The mechanisms behind the relationship between education and political tolerance

Based on the amount of confirmation that this finding has received, it is a truism to say that education promotes tolerance, whether political, racial, ethnic, religious, or tolerance of sexual minorities. There has also been a good deal of theorizing about why that is so. Yet, existing analyses tend to focus on single explanations and, therefore, raise red flags about their findings and cannot speak to the relative importance of different explanations. We need to identify the mechanisms responsible for the relationship between education and tolerance properly because it can strengthen our confidence that education is the cause and tolerance the effect. Using data from the 2014 General Social Survey, I simultaneously evaluate the relative roles of cognitive sophistication, authoritarianism, political interest, and faith in people in mediating the link between education and political tolerance. I also seek to determine whether education moderates the four pathways. The mediation analysis demonstrates that the effect of education on political tolerance is transmitted through all four mediators, with cognitive sophistication reigning supreme. The moderation analysis shows that the paths linking education and political tolerance are similar across all levels of education.