Distinguishing Active and Passive Outgroup Tolerance: Understanding Its Prevalence and the Role of Moral Concern.

Tolerance, the acceptance of disapproved conduct of others, is considered an indispensable feature of diverse societies. Yet tolerance can be expressed in one of two distinct ways, which is not reflected in the literature. In one way, tolerance is passive and involves suppressing the inclination to interfere with the disapproved conduct of others. In the other way, tolerance is active and involves endorsing the ability of others to engage in a disapproved practice. Using two nationally representative samples of Dutch majority members and eight scenarios involving real-world debates about the accommodation of Muslim minority practices, we find that while a significant minority of people engage in passive tolerance toward disapproved outgroup practices, very few people are willing to engage in active tolerance by proactively supporting disapproved practices. Furthermore, we also find that people who have stronger moral concerns about particular minority practices are less willing to engage in either active or passive tolerance. These results emerged both in contexts where Muslim minority practices had a direct impact on one's personal life as well as those that impacted on society as a whole. Collectively, these results illustrate two different forms of tolerance and the influence of moral concern in tolerance.

“Tolerance involves the disapproval of an idea conjoined with its acceptance—‘acceptance’ most minimally implying the suspension of certain negative acts against the idea, and involving maximally the active promotion of its circulations” (King,

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” (Hall,

In 1978, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court over the refusal of the village of Skokie to allow a neo‐Nazi group to hold a public march. The case generated outrage and led to the resignation of some ACLU members in protest of the effort to allow the group to march in a village with a large number of Jewish residents, including Holocaust survivors. Underlying some of the outrage was a conflict of moral values: Even if neo‐Nazis have a right to march, should the ACLU be enabling them to do so? It is one thing to not prevent them from marching, but is it not something entirely different to enable them?

Similar conflicts are present in discussions about tolerance in diverse societies. In its classical and political sense, tolerance refers to the “willingness to ‘put up with’ those things one rejects” (Sullivan et al., 1979, p. 785) and implies that one grants disliked others the same rights to practice their way of life (Gibson, 2006; Mondak & Sanders, 2003). Tolerance is a twofold concept in which there is an initial position of disapproval or dislike: “One cannot tolerate ideas of which one approves” (Gibson, 2006, p. 22). The disapproval makes tolerance different from ignorance, indifference, and apathy and also unique from multicultural recognition, affirmation, and cultural relativism (Cohen, 2004; King, 2012). Tolerance involves intentional self‐restraint (i.e., not based on fear or compulsion) in which there is the suppression of one's inclination to negatively interfere with disapproved conduct of others, when one has the power to do so (Verkuyten & Yogeeswaran, 2017). While holding their own (strong) views and beliefs, tolerant persons accept that others have the right to dissent from those views and beliefs in their thinking and practices. As indicated in the first quote above, this acceptance can take a more minimal (“passive”) form of not interfering with the disapproved conduct of others, or it can take a more maximal (“active”) form in which one supports and defends the rights of others to make their case and practice their beliefs (see second quote above). These two forms of tolerance are potentially quite different, but no systematic empirical research has examined this difference. Psychologically, passivity is less demanding and often less risky and blameworthy than activity (Keinan & Bereby‐Meyer, 2017; Kordes‐de Vaal, 1996). Thus, in the current research we tested the expectation that majority group members are more likely to engage in passive tolerance rather than active tolerance of a range of disapproved Muslim minority practices.

As a second goal, we examined whether both forms of tolerance depend on the moral concerns that the minority practices evoke. The concept of toleration differs from relativism and entails the idea of certain limits of toleration, and these limits lie at the point where one's moral reasons for rejection are stronger than the reasons for acceptance (Forst, 2012; King, 2012; Verkuyten & Yogeeswaran, 2017). Moralized entities and activities might lead to avoidance and rejection rather than toleration (Ellemers, 2017), and this might be the case especially for active tolerance, which calls on people to enable such practices despite their moral misgivings. Believing an issue to be moral tends to result in greater rejection, independent of the moral emotions that might be involved and relatively independent of the particular group and context (e.g., Cole Wright et al., 2008; Hirsch et al., 2019). Thus, we tested whether individuals who have stronger moral concerns about particular Muslim minority practices will be less tolerant, and perhaps especially so for active tolerance.

We tested our predictions using nationally representative samples of majority group members in the Netherlands and focused on various minority practices directly taken from real‐world debates within the Netherlands and other western nations around the accommodation of Muslim minorities. These practices differ in their required accommodation, and they also vary in whether they have a direct impact on one's personal life (Study 1) or on society as a whole (Study 2). By focusing on a range of Muslim practices and both the personal and broader societal contexts, we sought to conceptually replicate the findings. Additionally, we examine these effects taking into account anti‐Muslim prejudice. This allows us to investigate whether prejudiced people can engage in tolerance of specific minority practices that they disapprove of and also whether nonprejudiced people can be intolerant of particular practices. Furthermore, intolerance of Muslim minority practices might reflect group‐based prejudice rather than moral concerns (e.g., Helbling, 2014; Saroglou et al., 2009; Van der Noll, 2014), making it important to investigate whether moral concerns predict intolerance over and above the statistical effect of prejudice.

Active Versus Passive Tolerance

As indicated in the quotes opening this article, active tolerance requires the protection of disapproved beliefs and practices. It means that despite their disapproval, people stand up for the rights of others which can be important for social justice and successful societal change. Indeed, active tolerance may also require majority group sacrifices, especially in relation to more zero‐sum calculations (e.g., replacing a national holiday connected to a Christian celebration with a national holiday linked to a Muslim one). In this case, to act in support of a minority goal or practice would require an ingroup sacrifice. The same occurs, for example, when public pools create gender‐segregated times to meet the needs of different cultural and religious communities and thereby limit the freedoms of others. Thus, active tolerance can involve situations ranging from no ingroup sacrifice to some ingroup sacrifice, but it is especially marked by the active encouragement and enabling of the minority practice that one disapproves of. Almost by definition, minority voices are often insufficient to create change and protect their rights against the majority (Subašić et al., 2008). Rather, it requires the active tolerance and support of members of the majority group for minority practices to be permitted and enabled in society. Passive tolerance, by contrast, is the refusal to negatively interfere in disapproved conduct, characterized by nonbehavior or not acting against what one disapproves.

