The Wakening of America: Tracking US Intolerances through the World Values Survey (1995-2014)

Abstract

Intolerance is broadly recognized as the refusal to permit, or even consider, opinions or beliefs contrary to our own. Despite millennial political progress and increased advocacy for minorities, intolerance still persists in explicit forms, such as travel bans, border walls, and restrictive abortion laws. To track changes of intolerance in the US, we analyzed four waves of data from the World Values Survey between 1995- 2014. Intolerance toward minority groups was determined by binary logistic regression to be generally higher among older, male participants (43-100 years), however, in conjunction with our hypothesis relating to the Cohort theory, intolerance among this cohort decreased over the years. Younger participants (18-42 years) held relatively tolerant views, particularly of both unwed couples and people living with AIDS, but grew increasingly intolerant toward immigrants and foreign workers over the years. Directions for future research along with implications for America’s management of intolerance are discussed.