Green Party voters and the highly educated are those most likely to say they feel intolerant of other people’s opinions, research in Germany shows.
A strong 69 per cent of Germans think they are good listeners, but your reception may vary depending on how your interlocutor chooses in the polling booth, an opinion poll by Allensbach for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) has found.
Supporters of the radical-left Die Grünen (The Greens) said in 28 per cent of cases they were “bothered” when they spoke to someone who holds “completely different opinions”, the highest of any political faction.
Right-wing populists were also more likely to be bothered, but were much closer to the national average of 21 per cent, coming in at 24 per cent.
Supporters of the legacy centrist parties of government, the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, were the least likely to find it difficult to hold a conversation with someone they disagreed with, yet also came in close to the average at 19 and 18 per cent respectively.
The research also found that people were more likely to say they were intolerant of other opinions the higher level of education they held, and that respondents said they were more likely to have social interactions with people they talked to online than in real life.
A review of the research in Die Welt suggested the finding went some way to refuting claims that online communities were a strong driver of filter bubbles or echo chambers.
Nevertheless, the FAZ report notes the survey recorded only the self-reported perceptions of Germans on how accepting of other people’s views they are, and there may be a considerable gap between self-image and reality.
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