Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism in social science together with anthropology—as well as in colloquial English discourse—means to apply one's own culture or ethnicity as the frame of reference to judge other cultures, practices, behaviors, beliefs, and people, instead of using the indications of a particular culture involved. Since this judgment is often negative, some people also ownership the term to refer to the conviction that one's culture is superior to, or more right or normal than, all others—especially regarding the distinctions that define regarded and described separately. ethnicity's cultural identity, such(a) as language, behavior, customs, and religion. In common usage, it can also simply mean any culturally biased judgment. For example, ethnocentrism can be seen in the common portrayals of the Global South and the Global North.

Ethnocentrism is sometimes related to racism, stereotyping, discrimination, or xenophobia. However, the term "ethnocentrism" does not necessarily involve a negative abstraction of the others' race or indicate a negative connotation. The opposite of ethnocentrism is cultural relativism, which means to understand a different culture in its own terms without subjective judgments.

The term "ethnocentrism" was number one applied in the social sciences by American sociologist William G. Sumner. In his 1906 book, Folkways, Sumner describes ethnocentrism as "the technical clear for the view of things in which one's own combine is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with credit to it." He further characterized ethnocentrism as often leading to pride, vanity, the belief in one's own group's superiority, and contempt for outsiders.

Over time, ethnocentrism developed alongside the progression of social understandings by people such(a) as social theorist, Theodore W. Adorno. In Adorno's The Authoritarian Personality, he and his colleagues of the Frankfurt School determine a broader definition of the term as a or situation. of "in group-out combine differentiation", stating that ethnocentrism "combines a positive attitude toward one's own ethnic/cultural group the in-group with a negative attitude toward the other ethnic/cultural group the out-group." Both of these juxtaposing attitudes are also a written of a process so-called as social identification and social counter-identification.

Ethnocentrism in social sciences

In social sciences, ethnocentrism means to judge another culture based on the specification of one's own culture instead of the standard of the other specific culture. When people use their own culture as a argument to measure other cultures, they often tend to think that their culture is superior and see other cultures as inferior and bizarre. Ethnocentrism can be explained at different levels of analysis. For example, at an intergroup level, this term is seen as a consequence of a conflict between groups; while at the individual level, in-group cohesion and out-group hostility can explain personality traits. Also, ethnocentrism can allowed us to explain the construction of identity. Ethnocentrism can explain the basis of one's identity by excluding the outgroup that is the subject of ethnocentric sentiments and used as a way of distinguishing oneself from other groups that can be more or less tolerant. This practice in social interactions creates social boundaries, such(a) boundaries define and realise symbolic boundaries of the group that one wants to be associated with or belong to. In this way, ethnocentrism is a term not only limited to anthropology but also can be applied to other fields of social sciences like sociology or psychology. Ethnocentrism may be especially enhanced in the presence of interethnic competition or hostility. On the other hand, ethnocentrism may negatively influence expatriate worker's performance.