Intergroup toleration: It’s Nature, Processes, and Consequences for Culturally Diverse Societies

Project Information

InTo

Grant agreement ID: 740788

DOI

10.3030/740788

Project closed

EC signature date 5 October 2017

Start date 1 October 2017

End date 30 September 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 2 205 493,75

EU contribution

€ 2 205 493,75

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - InTo (Intergroup toleration: It’s Nature, Processes, and Consequences for Culturally Diverse Societies)

Reporting period: 2022-04-01 to 2022-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

In Europe and beyond, tolerance as forbearance has been proposed as a key aspect of living harmoniously and productively with forms of diversity such as ethnic, cultural, religious, worldview, and ideological differences. This project unravels the interrelated aspects of toleration by examining: 1) what are the social psychological processes involved in practicing tolerance; 2) how do people draw the boundaries of tolerance; 3) what are the social psychological implications of being tolerated. The findings of the project demonstrate that tolerance makes it possible to live with a range of meaningful differences without having to resolve them: to allow others to be themselves while being yourself. Tolerance is grounded in the acknowledgement of each other as equal and free in the face of sometimes fundamental differences about commitments, beliefs, and practices. Tolerance is not the silver bullet or an unqualified good for a diverse society, but one of those things that we “cannot not want”, even as we recognize its limitations and boundaries, and the difficulties in practicing tolerance.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The work in the first 18 months involved the following:
First, the appointment of one postdoc researcher, three PhD students and a project manager.
Second, team members have been (re-)analyzing existing public datasets that contain information on toleration and allow for an analysis of various correlates and measurement techniques.
Third, team members gave presentations at different seminars and research meetings to get feedback on theoretical, methodological and empirical ideas and proposals.
Fourth, we wrote one lengthy policy paper on toleration that was published (2019) in Social Issues and Policy Review, and two theoretical papers in which we further outline our theoretical thinking and approach.

The work in last months 18-36 of the project involved the following:
(1) Large-scale data collections in Germany and the Netherlands in May 2019 and March 2020;
(2) Seven papers being published or accepted for open-access publications in international peer-reviewed journals;
(3) Eight papers submitted and under review with international peer-reviewed Journals;
(4) Organization of a panel and three paper presentations at the annual Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP) in Lisbon, Portugal (July 12-15);
(5) Presentation of two papers at the scientific meeting on Conflict and Political Psychology, Lisbon, Portugal (July 16-17);
(6). Poster presentation at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology annual conference, New Orleans, Louisiana. United States (February 29);
(7) proposals of three conference papers which have been accepted for presentation at the 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP) in Berlin (July 14-17);
(8) proposal of a full panel session on ‘being tolerated’ that was accepted for the conference of the European Association of Social Psychology, in Krakow, Poland (June 30-July 4),
(9) Proposal for two conference papers that have been accepted for the conference of the European Association of Social Psychology, in Krakow, Poland (June 30-July 4).

Exploitable results during the reporting period include four guest lectures, a presentation in a workshop with stakeholders, a podcast interview about the InTo work, and the launching of a website for the InTo project (www.intergrouptolerance.eu).


Overview of the results for the final period.
(1) Two large scale data collections in the Netherlands in 2021.
(2) Twenty papers being accepted for open-access publication in international peer-reviewed journals
(3) Three papers submitted and under review with international peer-reviewed journals
(4) A book monograph has been written that discusses and summarizes the work done for the InTo project.
(5) A commentary has been published in Scientific American: "The U.S. needs tolerance more than unity". https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-u-s-needs-tolerance-more-than-unity/
(6) Two animated videos have been developed that can be used for illustrating and highlighting the importance of tolerance for a diverse society (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iubnKgdo-6EuRUsE0zlyEjDyqkcKl-6d/view) and the critical role of reciprocity for toleration (https://drive.google.com/file/d/10tt9ZSw3ad8FA3744xYNg7XrrViDcKiW/view)
(7) Three PhD students have successfully completed and publicly defended their dissertation

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

In this first period of the project (0-18 months) we have written three large theoretical papers that go beyond the current thinking about the intergroup toleration and its policy implications. One of these papers has already been published and the two others are currently under review (see below).
These papers explain in detail the theoretical basis of the InTo project as a whole and its different subprojects, and also discuss some of the key policy implications.
In the coming period we aim to empirically examine the different key aspects of the theoretical framework and systematically test the central hypotheses. This will provide the necessary empirical evidence for making suggestions and recommendations to various stakeholders.

In the months 18 to 36 period we have written two major theoretical papers that go beyond the current thinking about intergroup toleration and the related policy implications. One of these papers has been published in the European Journal of Social Psychology and discusses the psychological differences and the theoretical and practical implications of a prejudice-reduction approach and a tolerance-based approach for improving intercultural relations. The other paper is published in Perspectives on Psychological Science and goes beyond the state of the art in theory and research on the social psychological consequences of being discriminated by focusing on the meanings of being tolerated. This paper gives an extensive review of relevant literature, discusses the main differences between being discriminated and being tolerated, presents a theoretical model that provides directions for new empirical questions, and discusses policy implications.

In the review period we have developed and tested new measures and collected large datasets in two countries (Germany, Netherlands) that can be used in future research in this field. This includes a novel measure of slippery slope thinking, a new approach to measure active and passive forms of tolerance, and a multi-actor-multi-act framework for examining the breath and depth of tolerance. All this work has resulted in presentations at International conferences and different scientific papers that are currently under review at International Journals.

In the final period of the project we have published various open-access papers in international peer-reviewed academic journals. We further have written a commentary that was published in 'Scientific American' and developed two animated videos that can be used for explaining the importance of tolerance for a diverse society and the critical role of reciprocity. Further, the project has resulted in a book monograph published by Routledge that summarizes and discusses all the theoretical and empirical work that has been conducted and also considers various implications of the work and the indispensability of tolerance for our increasingly diverse and polarized societies.

balancing of stones as a metaphor for the psychological balancing involved in practicing tolerance