and the Economy: A Time Series Reanalysis of Hovland and Sears (1940).” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 55:239–47.Google Scholar
Hovland, C.I. and Sears, R. (1940). “Minor Studies of Aggression: Correlation of Lynchings with Economic Indices.” Journal of Psychology 9:301–10.Google Scholar
Jackson, L.A. and Sullivan, L.A. (1990). “Cognition and Affect in Evaluations of Stereotyped Group Members.” Journal of Social Psychology 129:659–72.Google Scholar
Jennings, D.L., Amabile, T.M., and Ross, L. (1982). “Information Covariation Assessment: Data-Based versus Theory-Based Judgments.” In Kahneman, D., Slovic, P., and Tversky, A. (eds.), Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A. (1982). “The Psychology of Preferences.” Science 246:136–42.Google Scholar
Kautz, S. (1993). “Liberalism and the Idea of Toleration.” American Journal of Political Science 37:610–32.Google Scholar
Key, V.O. Jr. and Cummings, M.C. (1966). The Responsible Electorate: Rationality in Presidential Voting 1936--1960. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Kinder, D.R. and Sears, D.O. (1981). “Prejudice and Politics: Symbolic Racism versus Racial Threat to the Good Life.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 40:414–431.Google Scholar
Kuklinski, J.H., Riggle, E., Ottati, V., Schwarz, N., and Wyer, R.S. Jr. (1991). “The Cognitive and Affective Bases of Political Tolerance Judgments.” American Journal of Political Science 35:1–27.Google Scholar
Kuklinski, J.H., Riggle, E., Ottati, V., Schwarz, N., and Wyer, R.S. Jr. (1993). “Thinking about Political Tolerance, More or Less, with More or Less Information.” In Marcus, G.E. and Hanson, R.L. (eds.), Reconsidering the Democratic Public. University Park, PA: Penn State Press.Google Scholar
Lanzetta, J.T. and Englis, B.G. (1989). “Expectations of Cooperation and Competition and Their Effects on Observers' Vicarious Emotional Responses.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 56:543–54.Google Scholar
Lazarus, R. (1982). “Thoughts on the Relations of Emotion and Cognition.” American Psychologist 37:1019–24.Google Scholar
Lazarus, R. (1984). “On the Primacy of Cognition.” American Psychologist 39:124–29.Google Scholar
LeDoux, J.E. (1987). “Emotion.” In Plum, F. (ed.), Handbook of Physiology. Section 1: The Nervous System, Vol. 5 Higher Functions of the Brain, Part 1. Bethesda, MD: American Physiological Society.Google Scholar
LeDoux, J.E. (1994). “Emotion, Memory and the Brain.” Scientific American 270 (6):32–39.Google Scholar
LeDoux, J.E. (1996). The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
LeDoux, J.E., Iwata, J., Cicchetti, P., and Reis, D.J. (1988). “Different Projections of the Central Amygdaloid Nucleus Mediate Autonomic and Behavioral Correlates of Conditioned Fear.” Journal of Neuroscience 8:2517–29.Google Scholar
Leventhal, H. (1970). “Findings and Theory in the Study of Fear Communications.” In Berkowitz, L. (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
LeVine, R.A. and Campbell, D.T. (1972). Ethnocentrism: Theories of Conflict, Ethnic Attitudes and Group Behavior. New York: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Linville, P.W. and Jones, E.E. (1980). “Polarized Appraisals of Out-Group Members.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 38:689–703.Google Scholar
Lodge, M.G., McGraw, K.M., and Stroh, P. (1989). “An Impression-Driven Model of Candidate Evaluation.” American Political Science Review 83:399–420.Google Scholar
Marcus, G.E. (1991). “Emotions and Politics: Hot Cognitions and the Rediscovery of Passion.” Social Science Information 30:195–232.Google Scholar
Marcus, G.E. and MacKuen, M. (1993). “Anxiety, Enthusiasm and the Vote: The Emotional Underpinnings of Learning and Involvement during Presidential Campaigns.” American Political Science Review 87:688–701.Google Scholar
