Cross-Cutting Messages and Political Tolerance: An Experiment Using Evangelical Protestants

Abstract

Democratic theorists believe that exposure to rationales for conflicting views augments deliberation and tolerance. Evidence suggests that people are more tolerant of opposing groups after being exposed to alternative points of view, yet it is unclear how source credibility and previous exposure to the source moderates this effect. Using experimental survey data from a sample of evangelical Protestant PAC donors, I manipulate Christian Right activists' exposure to dissonant messages on immigration reform and capital punishment and vary the source of these messages. I find that when the opposing viewpoints are attributed to a religious leader generally found outside the Christian Right social movement (a mainline Protestant), evangelicals are less tolerant than when attributed to a religious leader sometimes found within the movement (a Catholic). Moreover, I find the amount of contact with the respective religious group moderates source effects. In this way, the study reveals how social networks may moderate the effect of elite discourse on public opinion.Political tolerance-citizens' willingness to respect the rights and liberties of others whose opinions and practices differ from their own-has long been viewed as the bedrock of a democratic society. Political tolerance is thought to produce peace, stability and good governance. Thus, political scientists, and public opinion scholars in particular, are interested in determining the origins of politically tolerant attitudes and discovering the ways in which citizens' intolerance for dissimilar groups might be lessened.

Religious Value Priming, Threat, and Political Tolerance

“…Most of this research finds that fundamentalist Christians who regard the Bible as the literal word of God hold a set of beliefs that strongly influence their political tolerance judgments (Wilcox, Jelen, and Leege 1993, 85), encouraging them to reject unbiblical lifestyles such as homosexuality (Reimer and Park 2001, 736). While some studies measure dogmatism separately (Eisenstein 2006;Gibson 2010), most argue that dogmatic religious beliefs lead to intolerance because they are unlikely to accept other beliefs and lifestyles they find contrary to the Bible (Gibson and Tedin 1988;Jelen and Wilcox 1990;Layman 2000;Reimer and Park 2001, 736;Robinson 2010;Smidt and Penning 1982;Steensland et al 2000;Wilcox 1987;Wilcox and Jelen 1990;Wilcox and Robinson 2010; but see Eisenstein 2006Eisenstein , 2008.…”

Examining the Link Between Social Media Uses and Gratifications, and Political Tolerance and Dogmatism

“…Starting from the work of Stouffer (), who initiated the study of political tolerance, this construct has been subject to extensive research. Political tolerance, according to Robinson (, p. 495), is “citizens’ willingness to respect the rights and liberties of others whose opinions and practices differ from their own.” Tolerance should be examined along with dogmatism, as these two constructs can help describe the extent to which a person is willing to interact with politically diverse people. According to White‐Ajmani and Bursik (), liberals, conservatives, and moderates differ in terms of their tolerance levels.…”

“…Their study shows that liberals tend to be the most tolerant, while conservatives are the least tolerant among the three categories. Marcus, Sullivan, Theiss‐Morse, and Stevens (, p. 950) note that, “[p]olitical tolerance is one of the most important values among those that make up the panoply of characteristics of liberal democratic regimes.” Moreover, Robinson () examines political tolerance in the context of religion, and claims that the exposure to different viewpoints produces political tolerance only when those views are attributed to a leader from within a particular group (e.g., a religious group).…”

Religious influences on Latino ideology and vote choice: are Evangelical Catholics different?

“…Finally, I control for regional location by setting a dummy variable for all respondents who participated in a top 40 metropolitan city. Because the theoretical mechanism is based upon internal belief based or external socially reinforced cognitive heuristic, there is a possibility that, even though the church is centralized in doctrine and belief, larger localities open the individual up to more conflicting voices, or cross-cutting exposure which weakens elite cues (Zaller 1992) increases tolerance for other opinions (Mutz 2002) particularly in moderating religious cues (Robinson 2010;Djupe and Calfano 2013).…”