Who Supports Freedom of Speech? Tolerance vs. Prejudice
High intelligence increases support for freedom of speech.
Although there is widespread agreement that freedom of speech is foundational to a democratic society, in practice, people differ greatly in how much they support controversial speech, especially from groups they do not like. Hence, some people selectively endorse freedom of speech for those who express views they agree with while being less tolerant of those with opposing views.
One study found that people on both the left and the right of the political spectrum tended to express intolerance towards allowing people to publicly express views that opposed their ideological values (Crawford & Pilanski, 2014). On the other hand, there is evidence that some people endorse freedom of speech in a principled manner, being willing to support the right of groups they dislike to express their views publicly. For example, a study found that those with a strong commitment to democratic principles were more opposed to government censorship of pornography and hate speech, while those with more authoritarian values supported such censorship (Lambe, 2004).
More recent research linked support for free speech with intelligence (De keersmaecker et al., 2020). This was tested in three studies in which people were asked about whether they thought members of…