Marcus, G.E., Neuman, W.R., MacKuen, M., and Sullivan, J.L. (1996). “Dynamic Models of Emotional Response: The Multiple Role of Affect in Politics.” In Delli Carpini, M., Huddy, L., and Shapiro, R.Y. (eds.), Research In Micropolitics. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Marcus, G.E., Sullivan, J.L., Theiss-Morse, E., and Wood, S. (1995). With Malice toward Some: How People Make Civil Liberties Judgments. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McClosky, H. and Brill, A. (1983). Dimensions of Tolerance. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Miller, W.E. (1991). “Party Identification, Realignment, and Party Voting: Back to the Basics.” American Political Science Review 85:557–68.Google Scholar
Miller, W.E. and Shanks, J.M. (1996). The New American Voter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Neuman, W.R., Marcus, G.E., and MacKuen, M. (1996). “Emotion and Reason in Mass Political Behavior.” Paper presented to the Annual Scientific Meetings of the International Society of Political Psychology, July 2, Vancouver, Canada.Google Scholar
Nisbett, R. and Ross, L. (1982). Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Ordeshook, P. (1986). Game Theory and Political Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Osgood, C.E., Suci, G.J., and Tannenbaum, P.H. (1957). The Measurement of Meaning. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Parkinson, B. and Manstead, A.S.R. (1992). “Appraisal as a Cause of Emotion.” In Clark, M.S. (ed.), Emotion. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Rabinowitz, G. and MacDonald, S.E. (1989). “A Directional Theory of Issue Voting.” American Political Science Review 83:93–121.Google Scholar
Rahn, W.M., Aldrich, J.H., Borgida, E., and Sullivan, J.L. (1990). “A Social-Cognitive Model of Candidate Appraisal.” In Ferejohn, J. and Kuklinski, J. (eds.), Information and Democratic Processes. Urbana-Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Rogers, R.W. (1983). “Cognitive and Physiological Processes in Fear Appeals and Attitude Change: A Revised Theory of Protection Motivation.” In Cacioppo, J.T. and Petty, R.E. (eds.), Social Psychophysiology: A Source Book. New York: Guildford.Google Scholar
Roseman, I. (1979). “Cognitive Aspects of Emotion and Emotional Behavior.” Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Roseman, I. (1984). “Cognitive Determinants of Emotions: A Structural Theory.” In Shaver, P. (eds.), Review of Personality and Social Psychology. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Sales, S.M. (1973). “Threat as a Factor in Authoritarianism: An Analysis of Archival Data.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 28:44–57.Google Scholar
Schachter, S. and Singer, J.E. (1962). “Cognitive, Social, and Physiological Determinants of Emotional State.” Psychological Review 69:379–99.Google Scholar
Stouffer, S. (1955). Communism, Conformity and Civil Liberties. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Sullivan, J.L., Piereson, J., and Marcus, G.E. (1982). Political Tolerance and American Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sullivan, J.L., Piereson, J.E., and Marcus, G.E. (1979). “An Alternative Conceptualization of Political Tolerance: Illusory Increases 1950s--1970s.” American Political Science Review 73:781–94.Google Scholar
Sullivan, J.L., Shamir, M., Walsh, P., and Roberts, N.S. (1985). Political Tolerance in Context. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Watson, D., Clark, L.A., and Tellegen, A. (1988). “Development and Validation of Brief Measures of Positive and Negative Affect: The PANAS Scales.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54:1063–70.Google Scholar
Willhoite, F. Jr. (1977). “Evolution and Collective Intolerance.” Journal of Politics 39:667–84.Google Scholar
Zajonc, R. and Markus, H. (1984). “Affect and Cognition: The Hard Interface.” In Izard, C., Kagan, J., and Zajonc, R. (eds.), Emotion, Cognition, and Behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zajonc, R.B. (1980). “Feeling and Thinking: Preferences Need No Inferences.” American Psychologist 39:151–75.Google Scholar