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Abstract
Research on political tolerance conducted in the 1970s found evidence that Americans had become substantially more tolerant since the early 1950s when Stouffer conducted his landmark study of tolerance. Using the General Social Survey data, this research examines the trend in tolerance levels during the period 1976-94 and the prospects for growth beyond the mid-1990s. The findings confirm that there has been a 10 percentage point increase in tolerance between 1976 and 1994. Much of that increase is associated with higher levels of education among those born after World War II. There was virtually no increase in tolerance levels during the 1980s, however, and the youngest birth cohorts who came of age during this period exhibit lower levels of tolerance than those who reached adulthood in the 1960s and 1970s. This suggests that tolerance will not increase much beyond its present level in the future.
