Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is a primarily psychological, but also used in a variety of social science and political science studies term that refers to the psychological bias of an individual towards foreigners; therefore we also speak of the " self-centeredness of a group "; the characteristics of the ingroup are provided here as a valuation basis and compared with those made by other groups deemed superior. This may, inter alia, relate to culture, life style, lifestyle, belief, religion. The term " ethnocentrism " refers initially not as a nation or race within the meaning of the obsolete theory of race, but the relationship of the individual to his or her ethnic group; Ethnocentrism may also form the basis for a behavior that nationalism or racism is based.

Studies as sociology, psychology, social psychology or anthropology or anthropology, but also the history of civilization, for example, with respect to the mythology analyze how people make and use such categories and ratings. In this context, a variety of studies of cross-cultural social research are

Origin of the term

The term is attributed to the sociologist William Graham Sumner U.S., the " ethnocentrism " as defined in his book Folkways (1906 ):

" Ethnocentrism is the technical term for that view of things in which one's own group is the center of everything and all others are measured and evaluated it with respect. "

Already Sumner has " ethnocentrism " not reduced to "the people", but the term very comprehensive with respect to the group to which a person assigns to himself: " Each group thinks their lifestyles [ folkways ] were the right ones. "

He said the Ethnozentrimus to the function, the in-group to stabilize towards the outgroup, because it strengthens the special peculiarity of customs and thereby the group membership in the differentiation from others. He evaluated this function is positive, since it was assumed that groups stood in a competition within the meaning of social Darwinism.

Occurrence

The tendency to ethnocentrism is inherent in the universal conditions of human perception behavior; the claim about theories of social cognition, such as specially about the theory of social comparison ( reference group theory ). In social biology and in evolutionary theory positive ( species-preserving ) functions are assumed of ethnocentrism.

The negative outcome for the person concerned consequences (such as perceptual distortions or barriers to learning ) as well as socially and / or politically undesirable consequence costs will be the center of attention, especially in the field of social prejudice, the self-fulfilling prophecy, and social conflicts, especially if it is in order problems dealing with intercultural contacts goes. Here is ethnocentrism in connection with the phenomena of racism, nationalism, segregation or xenophobia.

Ethnocentrism is an essential methodological point of view to assess the scientific quality of ethnological research. Cultural anthropologists see in it a source of potential biases and errors of assessment of research personnel, especially in field research in foreign cultures. Franz Boas began the ethnocentrism the thesis of cultural relativism contrary, Bronisław Malinowski the perspective of functionalism.

The criminal sociologist Howard S. Becker observed a "dual ethics ", the sharp distinction between the standards for the own group and those for foreign groups.

Counter - concepts

In the American cultural anthropology " intercultural tolerance as a counterweight to the " ethnocentrism was taken forward by Franz Boas.

Recently, interculturality based on the theories of Alfred Schutz and Thomas Luckmann, Erving Goffman, Jan Assmann be developed inter alia procedures under the heading, to facilitate communication between the members of different cultures. The "Intercultural Business Communication" applies these techniques on corporate matters. Important here are concepts for intercultural learning. On the implementation of such policies, the hope rests on long-term avoidance of conflicts between members of different cultures - especially in schools. The critical recognition and acceptance of one's own inevitable ethnocentrism ( " enlightened ethnocentrism " ) and the learning of intercultural competence is to make the living together bearable help in a Multicultural Society.