There are several reasons to expect that people are more likely to engage in passive rather than active tolerance. Philosophically, taking no action against what one disapproves of is easier than a positive defense of it (King, 2012), and the negative duties of what you should not do are more stringent than the positive duties of what you must do (Lichtenberg, 2010). Psychological research broadly supports these notions across several strands of work. For example, research finds that proscriptive morality (i.e., doing what you should not) is considered more blameworthy than prescriptive morality (i.e., not doing what you should; Janoff‐Bulman et al., 2009). Similarly, neuroscience research reveals that people have distinct physiological guilt‐inducing reactions in response to errors in which they reject the status quo compared to errors in which they accept the status quo (Nicolle et al., 2011). Furthermore, research shows that passivity is considered less costly (Kahneman & Miller, 1986; Kahneman & Tversky, 1982) and also less risky than activity, through a diminished sense of personal responsibility (Keinan & Bereby‐Meyer, 2017). Acts of omission tend to be seen as nondecisions, making inaction the safer route to avoid responsibility (Kordes‐de Vaal, 1996). Collectively, these findings reflect a broader trend whereby people prefer acts of omission and the maintenance of a status quo (e.g., Baron & Ritov, 2004) and perceive greater negative effects of erroneous actions than inactions (e.g., Feldman & Albarracín, 2017; Kahneman & Tversky, 1982). Therefore, we expect that majority members engage more in the inactive form of passive tolerance than the explicit support that is active tolerance. Specifically, we hypothesize that:

H1: Among the people who engage in tolerance despite their disapproval of the minority practice, most will engage in passive tolerance rather than active tolerance.

Tolerance and Moral Concern

Tolerance implies weighing reasons for disapproval against reasons to nonetheless accept the dissenting conduct. It involves a dual form of thinking whereby there are more important value‐based reasons for permitting than rejecting the disapproved of practice (Forst, 2013; King, 2012; Verkuyten & Yogeeswaran, 2017). On the one hand, there is what one sincerely believes is false or wrong, but on the other hand, there are good reasons (e.g., freedom of speech, freedom of religion) to allow others to live the life they want. For example, majority group members can take exception to some dissenting beliefs and practices of Muslim minorities because they go against liberal norms and values (Breton & Eady, 2015; Imhoff & Recker, 2012). Yet these norms and values can be considered less important than religious freedom and the right to live one's own way (Hagendoorn & Poppe, 2012; Helbling, 2010). For example, in West European debates about the construction of minarets, some argue that minarets should be tolerated because of the commitment to freedom of religion or for reasons of peaceful coexistence (Schiffauer, 2013).

However, this weighing process also allows for an intolerant conclusion. This boundary of tolerance is found where the moral reasons for rejection of the disapproved of conduct are stronger than the reasons for acceptance (Verkuyten & Yogeeswaran, 2017). Disapproval of particular conduct can differ in the extent to which moral concerns are involved (Rozin, 1999; Skitka et al., 2005). In contrast to subjective preferences and social conventions (Turiel, 2002), people tend to believe that matters of morality are objective, universally true, and thereby applicable regardless of group boundaries (Skitka et al., 2008). If, for example, one has a strong moral conviction that gender inequality is wrong, one is likely to believe that gender inequality is wrong in all cultures and religions. With moral issues, people focus more on their principles and ideals rather than on authorities, group differences, and social identities (Skitka & Morgan, 2014). When people view an issue as moral, they show greater discomfort with dissenting beliefs and practices and tend not tolerate these, regardless of who engages in them (Cole Wright et al., 2008; Hirsch et al., 2019; Wright, 2012). There can be a generic moral disapproval of the practice itself, independent of who is doing it (Bilodeau et al., 2018; Hurwitz & Mondak, 2002; Sniderman et al., 1989). For example, stronger moral conviction about contemporary societal issues is associated with lower political tolerance of those not sharing one's views and with lower intergroup tolerance (Skitka et al., 2013). Similarly, stronger perceived similarity in moral values of fairness and care is associated with higher outgroup tolerance in different countries (Obeid et al., 2017).

H2: Thus, individuals can be expected to be less tolerant of Muslim minority practices, both passively and actively, when for them these practices more strongly raise moral concerns.

And this may be especially true for active tolerance, which calls on one to work in favor of something they disapprove of, compared to passive tolerance, where a person is asked not to interfere.

Based on ongoing societal debates in western nations, we used different types of Muslim minority practices in creating the stimulus material for testing our two hypotheses. This allows us to examine whether the expected difference between passive and active tolerance and the role of moral concerns generalizes across a range of different practices. Some minority practices are more controversial than others, and tolerating some of these practices might require majority group sacrifices and adaptations, whereas other practices might be accommodated relatively easily. Additionally, we examined the role of moral concerns and whether people show a difference in active and passive tolerance of outgroup practices if such practices personally impact their own lives (Study 1) or rather have broader societal relevance (Study 2). Focusing on a range of Muslim minority practices across these two contexts allows us to investigate whether the findings for active and passive tolerance and the role of moral concern replicate conceptually.

Overview

Using two studies with national samples and focusing on eight distinct Muslim minority practices widely debated in western nations, the current research examines two key questions related to how tolerance is expressed and the underlying role of moral concern. First, focusing on behavioral intentions, we investigate the difference between active and passive tolerance (the how aspect of tolerance), with the prediction that the engagement in passive tolerance of disapproved of practices is more common than the engagement in active tolerance. Second, we examine the proposition that stronger moral concern about a particular practice is associated with lower passive and active tolerance (the why aspect of tolerance).

