Abstract
While recent literature reports that network diversity generates tolerance, empirical data suggest that in Israel, a highly diverse country, tolerance has been in scarce supply. The well-documented importance of personal value preferences (specifically, openness to change vs. conservation and self-transcendence vs. self-enhancement) in producing tolerant views leads us to hypothesize that values function as boundary conditions mitigating the impact of network diversity upon both political and social tolerance. Building on a representative survey conducted in Israel in 2011, we show that diversity contributes to tolerance more when people are open-minded; when conservatives encounter dissimilar attitudes, they are either less affected or respond with increased intolerance. Secondly, those who highly regard the opinions of others and express an individual predisposition for self-transcendence at the expense of self-enhancement are affected by network diversity to a greater extent. Further, the effect of diversity on tolerance is mediated by the perceived threat from the relevant group.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Aggregate level diversity measures also suggest that Israel is relatively high on cultural and ethnic fractionalization (Alesina et al. 2003; Fearon 2003). For example, the odds that two people selected randomly in Israel speak different languages exceeds 55 %, and the odds that they belong to different ethnic and religious groups are over 34 % each. Also note that 60 % of Israelis are immigrants of the first or second generation, and the nation's people speak 34 languages and belong to several distinct religions and ethnicities (see data on the Central Bureau of Statistics 2012. Source: http://surveys.cbs.gov.il/Survey/surveyAlt.htm).
Further, while Israeli Jews remain least tolerant toward the Arab parties (Shamir and Sagiv-Schifter 2006), there is suggestive evidence based on previous research (Gibson 2006) that the public does not equate Arab political forces and the Arab social group. In our data, for instance, political tolerance towards one’s least-liked group for those that named Arab parties as their least liked group (n = 169) is .38, while the level of tolerance toward Arabs as a social group among the same subsample (n = 163) reaches .51, a statistically significant effect.
The Arab population in Israel numbers approximately 1.658 million residents, about 20.7 % of the country’s population, see Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, http://www.cbs.gov.il/www/hodaot2013n/11_13_097e.pdf.
The choice to focus on Schwartz’s values is informed by scholarship which established a conceptual and empirical difference between personality traits and values in the study of tolerance (Schwartz et al 2010; Caprara et al 2006; Roccas et al 2002). Traits explain one’s behavior, while values are used both to explain behavior and to justify choices, such that “values and not traits serve as standards for judging the behavior of self and others” (Roccas et al 2002:790). As cognitive representations of motivations in the form of goals and objectives manifested in goal directed acts, values were found to be better predictors of attitudes and behaviors over which individuals have cognitive control or choice (Roccas et al 2002; Caprara et al 2006:22), while traits should be better predictors of spontaneous, intuitive, and emotionally driven behaviors. With regards to tolerance, cross-cultural evidence suggests that tolerance is an explicitly learned attitude that depends on socialization experiences rather than an intuitive emotion or a genetic predisposition, and should thus be directed by one’s core values (Marquart-Pyatt and Paxton 2007). Still, we view personality and values as two intimately interconnected concepts. For instance, “people born with a high need for arousal are likely to develop the trait of excitement-seeking as well as to value stimulation and devalue security” (Rocass et al. 2002: 791). Further, some traits are conceptually comparable to values—such as the Big Five trait “openness to experience” and the values dimension “openness to change” employed in this study. Thus, potentially traits and values should both play a role in conditioning the effect of discussion networks.
For the use of data, we are indebted to Michal Shamir.
Rescaling variables to vary 0–1 is a standardization technique that allows comparing the effect size of independent variables of different units. It is computed using the formula new value = (value − min)/(max–min), which allows variables to have differing means and standard deviations but equal ranges.
Note that the bootstrapping technique does not violate assumptions of normality and therefore provides some advantages over the Sobel test and is recommended for small sample sizes (Preacher and Hayes 2008).
References
Alesina, A., Devleeschauwer, A., Easterly, W., Kurlat, S., & Wacziarg, R. (2003). Fractionalization. Journal of Economic Growth, 8(2), 155–194.
Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Almond, G., & Verba, S. (1965). The civic culture: Political attitudes and democracy in five nations, an analytic study. London: Little Brown.
Andersen, R., & Fetner, T. (2008). Economic inequality and intolerance: Attitudes toward homosexuality in 35 democracies. American Journal of Political Science, 52, 942–958.
Arian, A., Barnea, S., Ben-Nun, P., Ventura, R., & Shamir, M. (2005). The 2005 Israeli democracy index: A decade after the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute.
Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173–1182.
Bar-Tal, D., & Teichman, Y. (2005). Stereotypes and prejudice in conflict: Representations of Arabs in Israeli Jewish society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Beetham, D. (Ed.). (1994). Defining and measuring democracy. London: Sage.
Bello, J., & Rolfe, M. (2014). Is influence mightier than selection? Forging agreement in political discussion networks during a campaign. Social Networks, 36, 134–146.
Ben-Nun Bloom, P., & Arikan, G. (2012). A two-edged sword: The differential effect of religious belief and religious social context on attitudes towards democracy. Political Behavior, 34, 249–276.
Ben-Nun Bloom, P., Arikan, G., & Sommer, U. (2014). Globalization, threat and religious freedom. Political Studies, 62, 273–291.
Ben-Nun Bloom, P., & Levitan, L. C. (2011). We’re closer than I thought: Social network heterogeneity, morality, and political persuasion. Political Psychology, 32, 643–665.
Berelson, B., Lazarsfeld, P., & McPhee, W. (1954). Voting: A study of opinion formation in a presidential campaign. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Caprara, G. V., Schwartz, S. H., Capanna, C., Vecchione, M., & Barbaranelli, C. (2006). Personality and politics: Values, traits, and political choice. Political Psychology, 27, 1–28.
Chong, D. (2006). Free speech and multiculturalism in and out of the academy. Political Psychology, 27, 29–54.
Christakis, N. A., & Fowler, J. H. (2009). Connected: The surprising power of our social networks and how they shape our lives. New York: Little Brown.
Cohen, A. J. (2004). What tolerance is. Ethics, 115, 68–95.
Corbett, M. (1982). Political tolerance in America. London, NY: Longman.
Crandall, C. S. (1991). Multiple stigma and AIDS: Medical stigma and attitudes toward homosexuals and IV-drug uses in AIDS-related stigmatization. Journal of Community and Applied Psychology, 1, 165–172.
Davidov, E., Meuleman, B., Billiet, J., & Schmidt, P. (2008). Values and the support for immigration: A cross country comparison. European Sociological Review, 24, 583–599.
Davies, K., Tropp, L. R., Aron, A., Pettigrew, T. F., & Wright, S. C. (2011). Cross group friendships and intergroup attitudes: A meta-analytic review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15, 332–351.
De Zavala, G. G., Cislak, A., & Wesolowska, E. (2010). Political conservatism, need for cognitive closure, and intergroup hostility. Political Psychology, 31, 521–541.
Djupe, P. A. (2011). Political pluralism and the information search: Determinants of group opinionation. Political Research Quarterly, 64, 68–81.
Djupe, P. A., & Calfano, B. R. (2012). American Muslim investment in civil society: Political discussion, disagreement, and tolerance. Political Research Quarterly, 65, 517–529.
Eisenstein, M. (2006). Rethinking the Relationship between religion and political tolerance in the US. Political Behavior, 28, 327–348.
Erisen, E., & Erisen, C. (2012). The effect of social networks on the quality of political thinking. Political Psychology, 33, 839–865.
Eveland, W. P, Jr, & Hively, M. H. (2009). Political discussion frequency, network size, and ‘heterogeneity’ of discussion as predictors of political knowledge and participation. Journal of Communication, 59, 205–224.
Eveland, W. P, Jr, & Kleinman, S. B. (2013). Comparing general and political discussion networks within voluntary organizations using social network analysis. Political Behavior, 35, 65–87.
