ETHNOCENTRISM

Causes and Determinants of Ethnocentrism

Causes and Determinants of Ethnocentrism

Introduction

The term was first used by the American sociologist William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) to describe the view that one's own culture can be considered central, (Allport 1954) while other cultures or religious traditions are reduced to a less prominent role.

Hypotheses

Whether education or whether a person is knowledgeable about other religions' manuscripts has anything to do with whether people feel ethnocentric when they are confronted with people from other civilizations.

Discussion

Ethnocentrism is a basic attitude expressing the belief that one's own religion or one's own culture which is superior to other ethnic groups or cultures, and that one's cultural standards can be applied in a universal manner i.e. (LeVine and Campbell 1972) religion politics etc. Ethnocentrism is closely related to other attitudinal indicators for racism, xenophobia, prejudice, and mental closure and, more generally, an authoritarian personality structure. Ethnocentrism is widely used in research on social and political and religious attitudes because it proves to be a very powerful and easily identifiable attitude that can be measured in a valid manner with a limited number of variables. Although ethnocentric prejudice can be directed toward one specific outsider group, (Sniderman, Paul, Tetlock and Carmines 1993) empirical research reveals that usually ethnocentrism is generalized toward all outsider groups.

Although ethnocentrism is closely related to racism, it can be distinguished from racism because it does not involve necessarily a negative vision toward other races. Any culturally distinct outsider group whether the distinction involves language, religion, color, or descent can be targeted by ethnocentric attitudes. In practice, European researchers often tend to avoid using the term racism because they are reluctant to apply the concept of race to human beings. In the U.S. perspective, the application of the term prejudice is not considered a trouble. Given the fact that ethnocentrism is such a powerful attitude and is associated strongly with various behavioral patterns, ethnocentrism measurements are routinely included in almost all major survey projects. Ethnocentrism leads to in-group favoritism with regard to contact and cooperation, and accompanies outsider-group hostility, sometimes even leading to intergroup conflict, (Henri 1982) violence, or support for discriminatory behavior. There is also an abundant research literature on consumer ethnocentrism, that is, the tendency of consumers to prefer goods and services produced in one's own society.

Causes of Ethnocentrism

Various explanations have been suggested for ethnocentrism. Social identity approaches assume that ethnocentrism is the result of a strong identification ...