In testing the different predictions, we will consider participants' generalized prejudiced feelings toward Muslims. This allows us to statistically assess whether the disapproval of Muslim minority practices is based on the nature of the dissenting practices (Helbling & Traunmüller, 2020; Sniderman & Hagendoorn, 2007) rather than on group‐based prejudice (Helbling, 2014; Van der Noll, 2014). Furthermore, it is important to investigate whether moral concerns predict intolerance over and above the statistical effect of prejudice because the expression of these concerns can serve to justify underlying prejudicial feelings (Crandall & Eshleman, 2003). Finally, the measure of generalized feelings toward Muslims can be used to investigate how common it is that people who dislike Muslims nevertheless engage in tolerance and how common it is for people with positive views to nonetheless be intolerant. Negative feelings toward a group are considered a precondition for the identification of tolerance (Gibson, 2006; Sullivan et al., 1979), but not a precondition for identification of intolerance (Mondak & Sanders, 2003). Therefore, similar to the well‐known “least‐liked group approach” (Sullivan et al., 1982), we focus in the analysis on the distinction between prejudiced and nonprejudiced (and neutral) majority members rather than on the degree of negative or positive outgroup affect.

STUDY 1

Method

Participants

Participants for both studies were recruited as part of a survey of 815 ethnic majority Dutch adults collected through the survey company GFK, who were representative by gender, age, education, and district of residence in the Netherlands. The studies reported here were embedded within a survey about immigration, diversity, tolerance, and national nostalgia. The survey company reached out to 1,500 members of their panel to find a sample of 815 participants after two reminder emails to nonrespondents. A response rate of 54.3% is common in the Netherlands (Stoop, 2005). Study 1 consisted of 404 participants, ranging in age from 18 to 86 years (M = 53.67, SD = 16.59), 54.5% male, of whom 24.8% had low‐level education, 28.0% had midlevel education, and 47.3% had high‐level education.1 , 2

Measures

Tolerance

Based on previous research (Hirsch et al., 2019; Sleijpen et al., 2020; Verkuyten & Slooter, 2007) and in order to make the scenarios realistic and ecologically valid, participants were presented with four vignettes about specific Muslim minority practices that have caused public debate in Dutch society. Participants were introduced to these practices with a brief paragraph: “The following are a number of specific events or situations about which we ask a few questions for each. We want to ask you to connect as much as you can with the events or situations so that it is as realistic as possible for you.” Next, participants read another brief paragraph introducing them to one of four specific practices or events which follow: “Imagine that at the daycare center where your son or daughter goes the children eat hot food in the afternoon. Because a few children are Muslims, the daycare center considers giving children also halal food (no pork and slaughtered by an Islamic butcher)”; “Imagine that at the secondary schools of your children, it is considered, at the request of Muslim parents, to have the boys and girls attend gym separately”; “Imagine that in the area where you live there are plans to build a mosque. There is a building application with the municipality. If construction continues, the mosque will be located in your neighborhood, not far from your house”; and “Imagine that at work you are being suggested by an Islamic colleague to set up a separate prayer room. Your colleague wants to use this several times a day and there is no such space now.” Following the paragraph introducing the specific scenarios, participants were asked their attitude (7‐point scale) toward that specific practice; for example, “How strongly would you be for or against halal food at the daycare center?”

Moral Concern

Subsequently, respondents were asked to indicate to what extent (5‐point scale; not at all to very much) their moral concerns form the basis of their attitude (“To what extent is your opinion about this based on your own moral principles and values?”). This straightforward question based on Skitka et al. (2005) has been successfully used in previous research (Skitka et al., 2009), including research on tolerance (Hirsch et al., 2019), and reduces the problem of interpretation inherent in more complex measures.

Active and Passive Tolerance

Next, participants were presented with two behavioral questions measuring active and passive tolerance by asking their willingness to sign in favor of allowing a minority practice (with signing in favor indicating active tolerance) and their willingness to sign against the same minority practice (with refusing to sign against indicating passive tolerance). Specifically, participants were asked, “Suppose another parent asks you to sign a petition in favor of halal food at the day care center. Would you be willing to sign?” (active tolerance), and “Suppose another parent asks you to sign a petition against halal food at the day care center. Would you be willing to sign?” (passive tolerance; 4‐point scales, Certainly Not, Probably Not, Probably, Certainly). This sequence of questions was followed for all four scenarios, which were presented in random order to participants.

Prejudicial Feelings

General feelings toward Muslims as a group were measured in a separate section at the end of the questionnaire using the well‐known feeling thermometer. Using a feeling thermometer with a wider range of responses than Likert‐type scales generates a more reliable measure (Alwin, 1997), and this explicit measure tends to correlate with subtler measures of prejudice (Dovidio et al., 2001). Participants were asked to indicate on a scale from 0 to 100 degrees (in units of 10) how cold or warm they felt toward Muslims (presented here on a 1–11 scale, M = 4.95, SD = 2.32). Participants were instructed that 50 degrees represent neither positive nor negative feelings (24.5%), that lower scores represent increasingly more negative feelings (51.5%), and that higher scores represent increasingly more positive feelings (24.0%).

Control Variables

As tolerance of Muslim practices especially might be linked to political conservatism (e.g., Habib et al., 2019), we included a single‐item measure of political self‐placement scale (M = 3.07, SD = 1.21; Jost, 2006) as a control variable. We also included the potential demographic predictors of level of education (a continuous 7‐point scale from lower to higher educated), age, and gender as control variables in the analyses.

Analysis

All analyses were conducted using the SAS analysis software. Except where otherwise indicated, analyses were conducted using general linear models (GLM) which is a flexible generalization of regression analysis and analysis of variance and yields similar results (Rutherford, 2001).

Results

Attitudes Towards the Practices

As Table 1 shows (top four rows), the overwhelming majority of participants were either negative or neutral toward the four practices with very few people being positive. For all four scenarios, mean scores of attitudes were well below the neutral zero midpoint of the scale, all t s > 8.12, all p s < .001, which means that all scenarios generate broad disapproval and therefore are relevant toleration cases. Similarly, as shown in Table 2, participants were broadly unwilling to sign a petition in favor of allowing the practices (6.2%–32.9%) and were more often willing to sign a petition against them (37.8%–67.3%).

