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Ethnocentrism is judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one's own culture.[1][2] Ethnocentric individuals judge other groups relative to their own ethnic group or culture, especially with concern for language, behavior, customs, and religion. These ethnic distinctions and subdivisions serve to define each ethnicity's unique cultural identity.[3] William G. Summer defined it as "the technical name for the view of things in which one's own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it." He further characterized ethnocentrism as often leading to pride, vanity, beliefs of one's own group's superiority, and contempt of outsiders.[4] This may occur for the differentiation of people between in-groups and out-groups.[5] Two main view points of ethnocentrism are the social sciences and the genetics. In anthropology, cultural relativism is used as an antithesis and an antonym to ethnocentrism.[6] In biology, ethnocentrism is considered a natural condition of mankind. [7]

Origins of the concept (and its study)

The term "ethnocentrism" was coined by

in-group
and others, disseminating it in his 1906 work Folkways.

In 1996, Robert K. Merton commented that "although the practice of seeing one's own group as the center of things is empirically correlated with a belief in superiority, centrality and superiority need to be kept analytically distinct in order to deal with patterns of alienation from one's membership group and contempt for it."[11]

People born into a particular culture that grow up absorbing the values and behaviors of the culture will develop a worldview that considers their culture to be the norm.[12][13] If people then experience other cultures that have different values and normal behaviors, they will find that the thought patterns appropriate to their birth culture and the meanings their birth culture attaches to behaviors are not appropriate for the new cultures. However, since people are accustomed to their birth culture, it can be difficult for them to see the behaviors of people from a different culture from the viewpoint of that culture rather than from their own.[12][14]

Explicit ethnocentrism and implicit ethnocentrism. Explicit ethnocentrism involves the ability to express the feelings about outsiders (people from other groups), and implicit ethnocentrism refers to the inhibition of the feelings for outsiders.[15]

Anthropology

fieldwork in order to overcome their ethnocentrism. Boas developed the principle of cultural relativism where the "context" plays an important role to the understanding of other people's values[16], and Malinowski developed the theory of functionalism as guides for producing non-ethnocentric studies of different cultures. Classic examples of anti-ethnocentric anthropology include Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), Malinowski's The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia (1929), and Ruth Benedict's Patterns of Culture
(1934). (Mead and Benedict were two of Boas's students.)

Examples of ethnocentrism include

God's Chosen People", and "God's Promised Land".[6] Although this may be seen as clasic examples, a study published by Brill showed that religious attitudes do not effect on negative out-group attitudes.[17]

In Precarious Life, Judith Butler discusses recognizing the Other in order to sustain the Self and the problems of not being able to identify the Other. Butler writes:

Identification always relies upon a difference that it seeks to overcome, and that its aim is accomplished only by reintroducing the difference it claims to have vanquished. The one with whom I identify is not me, and that "not being me" is the condition of the identification. Otherwise, as Jacqueline Rose reminds us, identification collapses into identity, which spells the death of identification itself.[18]

Consumer Ethnocentrism

Consumer ethnocentrism refers to the preference of buying products from one's own country with the purpose of protecting the economy and the jobs of people in the country. It involves the brand and quality of the products. In order to measure the levels of a consumer's ethnocentric tendencies, the CETSACALE was created and used for many countries and cultures.[19]

Cultural Relativism

The idea of cultural relativism refers to the idea that what is considered true in one culture may not be in another one. This relates is the opposite of ethnocentrism; referring to the idea of being aware that different beliefs and cultures exist.[20] Classic examples of this are the use of certain words that may have a different meaning in another country. the term used to describe this examples is linguistic relativism. However, a person does not necessarily need to apply the concept of cultural relativism to not be ethnocentric.[21]

Causes of Ethnocentrism

In a research published by

PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America) suggested that ethnocentrism may be mediated by the oxytocin hormone. It was found that in randomized controlled trials "oxytocin creates intergroup bias because oxytocin motivates in-group favoritism and, to a lesser extent, out-group derogation".[22]

In The Selfish Gene, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins writes that "Blood-feuds and inter-clan warfare are easily interpretable in terms of Hamilton's genetic theory."[23] Simulation-based experiments in evolutionary game theory have attempted to provide an explanation for the selection of ethnocentric-strategy phenotypes.[24][25]

There is not a single reason to determine the causes of ethnocentrism,[26] different areas of sciences tried to explain how ethnocentrism works. The Social identity approach suggests that a person is ethnocentric due to a strong identification with the inter- culture which may lead to negative feelings to the outsiders. Social scientists believe that the lack of contact with outsiders may be a cause stereotype towards other groups.[15]

Realistic conflict theory assumes that ethnocentrism happens due to "real or perceived conflict" in between groups. this happens also with new members of a group where the dominant group may perceive the new ones as treat.[15]

  1. ISBN 978-0-07-319580-3
    .
  2. ISBN 0192806327
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  3. ISBN 0-534-61716-6
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  4. ^ Sumner, W. G. Folkways. New York: Ginn, 1906.
  5. S2CID 9613947 – via SAGE Journals.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )
  6. ^
    ISBN 978-0-495-59981-4
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  7. ISBN 978-1317670308
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  8. ISBN 5-01-001102-6
  9. ^ Boris Bizumic (Research School of Psychology, the Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia). Who Coined the Concept of Ethnocentrism? A Brief Report // Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 2014, Vol. 2(1), doi:10.5964/jspp.v2i1.264
  10. ISBN 5-01-001102-6
    )
  11. ISBN 978-0-226-52070-4
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  12. ^
    OCLC 51685367
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  13. PMID 26644192
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  14. ^ Barger, Ken (February 14, 2018). "Ethnocentrism". Indiana University Indianapolis.
  15. ^
    ISBN 978-0028661179
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  16. ^ Howson, Alexandra (2009). "Cultural Relativism" (PDF): 1, 2 – via EBSCO. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  17. ISBN 9789004184701
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  18. ISBN 9781844675449
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  19. JSTOR 3151638
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  20. ^ Johnson, Allan G. (2000). "In The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology. "cultural relativism"". CREDO.
  21. ^ Nolan, Cathal J. (2002). "Greenwood encyclopedia of international relations. "ethnocentrism"". CREDO.
  22. PMID 21220339
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  23. ISBN 978-0-19-929115-1
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  24. S2CID 9613947
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  25. ^ Max Hartshorn, Artem Kaznatcheev and Thomas Shultz, "The Evolutionary Dominance of Ethnocentric Cooperation" Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 30 June 2013
  26. ^ Forbes, H.D. (2013). ""Prejudice." Encyclopedia of Race and Racism". CREDO.
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