CIVIL LIBERTIESsocial distinction and tolerance for the noncon-
formist ideologies. Community leaders and peo-
ple with advanced education were more likely to
score in the ‘‘more tolerant’’ range than the na-
tional cross section. On this basis, Stouffer con-
cluded that Americans would become more toler-
ant of nonconformity in the decades to follow,
since the average American was receiving more
years of education than his or her parents. Level of
education correlated strongly with tolerance in
every age group except sixty and over.
A subtheme in the heritage left by Stouffer was
evidence for personality-based causes of intoler-
ance regarding civil liberties for deviants. Experi-
ence with European totalitarianism had led psy-
chologists to develop the theory of the ‘‘authoritarian
personality.’’ Measured according to a device known
as the ‘‘F scale,’’ personalities of this kind were
distinguished by a simplistic world view, respect
for power, and obedience to authority (Adorno
1950). Statistically significant relationships were
found between F scale items and intolerance in the
Stouffer data. Consistent with these findings, soci-
ologists such as Lipset (1981) claimed that authori-
tarianism was more likely to be found in the
working rather than the middle or upper classes. It
is tempting to conclude that a negative relation-
ship between education and basic authoritarian-
ism explains the greater willingness of educated
people to extend civil liberties to the politically
unpopular, and to speculate that greater educa-
tion will reduce, if it has not reduced already,
personality-related proclivities toward intolerance.
Later research, though, has shown the sociolo-
gy of public opinion regarding civil liberties to be
more complex. Early critics pointed out technical
flaws in the F scale. The scale’s items, for example,
were all worded in the same direction, encourag-
ing positive responses. Critics raised the possibility
that reported relationships between F scale scores
and education merely reflected a positive response
bias which was particularly strong among working-
class respondents. Members of the working class,
it was theorized, have a tendency to acquiesce to
strong, positive assertions, particularly when these
are presented by higher-status individuals such as
pollsters.
Reanalysis of the Stouffer data and analysis of
data from NORC’s 1990 General Social Survey
(GSS) by Schuman, Bobo, and Krysan (1992) casts
doubt upon the causal chain implied above: that
low social status (indicated by education) ‘‘causes’’
authoritarian personality, and that authoritarian
personality subsequently ‘‘causes’’ intolerance of
civil liberties for nonconformists and deviates.
Reanalyzing Stouffer’s data, these investigators
found relationships between authoritarianism and
intolerance of communists and atheists only among
the more highly educated. In the 1990 GSS data,
they found relationships between authoritarian-
ism and intolerance for blacks and Jews again
confined to the educated. The investigators con-
clude that there is no substantive relationship
between class and authoritarianism. Evidence does
emerge for a relationship between personality
factors and both support for civil liberties for
nonconformists and tolerance of minorities. But
the roots of these personality factors are unknown
and presumably much more complex than class-
based socialization.Changes in public concerns since the 1950s
make it risky to apply the findings of Adorno,
Stouffer, and others of their era to today’s citizens
and social issues. By the end of the twentieth
century, communism and atheism had ceased to
be mainstream public concerns in the United States.
Analysis of civil liberties issues regarding crime
had risen to prominence. Remedies such as per-
manent incarceration of habitual criminals and
community notification regarding sex offenders
(‘‘Megan’s Law’’) had been widely adopted. In-
creased latitude by police for searching and sur-
veillance of citizens was widely discussed.Public attitudes favoring compromise of civil
liberties in the interests of aggressive law enforce-
ment seemed stable during the 1980s and 1990s.
Comparison over time of poll results on the trade-
off between aggressive policing and civil liberties
indicates growing support for warrantless police
searches of cars and drivers. Decided majorities of
respondents to Roper and Gallup polls in 1985
and 1986 approved of school officials’ searching
students’ belongings for drugs or weapons, again
without a warrant. The late twentieth century,
though, saw no large-scale support for abandon-
ment of civil liberties in pursuit of greater security.
One trend showed a modest rise in support for
surveillance of citizens, but another indicated just
the opposite: the public did not think it was neces-
sary to ‘‘give up some civil liberties’’ to prevent
terrorism (Shaw 1998).