Table 1

Percentages of Attitudes Toward Muslim Minority Practices in Studies 1 and 2

	1 (Strongly Against)	2	3	4 (Neutral)	5	6	7 (Strongly in Favor)
Study 1 (n = 404)
Halal food	19.3	18.8	12.4	38.6	5.2	5.0	0.7
Segregated gym	45.5	34.2	6.9	10.2	1.0	1.7	0.5
Building mosque	17.6	17.1	17.3	35.4	8.2	3.5	1.0
Prayer room	14.6	20.0	16.1	26.5	12.4	9.7	1.2
Study 2 (n = 411)
Islamic schools	32.6	29.2	20.0	12.9	3.2	2.2	0.0
Gender in hospitals	31.9	36.3	10.7	12.2	5.6	2.7	0.7
Ritual slaughter	22.6	24.6	14.8	34.6	1.5	2.0	0.0
Police headscarves	25.6	21.7	15.1	18.7	8.0	10.5	0.5

Values represent percentage of respondents. The scale for attitudes was from 1 to 7.

Table 2

Percentages of Those Willing to Sign in Favor of or Against Specific Muslim Minority Practices in Studies 1 and 2

	Willingness to Sign a Petition in Favor of the Practice				Willingness to Sign a Petition Against the Practice
	1 Not Sign	2	3	4 Will Sign	1 Not Sign	2	3	4 Will Sign
Study 1 (n = 404)
Halal food	34.9	41.6	20.8	2.7	15.1	41.1	26.4	17.6
Segregated gym	67.6	26.2	4.7	1.5	16.6	16.1	29.2	38.1
Building mosque	40.4	41.8	15.8	2.0	11.9	39.4	25.7	23.0
Prayer room	30.9	36.1	28.7	4.2	17.8	44.3	22.0	15.8
Study 2 (n = 411)
Islamic schools	57.4	31.9	9.0	1.7	9.5	28.2	36.0	26.3
Gender in hospitals	58.4	29.9	9.3	2.4	10.2	29.7	30.2	29.9
Ritual slaughter	49.6	38.0	10.7	1.7	11.7	39.4	24.1	24.8
Police headscarves	47.7	30.9	18.5	2.9	16.3	33.3	26.8	23.6

Willingness to sign in favor indicates active tolerance, while unwillingness to sign against indicates passive tolerance. Values represent percentage of respondents. The scale for signing intentions was from 1 to 4.

Attitudes towards the four practices were weakly to moderately correlated (range: .15–.50; correlation average: .31), and the intercorrelations between the four practices for the willingness to sign in favor (range: .21–.51; correlation average: .36), and the willingness to sign against (range: .26–.58; correlation average: .42), were also weakly to moderately strong. These findings indicate that participants' responses were relatively independent and practice specific, and the analyses will therefore treat them as separate outcomes.

Tolerance implies disapproval of what one is tolerating, which means that tolerance is not relevant when one has a positive attitude toward a specific practice. Therefore, we divided the sample into two groups for each specific practice: those with negative attitudes toward the practice and those who were neutral or positive towards the practice. Next, for descriptive purposes and to examine the pattern of passive and active tolerance, rather than the degree of tolerance, we computed a dichotomous variable for each of the four practices indicating active tolerance (definitely or probably sign in favor, despite one's negative attitude) or passive tolerance (definitely or probably not signing against, despite one's negative attitude). This approach allows us to assess the number of participants who indicated active tolerance (willingness to sign in favor) compared to passive tolerance (refusal to sign against). As expected (H1), the results in Table 3 show that for all the practices participants were overwhelmingly more willing to engage in an act of passive tolerance (ranging from 19.1% to 33.5%) rather than active tolerance (ranging from 0.5% to 2.9%).3

Table 3

Active Versus Passive Tolerance in Percentages of People Who Disapprove of a Practice for Studies 1 and 2

	Willingness to Sign in Favor	Refusal to Sign Against
Study 1
Halal food in schools (n = 204)	0.5	31.9
Mixed gym classes (n = 350)	1.7	26.3
Building a mosque (n = 210)	2.9	19.1
Prayer room at work (n = 203)	2.0	33.5
Study 2
Islamic schools (n = 336)	4.8	27.7
Gender in hospitals (n = 324)	4.0	28.7
Ritual slaughter (n = 255)	2.8	27.1
Police headscarves (n = 256)	3.1	27.7

Willingness to sign in favor of a disapproved‐of minority practice indicates active tolerance, while refusal to sign against a disapproved‐of minority practice indicated passive tolerance. The number in parentheses indicates the number of participants who disapproved of that particular practice. The numbers in the columns are percentages of those people who actively (first column) or passively (second column) engaged in tolerance.

For the participants who had a neutral or positive attitude toward the practice, a similar pattern emerged (see Table 4), such that, although participants were in favor of or indifferent to these practices, they preferred passive support through not signing against over active support through signing in favor. This suggests that the active‐passive difference is at least partially driven by a general preference for inaction over action (e.g., Feldman & Albarracín, 2017; Kahneman & Tversky, 1982).

Table 4

Active Versus Passive Support in Percentages of People Who Are Neutral or Positive About the Practice for Studies 1 and 2

	Willingness to Sign in Favor	Refusal to Sign Against
Study 1
Halal food in schools (n = 200)	47.0	81.0
Mixed gym classes (n = 54)	35.2	74.1
Building a mosque (n = 194)	34.0	86.1
Prayer room at work (n = 201)	64.2	91.0
Study 2
Islamic schools (n = 75)	37.3	82.7
Gender in hospitals (n = 87)	40.2	81.6
Ritual slaughter (n = 156)	28.2	90.4
Police headscarves (n = 155)	51.6	85.8

Willingness to sign in favor of a minority practice that participants either approve of or are indifferent to indicates active support, while refusal to sign against such a minority practice indicated passive support. The number in parentheses indicates the number of participants who were neutral towards or approved of that particular practice. The numbers in the columns are percentages of those people who actively (first column) or passively (second column) supported the proposals.