Falomir-Pichastor, J., & Frederic, N. (2013). The dark side of heterogeneous ingroup identities: National identification, perceived threat, and prejudice against immigrants. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 72–79.
Fearon, J. (2003). Ethnic and cultural diversity by country. Journal of Economic Growth, 8, 195–222.
Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7, 117–140.
Gerber, A. S., Huber, G. A., Doherty, D., & Dowling, C. M. (2012). Disagreement and the avoidance of political discussion: Aggregate relationships and differences across personality traits. American Journal of Political Science, 56, 849–874.
Gibson, J. L. (1992). Alternative measures of political tolerance: Must tolerance be ‘least-liked?’. American Journal of Political Science, 36(2), 560–577.
Gibson, J. L. (2006). Do strong group identities fuel intolerance? Evidence from the South African case. Political Psychology, 27, 665–705.
Gibson, J. L., & Claassen, C. (2010). Racial reconciliation in South Africa: Interracial contact and changes over time. Journal of Social Issues, 66, 255–272.
Glaser, J. (1994). Back to the black belt: Racial environment and white racial attitudes in the South. Journal of Politics, 56, 21–41.
Golebiowska, E. (1995). Individual value priorities, education, and political tolerance. Political Behavior, 17, 23–48.
González, R., & Brown, R. (2003). Generalization of positive attitude as a function of subgroup and superordinate group identification in intergroup contact. European Journal of Social Psychology, 33, 195–214.
Gustavsson, G. (2012). Freedom in mass values: Egocentric, humanistic, or both? Using Isaiah Berlin to understand a contemporary debate. European Political Science Review, 4, 241–262.
Haas, I. J., & Cunningham, W. A. (2014). The uncertainty paradox: Perceived threat moderates the effect of uncertainty on political tolerance. Political Psychology, 35, 291–302.
Heyd, D. (1996). Toleration: An elusive virtue. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hibbing, M. V., Ritchie, M., & Anderson, M. A. (2011). Personality and political discussion. Political Behavior, 33(4), 601–624.
Huckfeldt, R., Johnson, P. E., & Sprague, J. (2004). Political disagreement. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Huckfeldt, R., & Sprague, J. (1987). Networks in context: The social flow of political information. American Political Science Review, 81, 1197–1216.
Huckfeldt, R., & Sprague, J. (1995). Citizens, politics and social communication. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Huckfeldt, R., Sprague, J., & Levine, J. (2000). The dynamics of collective deliberation in the 1996 election: Campaign effects on accessibility, certainty, and accuracy. American Political Science Review, 94, 641–651.
Hurwitz, J., & Mondak, J. J. (2002). Democratic principles, discrimination and political intolerance. British Journal of Political Science, 32, 93–118.
Hutchison, M., & Gibler, D. (2007). Political tolerance and territorial threat: A cross-national study. Journal of Politics, 69, 128–142.
Ikeda, K., & Richey, S. (2009). The impact of diversity in informal social networks on tolerance in Japan. British Journal of Political Science, 39, 655–668.
Inglehart, R., & Welzel, C. (2003). How solid is mass support for democracy—and How do we measure it? Political Science and Politics, 36, 51–57.
Karpov, V. (2002). Religiosity and tolerance in the United States and Poland. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 41(2), 267–288.
Laumann, E. O. (1973). Bonds of pluralism: The form and substance of urban social networks. NY: Wiley.
Lazarsfeld, P. F., Berelson, B., & Gaudet, H. (1944). The people’s choice: How the voter makes up his mind in a presidential campaign. NY: Columbia.
Lazer, D., Rubineau, B., Chetkovich, C., Katz, N., & Neblo, M. (2010). The coevolution of networks and political attitudes. Political Communication, 27, 248–274.
Levitan, L. C., & Visser, P. S. (2009). Social network composition and attitude strength: Exploring the dynamics within newly formed social networks. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 1057–1067.
Levitan, L. C., & Wronski, J. (2013). Social context and information seeking: Examining the effects of network attitudinal composition on engagement with political information. Political Behavior, 35, 1–24.
