A Harvard scholar suggests a new way to think about social relations.
By Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow
IN A WORLD FRAUGHT with ethnic, religious, and sectarian tensions, “tolerance” is a familiar mantra. Diversity training sessions in schools and workplaces try to instill it. Mitt Romney, in his recent speech on faith, praised our nation’s embrace of it. The UN has even designated an International Day for it. (The date – mark your calendars – is Nov. 16.) Across the political spectrum, extolling tolerance is as obligatory as condemning terrorism.
more stories like thisOf course, no one could deny the misery caused by social divisions, from Iraq to the Balkans to Jena, La. The consequences can be as personal as hurt feelings or as sweeping as warfare, and show little sign of abating.
But Harvard social psychologist Todd Pittinsky believes that our reverence for tolerance may be misplaced. The tolerance agenda aims to improve society by eliminating negative attitudes, but has nothing to say about generating positive ones.
Pittinsky’s work focuses on what he has dubbed “allophilia,” borrowed from the Greek for “love of the other.” In survey studies that began in 2005, Pittinsky has found that high levels of allophilia for a particular group predict positive behaviors – such as donating to relevant charities and supporting sympathetic policies – significantly better than low levels of prejudice against the same group.Pittinsky’s research suggests that negative and positive attitudes are not opposite ends of a spectrum, but at least partially independent – that all the tolerance training in the world would not instill affection for a group. Pittinsky’s investigations – conducted among diverse populations in the Middle East, New England, and elsewhere – suggest a novel approach to transforming relations among social groups.
Instead of merely training people to hate each other less, Pittinsky says, it may be time to teach them to like each other more.
“Would you want to be tolerated?” Pittinsky says. “The synonyms are even worse – to endure, to put up with. . . .We can and must do better than tolerance.”
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/01/06/those_people/