Working-Class Authoritarianism and Tolerance of Outgroups: A Reassessment

The hypothesis that members of the working class are less tolerant of “outgroups” than their middle-class counterparts is examined using a national survey of Americans conducted in 1976. The results show that workers are somewhat more likely to be intolerant of various outgroups and that this is true regardless of the nature of the deviant group in question. What is more important, however, is that the direct effect of occupational class on tolerance is not significant when three other factors—education, income, and degree of “cynicism”are simultaneously taken into account. The implications of the findings for a reassessment of Lipset's working-class authoritarianism hypothesis are briefly considered.