Lindner, N. M., & Nosek, B. A. (2009). Alienable speech: Ideological variations in the application of free-speech principles. Political Psychology, 30, 67–92.
Lupton, R. N., Singh S. P., & Thornton, J. R. (2014). The moderating impact of social networks on the relationships among core values, partisanship, and candidate evaluations. Political Psychology. doi:10.1111/pops.12102.
Maoz, I. (2011). Contact in protracted asymmetrical conflict: Twenty years of planned encounters between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. Journal of Peace Research, 48, 115–125.
Marcus, G., Sullivan, J., Theiss-Morse, E., & Stevens, D. (2005). The emotional foundation of political cognition: The impact of extrinsic anxiety on the formation of political tolerance judgments. Political Psychology, 26, 949–963.
Marcus, G., Sullivan, J., Theiss-Morse, E., & Wood, S. (1995). With malice toward some: How people make civil liberties judgments. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Marquart-Pyatt, S., & Paxton, P. (2007). In principle and in practice: Learning political tolerance in eastern and western Europe. Political Behavior, 29, 89–113.
McClurg, S. D. (2006). The electoral relevance of political talk: Examining disagreement and expertise effects in social networks on political participation. American Journal of Political Science, 50, 737–754.
McLeod, J. M., Scheufele, D. A., & Moy, P. (1999). Community, communication, and participation: The role of mass media and interpersonal discussion in local political participation. Political Communication, 16, 315–336.
Mondak, J. J. (2010). Personality and the foundations of political behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Mondak, J. J., Hibbing, M. V., Canache, D., Seligson, M. A., & Anderson, M. R. (2010). Personality and civic engagement: An integrative framework for the study of trait effects on political behavior. American Political Science Review, 24, 85–110.
Mondak, J. J., & Hurwitz, J. (1998). Values, acts, and actors: Distinguishing generic and discriminatory intolerance. Political Behavior, 20, 313–339.
Mondak, J. J., & Sanders, M. S. (2003). Tolerance and intolerance, 1976–1998. American Journal of Political Science, 47, 492–502.
Mondak, J. J., & Sanders, M. (2005). The Complexity of tolerance and intolerance judgments: A response to Gibson. Political Behavior, 27, 325–337.
Mutz, D. C. (2002a). Cross-cutting social networks: Testing democratic theory in practice. American Political Science Review, 96, 111–126.
Mutz, D. C. (2002b). The consequences of cross-cutting networks for political participation. American Journal of Political Science, 46, 838–855.
Mutz, D. C. (2006). Hearing the other side: Deliberative versus participatory democracy. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Mutz, D. C., & Mondak, J. J. (2006). The Workplace as a context for cross-cutting political discourse. Journal of Politics, 6, 140–155.
Nie, N., Junn, J., & Stehlik-Barry, K. (1996). Education and democratic citizenship in America. Chicago, Il: University of Chicago Press.
Nir, L. (2005). Ambivalent social networks and their consequences for participation. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 17, 422–442.
Oliver, E. J., & Wong, J. (2003). Intergroup prejudice in multiethnic settings. American Journal of Political Science, 47, 567–582.
Pattie, C. J., & Johnson, R. J. (2008). It’s good to talk: Talk, disagreement and tolerance. British Journal of Political Science, 48, 677–698.
Peffley, M., Knigge, P., & Hurwitz, J. (2001). A multiple values model of political tolerance. Political Research Quarterly, 54, 379–406.
Pettigrew, T. F. (1998). Intergroup contact theory. Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 65–85.
Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2008). How does intergroup contact reduce prejudice? Meta-analytic tests of three mediators. European Journal of Social Psychology, 38, 922–934.
Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2008). Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models. Behavior Research Methods, 40, 879–891.
Price, V., Cappella, J. N., & Nir, L. (2002). Does disagreement contribute to more deliberative opinion? Political Communication, 19, 95–112.
Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. NY: Simon and Schuster.
Robinson, C. (2010). Cross-cutting messages and political tolerance: An experiment using Evangelical Protestants. Political Behavior, 32, 495–515.
