I was entranced by the results of this study (summary here), which I found
to be completely counterintuitive on first read, but then realized I should
have figured it out myself on second thought.
I love it when that happens.
The study looked at how residents of countries with
authoritarian governments behave compared to residents of countries with a more
open democracy. They were focused on
behavior towards minorities. Were people in authoritarian countries more
tolerant or less tolerant?
Before reading on, what is your guess? Does an authoritarian
government make residents more or less tolerant?
Of course, the answer is that it depends. In fact, it depends on two factors.
Factor One
Does the authoritarian government communicate (through
words, acts, or laws) that they want the population to be tolerant of
minorities or do they communicate intolerance?
When you think about it, it makes sense that this will make a huge
difference. If the people in power encourage
me to be tolerant, wouldn’t I be more likely to be tolerant? Or perhaps more importantly – if they
encourage me to be intolerant and to claim the resources of the country for
myself and my own community, wouldn’t I jump at that opportunity?
Not necessarily. That
brings us to factor two.
Factor Two
If any of you are familiar with cultural psychology, there
is an attribute of any culture called hierarchy. This doesn’t refer to how
hierarchical the power structure is, but rather how accepting of that hierarchy
the members of the culture are. People
in a high hierarchy culture believe (on the average) that the people on top
deserve to have the power and that power should be accepted. People in a low hierarchy culture believe (on
the average) that people in power are only there by consent of the people and
are no better than any of the rest of us.
So their power is contingent on if they are good at wielding it.
So now, adjust your guess.
What do you think happens now?
For people in high hierarchy cultures, they trust in the
statements of the power structure. So if
the government tells them that tolerance is good, they will be more
tolerant. And if the government tells
them that tolerance is not necessary (or that I should be intolerant), then I
will trust that too and be less tolerant.
I think this one is intuitive. But what makes it interesting is that if you
have an enlightened government that promotes tolerance (the example in the study
is Singapore), they can be a powerful force for tolerance. On the other hand, Myanmar can easily create
intolerance of Rohingya and China can create intolerance of the Uighurs.
But that brings us to the other half. What happens with a low hierarchy culture
where I don’t think that the opinions of those in power are any better than my
own, but nevertheless they are telling me to be tolerant? And they do have the power after all. Does that influence me to be more tolerant?
Or do I resist because of their invalid attempt to control me?
It turns out we have to look back at Factor One. For people who live in open democracies and
who have high hierarchy personalities tend to be less tolerant. Their belief in
hierarchy needs some outlet so if the government isn’t going to take it, they
let the dominant demographic group take it – at the expense of the minority
group. It didn’t matter what the government actually said about tolerance.
This last finding is the one that I wouldn’t have thought of
a priori. But after reading the results,
it does make sense. But I would still
want to see some additional research before being convinced.