Tolerance Beyond Prejudice

To determine the relationship between tolerance and prejudice, we investigated the bivariate correlations between prejudicial feelings toward Muslims and attitudes toward the different practices. The correlations ranged from uncorrelated to moderately correlated (.08–.44; correlation average: .33), suggesting that prejudicial feelings toward Muslims does not appear to be the primary general driver of attitudes and tolerance toward the specific Muslim practices used here. Indeed, when both prejudicial feelings toward Muslims and attitudes toward the specific practices were included in a regression model, the practice‐specific attitudes are the sole predictor of tolerance towards the practices, B s = .22–.44, t s = 4.86–10.86, p s < .007, η p 2 = .02–.23, with the effect of Muslim prejudice on tolerance being nonsignificant, B s = −0.05–.06, t s = −.06–1.51, p s = .131–.953, η p 2 = .00–.01.

In order to examine whether participants displaying prejudicial feelings can nevertheless engage in tolerance and those with positive feelings toward Muslims can engage in intolerance, we divided participants into those displaying negative, neutral, or positive thermometer‐like feelings toward Muslims as a group. We focused on those with objections towards the specific practices (measured as those who indicated a negative attitude toward the specific practices), as this is the group for whom tolerance is relevant. For those disliking Muslims as a group, active tolerance was almost nonexistent (0.8%–2.9%), while passive tolerance was practiced by a significant minority (17.4%–29.7%). A similar pattern emerged for those with neutral feelings (active tolerance = 0.0%–5.9%; passive tolerance = 23.5%–35.5%), and those with positive feelings (active tolerance = 0.0%; passive tolerance = 20.5%–47.2%) towards Muslims. These findings suggest that group‐based dislike does not rule out the ability to engage in (passive) tolerance, as we find that people prejudiced toward Muslims engage in passive tolerance, and on a level comparable to those who like Muslims. Additionally, these findings also show that those who indicate positive feelings toward the target group can nonetheless decide not to tolerate some objectionable practices.

The Role of Moral Concerns

To further understand people's reactions to these tolerance scenarios, we examined whether the extent to which participants based their disapproval of the practices on their moral values (intercorrelations: .52–.67; correlation average = .59; see the online supporting information) was associated with lower active and passive tolerance and whether the role of moral concern might be stronger in predicting less active rather than passive tolerance. We tested repeated‐measures linear models in which moral disapproval predicts passive and active tolerance towards the specific scenarios, enabling us to also test whether the predictive power of moral concern differed by type of tolerance. Given the importance of focusing on those who objected to each specific practice and participants differed in whether or not they objected particular practices, we constructed four models, one for each scenario. Behavioral intentions were treated as continuous variables, and all results controlled for the effects of prejudicial feelings toward Muslims (continuous measure), political orientation, education, age, and gender.

Analyses revealed that for all participants, the more that their attitude towards a practice was based on their moral values, the less willing they were to sign petitions in favor (active tolerance) and to refuse to sign petitions against (passive tolerance), B s = −.09 to −.23, t s = −2.91 to −5.17, p s = .004–.001, η p 2 = .02–.06.4 Furthermore, in three of the four situations (Halal food in schools, neighborhood mosques, and prayer rooms at work), the role of moral concern did not differ for active versus passive tolerance, φ max = .001–.007, F s = .55–2.67, p = .103–.457. However, for separating gym classes by gender, there was a significant difference in the role of moral concern for active compared to passive tolerance, φ max = .017, F(1, 397) = 6.94, p = .009, with moral concern surprisingly being a stronger negative predictor of passive rather than active tolerance.

However, as tolerance is only relevant to those who object to a given practice, we reran the analyses focusing only on the participants who indicated negative attitudes to a particular practice (N = 203–315), again finding strong support for the hypothesized relationship between stronger moral concerns and reduced passive and active tolerance (H2), B s = −.09 to −.19, t s = −4.14 to −42.58, p s = .011–.001, all η p 2 = .03–.08. As Table 5 shows, the more that people base their negative attitude toward the specific practice on their moral concerns, the less willing they are to actively tolerate by signing in favor and the less willing they are to passively tolerate (by refusing to sign against).5 Additionally, we again found that for three of the practices, moral concern did not reduce active and passive tolerance differently, φ max = .006–.007, F s = .07–1.22, p = .271–.791. In the case of gender‐segregated gym classes, the difference remained, φ max = .011, F(1, 343) = 3.86, p = .050, such that moral concerns reduced passive tolerance more strongly than active tolerance.

Table 5

The Role of Moral Concerns in Predicting Active Tolerance (increased willingness to sign in favor) and Passive Tolerance (decreased willingness to sign against) Among Those With Negative Attitudes Toward Each Practice in Studies 1 and 2

	Willingness to Sign in Favor	Refusal to Sign Against
Study 1
Halal food in schools	B = −.11, SE = .03, p < .001a	B = −.15, SE = .06, p = .009a
Mixed gym classes	B = −.09, SE = .02, p < .001a	B = −.19, SE = .05, p < .001b
Building a mosque	B = −.11, SE = .03, p < .001a	B = −.16, SE = .05, p < .001a
Prayer room at work	B = −.13, SE = .03, p < .001a	B = −.15, SE = .06, p = .011a
Study 2
Islamic schools	B = −.09, SE = .03, p = .005a	B = −.23, SE = .04, p < .001b
Gender in hospitals	B = −.03, SE = .03, p = .280a	B = −.15, SE = .04, p < .001b
Ritual slaughter	B = −.10, SE = .03, p = .002a	B = −.22, SE = .05, p < .001b
Police headscarves	B = −.03, SE = .03, p = .304a	B = −.18, SE = .04, p < .001b

Decreased willingness to sign in favor of a disapproved‐of practice indicates decreased active tolerance, and decreased refusal to sign against indicates decreased passive tolerance. Different subscripts across the rows indicate significant differences in the effect. Participant numbers differed by situation: Halal food n = 203; Mixed gym n = 350; Building a mosque n = 210; Prayer room n = 203. All reported results include controls for feelings toward Muslims, political orientation, level of education, age, and gender.