Roccas, S., & Amit, A. (2011). Group heterogeneity and tolerance: The moderating role of conservation values. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 898–907.
Roccas, S., Sagiv, L., Schwartz, S. H., & Knafo, A. (2002). The Big Five personality factors and personal values. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 201–789.
Rokeach, M. (1968). Beliefs, attitudes, and values: A theory of organization and change. California: Jossey-Bass.
Sagiv, L., & Schwartz, S. H. (1995). Value priorities and readiness for out-group social contact. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 437–448.
Scheufele, D., Hardy, A., Brossard, D., Waismel-Manor, I., & Nisbet, E. (2006). Democracy based on difference: Examining the links between structural heterogeneity, heterogeneity of discussion networks, and democratic citizenship. Journal of Communication, 56, 728–753.
Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 1–65). NY: Academic Press.
Schwartz, S. H., Caprara, G. V., & Vecchione, M. (2010). Basic personal values, core political values, and voting: A longitudinal study. Political Psychology, 31, 421–452.
Schwartz, S. H., Caprara, G. V., Vecchione, M., et al. (2013). Basic personal values underlie and give coherence to political values: A cross national study in 15 Countries. Political Behavior. doi:10.1007/s11109-013-9255-z.
Seligman, C., & Katz, A. (1996). The dynamics of value systems. In C. Seligman, J. M. Olson, & M. Zanna (Eds.), The psychology of values: The Ontario Symposium (Vol. 8). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Shamir, M., & Sagiv-Schifter, T. (2006). Conflict, identity, and tolerance: Israel in the Al-Aqsa intifada. Political Psychology, 27, 569–595.
Sherif, M. (1966). In common predicament: Social psychology of intergroup conflict and Cooperation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Stein, R., Post, S., & Rinden, A. (2000). Reconciling context and contact effects on racial attitudes. Political Research Quarterly, 53, 285–303.
Stephan, W., & Stephan, C. W. (1985). Intergroup anxiety. Journal of Social Issues, 41, 157–175.
Sullivan, J., Piereson, J., & Marcus, G. (1982). Political tolerance and American democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Sullivan, J., Shamir, M., Walsh, P., & Roberts, N. (1985). Political tolerance in context. CO: Westview.
Sullivan, J., Walsh, P., Shamir, M., Barnum, D., & Gibson, J. (1993). Why politicians are more tolerant: Selective recruitment and socialization among political elites in Britain, Israel, New-Zealand, and the United States. British Journal of Political Science, 23, 51–76.
Tadmor, C., Tetlock, P., & Peng, K. (2009). Acculturation strategies and integrative complexity: The cognitive implications of biculturalism. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 40, 105–139.
Tajfel, H. (1981). Human groups and social categories: Studies in social psychology. NY: Cambridge University Press.
Testa, P. F., Hibbing, M. V., & Ritchie, M. (2014). Orientations toward conflict and the conditional effects of political disagreement. The Journal of Politics (forthcoming).
Verba, S., Schlozman, K., & Brady, H. (1995). Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism in American politics. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Voci, A., & Hewstone, M. (2003). Intergroup contact and prejudice toward immigrants in Italy: The mediational role of anxiety and the moderational role of group salience. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 6, 37–52.
Weldon, S. A. (2006). The institutional context of tolerance for ethnic minorities: A comparative, multilevel analysis of Western Europe. American Journal of Political Science, 50, 331–349.
Acknowledgments
For invaluable advice, support and inspiration at different stages of the project we are indebted to Michal Shamir. We are also grateful to Michal Shamir for the use of data from the 2011 tolerance survey. We greatly benefited from comments from the journal’s editors and reviewers. Finally, part of the project was written when the first author was a Fellow in the Department of Political Science at Tel Aviv University, and she deeply appreciates their hospitality and the generous financial support of VATAT. All remaining errors are our own.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ben-Nun Bloom, P., Bagno-Moldavsky, O. The Conditional Effect of Network Diversity and Values on Tolerance. Polit Behav 37, 623–651 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-014-9284-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-014-9284-2