Discussion

As expected, Study 1 demonstrated that people are much more likely to engage in passive rather than active tolerance. Furthermore, this active‐passive difference seemed to reflect a more general differentiation as it was also found among those with neutral or positive attitudes toward the practice (e.g., Kahneman & Tversky, 1982; Keinan & Bereby‐Meyer, 2017). As expected, we found that the more one's negative attitude toward a practice was based on moral concern, the less willing people were to engage in either active or passive tolerance (Hirsch et al., 2019; Skitka et al., 2005). We did not find evidence for moral concern being more problematic for active rather than passive tolerance; indeed, surprisingly, for one of the examples, moral concern predicted reduced passive tolerance more strongly than active tolerance. However, this finding should be interpreted with care because it may be due to the limited variability in active tolerance responses. Furthermore, we found that the effects of moral concern on tolerance emerged above and beyond the effects of group‐based prejudice, and that tolerance may be regularly practiced by those with group‐based dislike, while intolerance can also be practiced by those with positive feelings toward Muslims. This indicates that tolerance of minority practices can differ from group‐based prejudiced feelings (Adelman & Verkuyten, 2020; Verkuyten et al., 2020).

In Study 2, we sought to conceptually replicate the results of Study 1 by focusing on tolerance of practices that have broader societal impact as opposed to personal relevance. Thus, in Study 2 we used an identical format, but with tolerance scenarios that were constructed to focus on impacts across society at large rather than to focus on situations which directly impact people's personal lives.

STUDY 2

A nationally representative sample of 411 ethnic majority Dutch participants took part in the study. Their ages ranged from 18 to 92 years (M = 52.21, SD = 16.71) with 50.4% male, and 24.1% having low‐level education, 27.7% midlevel education, and 48.2% high‐level education.

Measures

The measures were identical to those in Study 1, with the one difference being that a different set of scenarios was used that all referred to controversial societal issues: “Some mosque organizations set up Islamic primary schools in the Netherlands that only Muslim children attend”; “Some Muslim organizations want Dutch hospitals to have an arrangement that (if possible) men are treated by men and women by women”; “Most Muslims find it important that animals are slaughtered ritually”; and “Recently there was a proposal to allow female police officers to wear a headscarf during their work.” These scenarios also reflect common debates in the Netherlands and were presented in random order to each participant. Following the scenarios, they responded to the same measures as in Study 1.

General feelings toward Muslims were again measured using the same thermometer scale (M = 5.12, SD = 2.35). Participants were instructed that 50 degrees represent neither positive or negative feelings (26.3%) and that lower scores stand for increasingly more negative feelings (46.5%) and higher scores for increasingly more positive feelings (27.2%).

Again, we included a single‐item measure of political self‐placement (M = 3.06, SD = 1.18), as well as level of education, age, and gender.

Descriptive Findings

Similar to Study 1, most participants held negative or neutral attitudes towards the four practices (see Table 1). For all scenarios, mean attitudes were well below the neutral zero midpoint of the scale, t s > 12.74, p s < .001. Similarly, participants displayed this general negativity by rarely being willing to sign in favor of the practices (10.7%–21.4%), and often willing to sign against them (48.9%–62.3%).

Attitudes towards the four practices were again weakly correlated (range: .13–.32; correlation average: .23), and the intercorrelations between the four practices for the willingness to sign in favor (range: .20–.42; correlation average: .29), and willingness to sign against (range: .38–.51; correlation average: .44), were also weak to moderately strong, again suggesting that responses were relatively practice specific.

Consistent with Study 1, we found that refusal to sign against (passive tolerance) was far more common than willingness to sign in favor (active tolerance), and this preference for passivity was not unique to those who disliked the practices but also translated into the behavioral intentions of people with neutral or positive attitudes towards these practices (H1; see Tables 3 and 4).6

Once again, bivariate correlations and linear regressions conducted using the GLM functions revealed that attitudes and tolerance towards these practices were not primarily driven by prejudicial feelings. The associations between prejudicial feelings toward Muslims and attitudes toward the different practices ranged from low to moderate correlations (.22–.33; correlation average: .26), and when regressing tolerance towards specific practices on both prejudicial feelings and practice‐specific attitudes, the practice‐specific attitudes were the main predictors of tolerance, B s = .28–.49, t s = 3.27–7.22, p s < .001, η p 2 = .03–.11, rather than Muslim feelings, B s = .04–.05, t s = 0.17–1.93, p s = .054–.861, η p 2 = .00–.01.

We further examined whether people who displayed Muslim dislike nonetheless engage in tolerance and people who have positive feelings toward Muslims as a group can be intolerant. As in Study 1, we examined whether people with negative feelings towards Muslims can nonetheless be tolerant and whether people with positive feelings can be intolerant by dividing people who displayed negative, neutral, and positive thermometer feelings toward Muslims and investigating their tolerance toward the different practices. We found that among those who dislike Muslims, while active tolerance was very rare (2.9%–5.9%), passive tolerance was practiced by a significant minority (22.1%–24.4%). This pattern was similar among those with neutral feelings (active tolerance = 1.6%–4.0%; passive tolerance = 25.6%–42.1%), and positive feelings (active tolerance = 0.0%–3.7%; passive tolerance = 27.1%–37.7%) towards Muslims. These findings again suggest that group‐based dislike does not rule out the ability to be tolerant and that those with positive group‐based feelings can nonetheless be intolerant of practices they consider objectionable.

We again tested repeated‐measures models in which the extent to which people's moral concerns about each practice (intercorrelations: .36–.51; correlation average = .45; see the online supporting information) predicted their willingness to sign in favor (active tolerance) and unwillingness to sign against (passive tolerance) and whether the role of moral concerns was stronger for active rather than passive tolerance. We constructed four GLMs, and all results controlled for the effects of general feelings toward Muslims, political orientation, education, age, and gender.

Analyses revealed that, in general, the more that the attitudes towards the practices were based on moral values, the less willing people were to sign in favor and the less willing they were to refuse to sign against petitions related to these practices, B s = −.10 to −.27, t s = 3.05–6.88, p s = .003–.001, η p 2 = .02–.11, with the exception of nonsignificant effects for the willingness to sign in favor of same‐gender treatment in hospitals and police officers wearing the headscarf.7 , 8 Multivariate analyses consistently found that moral concerns were more powerful predictors of passive rather than active tolerance across the examples, φ max = .022–.109, F s = 8.74–44.19, p s = .003–.001.

We then focused on participants with negative attitudes to the practices, again finding support for the role of moral concerns for reduced tolerance, B s = −.09 to −.23, t s = −8.10 to −28.66, p s = .005–.001, η p 2 = .02–.08, for most outcomes, with the exception of nonsignificant effects on willingness to sign in favor of same‐gender treatment in hospitals and willingness to sign in favor of police officers wearing the headscarf (see Table 5). Multivariate analyses indicated that moral concern was again more powerful for passive rather than active tolerance across all four examples, φ max = .031–.098, F s = 9.93–32.24, p s = .002–.001.

Conceptually replicating the findings of Study 1, Study 2 revealed that people were more likely to engage in passive than active tolerance, and the same passive‐active difference was found for participants who were not negative about the particular practice. Additionally, we broadly replicated the finding of Study 1 that people were less (passive and active) tolerant when they indicated that they base their attitude about the practice more strongly on their moral values. Importantly, these effects were found even after accounting for general feelings toward Muslims. We also found that moral concerns are a more powerful negative predictor of passive rather than active tolerance. However, this may again be due to the relatively limited variability in active tolerance compared to passive, which we discuss further below. Further, our analyses again indicate that tolerance may be regularly practiced by those with group‐based dislike, and also that those with positive feelings toward Muslims nonetheless identify practices they refuse to tolerate.

General Discussion

Toleration implies not a lack of commitment to one's own beliefs and way of life, but requires one to put up with the religious, cultural, and ideological beliefs and practices of others (Forst, 2013; King, 2012; Verkuyten & Yogeeswaran, 2017). Using nationally representative samples, this research aimed to answer two key questions about tolerance. First, when people engage in tolerance, are they more likely to engage in the passive tolerance of noninterference or the active tolerance of protecting the rights of others whose beliefs or practice they disapprove of (how to tolerate)? Second, what is the role of moral concern about a particular practice in determining whether or not people will tolerate that practice (why to tolerate)?

First, we found that people are more likely to engage in passive tolerance rather than the more stringent and demanding active tolerance. The distinction between active and passive tolerance was found across the different practices and for issues that had a more direct impact on people's personal life as well as for the broader society. Further, even people who did not have a negative attitude toward the specific practice were less likely to show active than passive support. This pattern of findings suggests that the difference between passive and active tolerance reflects a more general psychological tendency to make a distinction between action and inaction whereby one perceives, for example, a greater risk and responsibility in relation to action than inaction (e.g., Feldman & Albarracín, 2017; Kahneman & Tversky, 1982).

Second, we found that people's moral values play an important role in the tolerance process. Specifically, the more that people who disapproved of a given practice based their disapproval on their moral values, the less tolerant they were (Cole Wright et al., 2008; Hirsch et al., 2019; Wright, 2012). Interestingly, across both studies, we also found that increased use of moral values in determining attitudes toward each practice was more strongly associated with lower passive tolerance than lower active tolerance. This further supports the suggestion that people make a psychological distinction between action and inaction, and this may also imply that not engaging in passive tolerance could be more difficult and more strongly related to morality than not engaging in active tolerance. This is in contrast to our reasoning that active tolerance, which demands more of its practitioners, would be less likely among those with stronger moral concerns. However, given the relatively low rates of willingness to sign in favor of the practice (with the percentage of participants willing or possibly willing to sign in favor ranging from 6.2 to 32.9 in Study 1, and only 10.7 to 21.4 in Study 2), this difference in predictive strength might be due to low means and variability in responses on that outcome measure.9

The pattern of findings suggests that for active and passive tolerance, it is important to prevent moral amplification (Rhee et al., 2019). While the promise of tolerance lies in not needing to change people's strong beliefs and core values (Verkuyten & Yogeeswaran, 2017), it may be necessary to reduce or prevent moral amplification around those beliefs and values to create space for tolerance to occur in culturally diverse settings. Moral amplification is likely to make tolerance of outgroup practices more difficult (Hirsch et al., 2019), and some degree of demoralization or amoralization (Rozin et al., 1997; Tenbrunsel & Messick, 2004) might be required, although this can also have negative consequences for the treatment of outgroup members.

However, the current research did not examine the causal role of moral concerns for tolerance. Previous research suggests that moral concerns could be used to justify initial intolerance and moral concerns thereby play a post hoc role in moral justification. However, we argue that this is unlikely to be the case here because research on intuitive moral emotions shows that these emotions imply a tendency to negatively interfere with the dissenting conduct (Tangney et al., 2007) and underlie intolerance of those engaged in different religious practices (Ben‐Nun Bloom, & Courtemache, 2015). Furthermore, experimental research has found that moral values and moralization of a particular issue affect people's responses (Mooijman et al., 2018; Nelson et al., 1997), also in relation to Muslim minorities (Zilli Ramirez & Verkuyten, 2011). Additionally, in our research the role of moral values for passive and active tolerance was found independently of group‐based prejudice. This indicates that people's moral concerns about minority practices and their related tolerance do not simply reflect their dislike of Muslims as a group of people (Verkuyten et al., 2020). In fact, among the group with negative feelings towards Muslims, there were participants who engaged in passive tolerance. Furthermore, some participants with positive feelings towards Muslims did not passively tolerate particular practices. Thus, people can be intolerant of specific beliefs and practices of individuals or groups towards whom they have no prejudicial feelings, including their ingroup (Adelman & Verkuyten, 2020; Sniderman et al., 1989). This pattern of findings demonstrates that the objections that people might have toward controversial minority practices can be based on reasons other than general outgroup dislike. People can refrain from negative actions (passive tolerance) when they dislike the minority group or not tolerate particular practices although they like the group. This raises important questions about what considerations people have for tolerating or not tolerating specific outgroup beliefs and practices. For example, people might have secular and ideological beliefs (Helbling, 2010; Imhoff & Recker, 2012), normative concerns (Helbling & Traunmüller, 2020; Sleijpen et al., 2020), or cultural continuity concerns (Smeekes & Verkuyten, 2015) that underlie their tolerant or intolerant reactions, independently of their group‐based feelings, whether positive or negative.

The specific considerations for (in)tolerance might also depend on the particular practice that people are asked to tolerate (Van der Noll, 2014; Verkuyten & Slooter, 2007). Participants evaluated and reacted to practices relatively independently, which further indicates that a group‐based prejudicial feeling is not determining people's responses. Rather, what appears to matter is not only how people are asked to be tolerant (passive or active), but also what people are asked to tolerate. Some practices are more controversial than others, and some require bigger changes from the majority group (e.g., have boys and girls attend gym separately at one's children's school) than do others (e.g., separate Muslim praying room at work). Tolerance is not indifference and involves endurance and putting up with what one disapproves of, but tolerating some practices will be more demanding than tolerating others, and we presented participants with situations that differ in the degree of required majority group accommodation, and some of these practices might be considered too demanding or even beyond reasonable accommodation (Verkuyten & Yogeeswaran, 2017). Importantly, however, the range of practices allowed us to determine that the difference between active and passive tolerance and the role of moral concern is similar across both less and more demanding practices. Thus, although the degree of tolerance differed between the practices, the same pattern of findings for active and passive tolerance and for moral concerns was found. It is likely that these results also replicate across other, less controversial and demanding Muslim practices that can be tolerated more easily (Adelman & Verkuyten, 2020; Hirsch et al., 2019).

Implications and Future Research

The current research has important implications for both theory and society. For example, successful societal change requires that majority members recognize inequalities and are willing to support equal rights (Subašić et al., 2008). Active tolerance has greater potential for social change while passive tolerance has been analyzed as a subtle social mechanism that might contribute to domination and structural inequalities (Brown, 2006; Marcuse, 1965). Our findings show, however, that active tolerance is infrequent among the majority, while passive tolerance is the more common approach when faced with disapproved practices. This means that it is important for future studies to examine when and why majority members show more active support of minority practices and rights.

Furthermore, future research should examine the how and why of tolerance in relation to other minority groups and practices, in other national contexts and by using other research methods. For example, the current work focused on Muslim minority practices in the Netherlands, and it is likely that our results generalize to other Western nations given that Muslims tend to experience similarly high levels of rejection across many Western nations, and the place of Muslim beliefs, norms, and practices are a point of contention within many Western nations (Goodwin et al., 2017; Kalkan et al., 2009). However, it is unclear if such findings would generalize to other religious and cultural outgroups given that conflict over the place of Muslim beliefs and practices are especially salient in Western societies (Cesari, 2013). Future research is therefore needed to examine the generalizability of the current findings to other religious and cultural minority group practices and in other countries. Similarly, future research could investigate the role of moralization further to better understand the tolerance process and the potential pitfalls that may prevent toleration from being applied and the possible negative implications of reduced moral concern.

Additionally, there is also the “when” question or the particular context in which people are confronted with disapproved conduct of minority members. We were able to conceptually replicate the support for our hypotheses regarding active and passive tolerance and the role of moral concerns in relation to situations that directly affect the individual and those that impact society at large. Establishing similar results across practices that require greater or lesser majority group sacrifices demonstrates the robustness of this phenomenon. Yet there are many situations and contexts that may have an impact on whether people find certain practices acceptable or not. For example, majority members might find it more difficult to accept Muslim teachers wearing headscarves in nonreligious public schools than in religious schools. Or people might be less tolerant toward civil servants refusing to shake hands with someone of the opposite sex than employees refusing to shake hands in the private sector. More research is needed to further understand the nuances and boundaries of active and passive tolerance for minority outgroup practices.

Furthermore, although we note above that it is unlikely that the role of moral values in our research is due to post hoc justification, additional research may be able to better investigate the role of moral values and whether it plays a causal, justifying, or mixed role in the tolerance proves.

Conclusion

Tolerance is widely promoted for managing increasingly diverse societies (see Verkuyten et al., 2019), but questions remain about the “how” and “why” of tolerance. There are different ways for tolerance to be expressed, with different consequences for the support and protection of minority groups. In relation to the “how” question, we show that people are much more willing not to act against outgroup practices that they disapprove of (passive tolerance) rather than to support and promote these practices (active tolerance). Furthermore, and related to the “why” question, tolerance was more difficult when disapproved of practices more strongly raised moral concerns, independently of any group‐based prejudicial feelings.

Intergroup tolerance is a critical condition for equality and for accommodating cultural differences in plural societies (McKinnon & Castiglione, 2003; Verkuyten et al., 2019). It offers the possibility to live with diversity without requiring a lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. People have their own moral values and beliefs that will lead to their disapproval of contrasting beliefs and practices (Brandt et al., 2014; Ellemers, 2017), but they should not negatively interfere with the equal opportunities and rights of others to live the life that they want. Here we have tried to demonstrate that examining the how and why of intergroup tolerance can improve our understanding of the many challenges that plural societies face and the different aspects that approaches promulgating tolerance should consider.

Table S1. Correlation Matrix among Signing Intentions of a Petition in Favor of a Practice

Table S2. Correlation Matrix among Signing Intentions of a Petition Against a Practice

Table S3. Correlation Matrix among Attitudes toward Each Practice

Table S4. Correlation Matrix among the Role of Personal Values in Determining One's Attitudes

Table S5. The Role of Morals and Values in Predicting Signing Behavior among those with Negative and Neutral/Positive Attitudes

Click here for additional data file.